Thursday, December 22, 2011

A sobering essay from Robert Reich

I copy below a recent essay by Robert Reich entitled "Why the Republican Crackup is Bad for America." He articulated many of my own thoughts.

                                                 Goya  - Republicans eating their own:


Two weeks be­fore the Iowa cau­cuses, the Re­pub­li­can crackup threat­ens the fu­ture of the Grand Old Party more pro­foundly than at any time since the GOP’s eclipse in 1932. That’s bad for Amer­ica. 

The crackup isn’t just Rom­ney the smooth ver­sus Gin­grich the bomb-thrower. 

Not just House Re­pub­li­cans who just scotched the deal to con­tinue pay­roll tax re­lief and ex­tended un­em­ploy­ment in­sur­ance ben­e­fits be­yond the end of the year, ver­sus Sen­ate Re­pub­li­cans who voted over­whelm­ingly for it. 

Not just Speaker John Boehner, who keeps mak­ing agree­ments he can’t keep, ver­sus Ma­jor­ity Leader Eric Can­tor, who keeps mak­ing trou­ble he can’t con­trol. And not just ven­er­a­ble Re­pub­li­can sen­a­tors like In­di­ana’s Richard Lugar, a giant of for­eign pol­icy for more than three decades, ver­sus pri­mary chal­lenger state trea­surer Richard Mour­dock, who ap­par­ently mis­placed and then re­dis­cov­ered $320 mil­lion in state tax rev­enues.

