I awoke this morning to find that Christine O'Donnell had won the Republican primary in Delaware. And as I made my standard 45 minute commute to work, I started to wonder how the modern conservative movement and their media masters at Fox"News" would react.
When I got home, this is what I found - a political party divided.
As Morning Edition on NPR began at 5am, I could have swore I heard that the GOP wouldn't fund O'Donnell's campaign. Sure enough, I was correct, and Fox"News" morning princess Gretchen Carlson was completely confused on how this could be possible.
But it wasn't until I saw video and heard audio from Limbaugh's daily blubber-fest that I started to put the pieces together.
For starters, Limbaugh must have a very short memory, as Karl Rove has been speaking out against Democrats far more forcefully than he did of O'Donnell last evening. Secondly, I thought the Tea Baggers and the Republicans were two different entities?
Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air fell directly into lock-step with Limbaugh ( you're shocked, I'm sure ) and reiterated the point that all Republicans shouldn't blindly follow O'Donnell to the polls in November and vote for her simply because she is - well - a Tea Bagger.
This morning, O'Donnell was a guest on Fox and Friends and she didn't mince words when speaking about political acumen that all conservatives once praised nor his past as "The Architect" of Bush's presidency which all conservatives continue to pine for like a lost lover.
When you bite the hand that feeds you, the result you are hoping for usually doesn't tend to happen. Are Kilmeade, Carlson, and Doocy setting themselves up for a verbal lashing from Rove when they have him on next? Only time will tell.
And the fine folks at Fox"Nation" - that corner of the internet where Fox and their followers can remove the "fair and balanced, non-racist, we are diverse" mask and let their true light shine have taken up contextual arms against Rove as well. From the comments section, you get the sense that conservatives there are about to demand that from now on, Glenn Beck refer to Rove as a "traitor" who now stands with the "progressives".
Here's one of the videos they link, in which Rove stands by his statements against O'Donnell.
When one looks at why Rove is questioning O'Donnell as a person that can "lead" as a conservative Republican, it's precisely the way that Rove and virtually all conservatives have viewed and continue to view Obama. The double standard here is not only revealing but louder than just about anything I have heard from the conservative movement in quite a long time.
And if O'Donnell is hoping to win based on "principle" over who retains power in both houses on Congress, she's probably the most naive candidate in modern Republican history. People fell for the Scott Brown narrative based on this exact same line of thinking - are they going to actually fall for it again?
Sure, one could present the argument that she won last night, but we have to look who she won against. I would actually be surprised if Republicans - and that's who is going to be voting against the Democrats in November, not the Tea Baggers - come out in strong enough numbers for O'Donnell. In that respect, I happen to agree with Karl Rove.
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Here's an aside that I think bares mentioning: if the Tea Baggers were allegedly formed to be separate from the Republican party, it appears that they are finally showing some signs of being honest to that initially laughable meme. And in that respect, they are giving the Democrats a greater chance come election day in November.
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5 comments:
Here is what the Left do not get about the Tea Party:
http://zatavu.blogspot.com/2010/04/decentralized-power-of-tea-party.html
It's the only thing I've written about the Tea Party on my blog. There are a lot of things the Tea Party is for that I'm not, though there are a few general things with which I am in agreement with them. I wrote it because liberals fundamentally do not (can not?) understand the immense differences between the GOP and the Tea Partiers that have existed from the get-go. Many in the Libertarian Party haven't gotten it, either -- but I have.
The Tea Party people have never been pro-GOP. They are people who were just as opposed to Bush as they are now opposed to Obama. They are a bottom-up, self-organized group with no central anything. Ideas pop up in a decentralized fashion, and the good ideas spread through the network. It is they who usurped the GOP, not the other way around. The GOP is practically indistinquishable from the Demcorats. As far as I'm concerned, the battles between D and R are family infighting. The Tea Pariers are the outsiders. Look at how many sitting Republicans and party-picked candidates the Tea Partiers have taken down. The GOP is not happy that the Tea Partiers are here, any more than the Demcorats are happy about them. The only difference is that the Democrats can't fool themselves into believing they can control the Tea Partiers. Not that they are in any danger, as they believe in top-down organization, so no real grassroots, bottom-up, self-organizing movement will take place on the Left. It goes against their entire world view. It's all astroturf on the Left, and has been for a long, long time. Leftist propaganda notwithstanding. (Indeed, the Leftist propganda has proven itself over and over and over to be as wrong as one could possibly imagine about the Tea Party movement. What does it tell you that the only "racists" ever found at their functions have always turned out to be Leftist plants?)
