Talking about the Tea Party (my emphasis):
“This isn’t the most artful way to say it, but it’s like, where do you go when the only people who seem to agree with you on taxes hate black people?” Howe laughed ruefully. “I think what you do is you say, ‘Well, I may lose but I can’t align myself with them.’”
But instead, Howe said, he made moral compromises he regrets.
“There are some things that I don’t have core values about, that I can be negotiable on, compromise on. But then there are other things that I can’t budge on,” he said. “I think I thought I had to budge on some things: ‘Yeah, this guy talking to me right now just said he agrees with my taxes and also we need to get that Kenyan out of office.’ Why did I stand there and say, ‘Yeah’? You know? I shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve said, ‘Wait, what? No, that’s stupid. You’re stupid. Don’t be stupid.’”
And isn't that one of the main problems with today's Republican Party? Instead of standing up to the crazies (as William F. Buckley famously did with the John Birch Society a couple of generations ago), the modern-day Republican "leaders" encouraged their behavior, thinking they could control them. And now, with the ascendance of Donald Trump, they've discovered that the most repugnant members of the GOP coalition control them.
Too bad someone like Mitch McConnell or John Boehner or John McCain or Mitt Romney hadn't said something back in 2009 like, "Rush Limbaugh is wrong to say he hopes the president fails. If the president fails then we all fail. We need to work with Obama to see that the country thrives."
Or,
"Calm down, everyone! Health care reform isn't a 'government takeover of health care.' In fact, it's very similar to what Republicans did in Massachusetts. Let's work with the president to get a bill to our liking."
Or,
"Donald Trump should just shut up about the president's birth certificate. Everyone knows Obama was born in Hawaii, not Kenya. Let's focus instead on solving problems and making life better for the average American."
But instead they chose to ride the Tea Party tiger and now find themselves, not the Democrats, inside the tiger's belly. And they also find themselves in a shrinking, not growing, Republican Party.
They have no one to blame but themselves.
4 comments:
"Small Government" is a government that cannot protect minorities from bigots.
"Small Government" is a government that cannot protect people ( generally poor minorities ) from corporations that dump poisonous pollution on them.
"Small Government" is a government that cannot help disadvantaged people go to college.
The absolute point of "small government" is the keep down the poor - especially minorities.
It is absolutely "pulling up the ladder".
As such - "small government ethos" is the politically correct way to express "racial and cultural resentment". Trump and establishment Republicans don't disagree on content - they only disagree on tactics and messaging.
Like it is said - "Trump is every Republican after 3 drinks".
#2 - The GOP 2012 "Autopsy" stated quite truthfully that the GOP needed to make overtures to the Hispanic community. Driving this is 1) just simple Demographics, but 2) - and idea that Hispanics could "graduate" to be "white" - just as Italians and Irish and Poles did - and the Hispanic Americans could unite with Republicans to hate Black People.
The 2012 GOP clearly underestimated the amount that the GOP base hated Hispanics. Trump did not.
"Trump is every Republican after three drinks." I hadn't heard that. Good one!
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