Some de­scribe the un­der­ly­ing con­flict as Tea Partiers ver­sus the Re­pub­li­can es­tab­lish­ment. But this just begs the ques­tion of who the Tea Partiers re­ally are and where they came from.
The un­der­ly­ing con­flict lies deep into the na­ture and struc­ture of the Re­pub­li­can Party. And its roots are very old.
As Michael Lind has noted, today’s Tea Party is less an ide­o­log­i­cal move­ment than the lat­est in­car­na­tion of an angry white mi­nor­ity – pre­dom­i­nantly South­ern, and mainly rural – that has re­peat­edly at­tacked Amer­i­can democ­racy in order to get its way.
It’s no mere co­in­ci­dence that the states re­spon­si­ble for putting the most Tea Party rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the House are all for­mer mem­bers of the Con­fed­er­acy. Of the Tea Party cau­cus, twelve hail from Texas, seven from Florida, five from Louisiana, and five from Geor­gia, and three each from South Car­olina, Ten­nessee, and bor­der-state Mis­souri.
Oth­ers are from bor­der states with sig­nif­i­cant South­ern pop­u­la­tions and South­ern ties. The four Cal­i­for­ni­ans in the cau­cus are from the in­land part of the state or Or­ange County, whose po­lit­i­cal cul­ture has was shaped by Ok­la­homans and South­ern­ers who mi­grated there dur­ing the Great De­pres­sion.
This isn’t to say all Tea Partiers are white, South­ern or rural Re­pub­li­cans – only that these char­ac­ter­is­tics de­fine the epi­cen­ter of Tea Party Land.
And the views sep­a­rat­ing these Re­pub­li­cans from Re­pub­li­cans else­where mir­ror the split be­tween self-de­scribed Tea Partiers and other Re­pub­li­cans.
In a poll of Re­pub­li­cans con­ducted for CNN last Sep­tem­ber, nearly six in ten who iden­ti­fied them­selves with the Tea Party say global warm­ing isn’t a proven fact; most other Re­pub­li­cans say it is.
Six in ten Tea Partiers say evo­lu­tion is wrong; other Re­pub­li­cans are split on the issue. Tea Party Re­pub­li­cans are twice as likely as other Re­pub­li­cans to say abor­tion should be il­le­gal in all cir­cum­stances, and half as likely to sup­port gay mar­riage.
Tea Partiers are more ve­he­ment ad­vo­cates of states’ rights than other Re­pub­li­cans. Six in ten Tea Partiers want to abol­ish the De­part­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion; only one in five other Re­pub­li­cans do. And Tea Party Re­pub­li­cans worry more about the fed­eral deficit than jobs, while other Re­pub­li­cans say re­duc­ing un­em­ploy­ment is more im­por­tant than re­duc­ing the deficit.
In other words, the rad­i­cal right wing of today’s GOP isn’t that much dif­fer­ent from the so­cial con­ser­v­a­tives who began as­sert­ing them­selves in the Party dur­ing the 1990s, and, be­fore them, the “Willie Hor­ton” con­ser­v­a­tives of the 1980s, and, be­fore them, Richard Nixon’s “silent ma­jor­ity.”
Through most of these years, though, the GOP man­aged to con­tain these white, mainly rural and mostly South­ern, rad­i­cals. After all, many of them were still De­moc­rats. The con­ser­v­a­tive man­tle of the GOP re­mained in the West and Mid­west – with the lib­er­tar­ian lega­cies of Ohio Sen­a­tor Robert A. Taft and Barry Gold­wa­ter, nei­ther of whom was a barn-burner – while the epi­cen­ter of the Party re­mained in New York and the East.
But after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as the South began its long shift to­ward the Re­pub­li­can Party and New York and the East be­came ever more solidly De­mo­c­ra­tic, it was only a mat­ter of time. The GOP’s dom­i­nant coali­tion of big busi­ness, Wall Street, and Mid­west and West­ern lib­er­tar­i­ans was los­ing its grip.
The wa­ter­shed event was Newt Gin­grich’s takeover of the House, in 1995. Sud­denly, it seemed, the GOP had a per­son­al­ity trans­plant. The gen­tle­manly con­ser­vatism of House Mi­nor­ity Leader Bob Michel was re­placed by the bomb-throw­ing an­tics of Gin­grich, Dick Armey, and Tom DeLay.
Al­most overnight Wash­ing­ton was trans­formed from a place where leg­is­la­tors tried to find com­mon ground to a war zone. Com­pro­mise was re­placed by brinkman­ship, bar­gain­ing by ob­struc­tion­ism, nor­mal leg­isla­tive ma­neu­ver­ing by threats to close down gov­ern­ment – which oc­curred at the end of 1995.
Be­fore then, when I’d tes­ti­fied on the Hill as Sec­re­tary of Labor, I had come in for tough ques­tion­ing from Re­pub­li­can sen­a­tors and rep­re­sen­ta­tives – which was their job. After Jan­u­ary 1995, I was ver­bally as­saulted. “Mr. Sec­re­tary, are you a so­cial­ist?” I re­call one of them ask­ing.
But the first con­crete sign that white, South­ern rad­i­cals might take over the Re­pub­li­can Party came in the vote to im­peach Bill Clin­ton, when two-thirds of sen­a­tors from the South voted for im­peach­ment. (A ma­jor­ity of the Sen­ate, you may re­call, voted to ac­quit.)
Amer­ica has had a long his­tory of white South­ern rad­i­cals who will stop at noth­ing to get their way – se­ced­ing from the Union in 1861, re­fus­ing to obey Civil Rights leg­is­la­tion in the 1960s, shut­ting the gov­ern­ment in 1995, and risk­ing the full faith and credit of the United States in 2010.
Newt Gin­grich’s re­cent as­ser­tion that pub­lic of­fi­cials aren’t bound to fol­low the de­ci­sions of fed­eral courts de­rives from the same tra­di­tion.
This stop-at-noth­ing rad­i­cal­ism is dan­ger­ous for the GOP be­cause most Amer­i­cans re­coil from it. Gin­grich him­self be­came an ob­ject of ridicule in the late 1990s, and many Re­pub­li­cans today worry that if he heads the ticket the Party will suf­fer large losses.
It’s also dan­ger­ous for Amer­ica. We need two po­lit­i­cal par­ties solidly grounded in the re­al­i­ties of gov­ern­ing. Our democ­racy can’t work any other way.

Why the Republican Crackup is Bad ForAmerica

Two weeks be­fore the Iowa cau­cuses, the Re­pub­li­can crackup threat­ens the fu­ture of the Grand Old Party more pro­foundly than at any time since the GOP’s eclipse in 1932. That’s bad for Amer­ica.
The crackup isn’t just Rom­ney the smooth ver­sus Gin­grich the bomb-thrower.
Not just House Re­pub­li­cans who just scotched the deal to con­tinue pay­roll tax re­lief and ex­tended un­em­ploy­ment in­sur­ance ben­e­fits be­yond the end of the year, ver­sus Sen­ate Re­pub­li­cans who voted over­whelm­ingly for it.
Not just Speaker John Boehner, who keeps mak­ing agree­ments he can’t keep, ver­sus Ma­jor­ity Leader Eric Can­tor, who keeps mak­ing trou­ble he can’t con­trol.
And not just ven­er­a­ble Re­pub­li­can sen­a­tors like In­di­ana’s Richard Lugar, a giant of for­eign pol­icy for more than three decades, ver­sus pri­mary chal­lenger state trea­surer Richard Mour­dock, who ap­par­ently mis­placed and then re­dis­cov­ered $320 mil­lion in state tax rev­enues.
Some de­scribe the un­der­ly­ing con­flict as Tea Partiers ver­sus the Re­pub­li­can es­tab­lish­ment. But this just begs the ques­tion of who the Tea Partiers re­ally are and where they came from.
The un­der­ly­ing con­flict lies deep into the na­ture and struc­ture of the Re­pub­li­can Party. And its roots are very old.
As Michael Lind has noted, today’s Tea Party is less an ide­o­log­i­cal move­ment than the lat­est in­car­na­tion of an angry white mi­nor­ity – pre­dom­i­nantly South­ern, and mainly rural – that has re­peat­edly at­tacked Amer­i­can democ­racy in order to get its way.
It’s no mere co­in­ci­dence that the states re­spon­si­ble for putting the most Tea Party rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the House are all for­mer mem­bers of the Con­fed­er­acy. Of the Tea Party cau­cus, twelve hail from Texas, seven from Florida, five from Louisiana, and five from Geor­gia, and three each from South Car­olina, Ten­nessee, and bor­der-state Mis­souri.
Oth­ers are from bor­der states with sig­nif­i­cant South­ern pop­u­la­tions and South­ern ties. The four Cal­i­for­ni­ans in the cau­cus are from the in­land part of the state or Or­ange County, whose po­lit­i­cal cul­ture has was shaped by Ok­la­homans and South­ern­ers who mi­grated there dur­ing the Great De­pres­sion.
This isn’t to say all Tea Partiers are white, South­ern or rural Re­pub­li­cans – only that these char­ac­ter­is­tics de­fine the epi­cen­ter of Tea Party Land.
And the views sep­a­rat­ing these Re­pub­li­cans from Re­pub­li­cans else­where mir­ror the split be­tween self-de­scribed Tea Partiers and other Re­pub­li­cans.
In a poll of Re­pub­li­cans con­ducted for CNN last Sep­tem­ber, nearly six in ten who iden­ti­fied them­selves with the Tea Party say global warm­ing isn’t a proven fact; most other Re­pub­li­cans say it is.
Six in ten Tea Partiers say evo­lu­tion is wrong; other Re­pub­li­cans are split on the issue. Tea Party Re­pub­li­cans are twice as likely as other Re­pub­li­cans to say abor­tion should be il­le­gal in all cir­cum­stances, and half as likely to sup­port gay mar­riage.
Tea Partiers are more ve­he­ment ad­vo­cates of states’ rights than other Re­pub­li­cans. Six in ten Tea Partiers want to abol­ish the De­part­ment of Ed­u­ca­tion; only one in five other Re­pub­li­cans do. And Tea Party Re­pub­li­cans worry more about the fed­eral deficit than jobs, while other Re­pub­li­cans say re­duc­ing un­em­ploy­ment is more im­por­tant than re­duc­ing the deficit.
In other words, the rad­i­cal right wing of today’s GOP isn’t that much dif­fer­ent from the so­cial con­ser­v­a­tives who began as­sert­ing them­selves in the Party dur­ing the 1990s, and, be­fore them, the “Willie Hor­ton” con­ser­v­a­tives of the 1980s, and, be­fore them, Richard Nixon’s “silent ma­jor­ity.”
Through most of these years, though, the GOP man­aged to con­tain these white, mainly rural and mostly South­ern, rad­i­cals. After all, many of them were still De­moc­rats. The con­ser­v­a­tive man­tle of the GOP re­mained in the West and Mid­west – with the lib­er­tar­ian lega­cies of Ohio Sen­a­tor Robert A. Taft and Barry Gold­wa­ter, nei­ther of whom was a barn-burner – while the epi­cen­ter of the Party re­mained in New York and the East.
But after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as the South began its long shift to­ward the Re­pub­li­can Party and New York and the East be­came ever more solidly De­mo­c­ra­tic, it was only a mat­ter of time. The GOP’s dom­i­nant coali­tion of big busi­ness, Wall Street, and Mid­west and West­ern lib­er­tar­i­ans was los­ing its grip.
The wa­ter­shed event was Newt Gin­grich’s takeover of the House, in 1995. Sud­denly, it seemed, the GOP had a per­son­al­ity trans­plant. The gen­tle­manly con­ser­vatism of House Mi­nor­ity Leader Bob Michel was re­placed by the bomb-throw­ing an­tics of Gin­grich, Dick Armey, and Tom DeLay.
Al­most overnight Wash­ing­ton was trans­formed from a place where leg­is­la­tors tried to find com­mon ground to a war zone. Com­pro­mise was re­placed by brinkman­ship, bar­gain­ing by ob­struc­tion­ism, nor­mal leg­isla­tive ma­neu­ver­ing by threats to close down gov­ern­ment – which oc­curred at the end of 1995.
Be­fore then, when I’d tes­ti­fied on the Hill as Sec­re­tary of Labor, I had come in for tough ques­tion­ing from Re­pub­li­can sen­a­tors and rep­re­sen­ta­tives – which was their job. After Jan­u­ary 1995, I was ver­bally as­saulted. “Mr. Sec­re­tary, are you a so­cial­ist?” I re­call one of them ask­ing.
But the first con­crete sign that white, South­ern rad­i­cals might take over the Re­pub­li­can Party came in the vote to im­peach Bill Clin­ton, when two-thirds of sen­a­tors from the South voted for im­peach­ment. (A ma­jor­ity of the Sen­ate, you may re­call, voted to ac­quit.)
Amer­ica has had a long his­tory of white South­ern rad­i­cals who will stop at noth­ing to get their way – se­ced­ing from the Union in 1861, re­fus­ing to obey Civil Rights leg­is­la­tion in the 1960s, shut­ting the gov­ern­ment in 1995, and risk­ing the full faith and credit of the United States in 2010.
Newt Gin­grich’s re­cent as­ser­tion that pub­lic of­fi­cials aren’t bound to fol­low the de­ci­sions of fed­eral courts de­rives from the same tra­di­tion.
This stop-at-noth­ing rad­i­cal­ism is dan­ger­ous for the GOP be­cause most Amer­i­cans re­coil from it. Gin­grich him­self be­came an ob­ject of ridicule in the late 1990s, and many Re­pub­li­cans today worry that if he heads the ticket the Party will suf­fer large losses.
It’s also dan­ger­ous for Amer­ica. We need two po­lit­i­cal par­ties solidly grounded in the re­al­i­ties of gov­ern­ing. Our democ­racy can’t work any other way.
This ar­ti­cle was orig­i­nally posted on Robert Reich's blog .

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