Troy, I'm glad you responded to my post, but here are a few points of contention that I must bring up.
What are these "immense differences" that the Tea Party has from the modern GOP? One must take a look at people like Jim DeMint, Michelle Bahman, or even John Boehner, John King, and Mitch McConnell? The only real anti-establishment move I have seen the Tea Party make was two nights ago when they opted for the laughably inept gimmick that is Christine O'Donnell.
Not only that, but the glut of "miss me yet" advertisements that have featured the likes of George W. and "conservative Jesus" Ronald Reagan have been welcomed with open arms by virtually every aspect of the Tea Party movement.
And while we do continually hear that these people are "anti-establishment", we rarely hear how they were/are against Republican politics. Quite literally, these people are so focused on defending people like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Fox"News" that we never hear about how upset they were with policies from the Bush administration.
Granted, the previous Republican control of the White House was by his father, but that is largely ignored in order to further deify Reagan. Basically what I'm saying is that it is clear that the Tea Party is an arm of the modern Republican party - they're just more concerned with making the loudest noise possible in order that they have attention drawn to them versus another faction of the same movement.
The whole "top-down" versus "bottom-up" structuring of either side is something that I just won't get into, as it's clear that Democratic responses to the modern conservative movement have never once been framed as "grass-roots", while the Tea Parties haven't tried to terribly hard to hide that they have the backing of groups like "FreedomWorks" and Fox"News" while shouting that their movement is completely organic and has absolutely no corporate sponsorship. I think both you and I are mature enough to admit that.
Lastly, I would ask to you provide specific examples of these alleged "liberal, racist, plants" at Tea Party gatherings. You and I both grew up in the same part of Kentucky and I would hope that you weren't so blind to the racism of this region of the US to completely deny that it exists here and in plenty of other hotbeds of conservativism.
What are these "immense differences" that the Tea Party has from the modern GOP? One must take a look at people like Jim DeMint, Michelle Bahman, or even John Boehner, John King, and Mitch McConnell? The only real anti-establishment move I have seen the Tea Party make was two nights ago when they opted for the laughably inept gimmick that is Christine O'Donnell.
Not only that, but the glut of "miss me yet" advertisements that have featured the likes of George W. and "conservative Jesus" Ronald Reagan have been welcomed with open arms by virtually every aspect of the Tea Party movement.
And while we do continually hear that these people are "anti-establishment", we rarely hear how they were/are against Republican politics. Quite literally, these people are so focused on defending people like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Fox"News" that we never hear about how upset they were with policies from the Bush administration.
Granted, the previous Republican control of the White House was by his father, but that is largely ignored in order to further deify Reagan. Basically what I'm saying is that it is clear that the Tea Party is an arm of the modern Republican party - they're just more concerned with making the loudest noise possible in order that they have attention drawn to them versus another faction of the same movement.
The whole "top-down" versus "bottom-up" structuring of either side is something that I just won't get into, as it's clear that Democratic responses to the modern conservative movement have never once been framed as "grass-roots", while the Tea Parties haven't tried to terribly hard to hide that they have the backing of groups like "FreedomWorks" and Fox"News" while shouting that their movement is completely organic and has absolutely no corporate sponsorship. I think both you and I are mature enough to admit that.
Lastly, I would ask to you provide specific examples of these alleged "liberal, racist, plants" at Tea Party gatherings. You and I both grew up in the same part of Kentucky and I would hope that you weren't so blind to the racism of this region of the US to completely deny that it exists here and in plenty of other hotbeds of conservativism.
Boehner has already backed away from tax cuts, saying he would be open to allowing some of them to go away. McConnell is a party man -- he's as conservative or as moderate as the party as a whole. During the Bush adminstration, that wasn't very conservative at all. Bush increased the federal government's role in education with his No Child Left Behind legislation, he greatly expanded Medicare and Medicaid to include medication, and he introduced the first bailout, later saying that he had to "destroy capitalism to save it." I mean, every one of these would be championed by the likes of George Soros and Michael Moore if they hadn't been done by Bush. George W. Bush was left of Clinton, and the Republicans followed along behind Bush. What drives me crazy is how blinded people are by ideology, so that they cannot see the most obvious things sitting right in front of them. For example, would you support a President who repeatedly raised the minimum wage, engaged in wage and price controls to keep prices down and wages for the wealthy down, who expanded welfare benefits, and who introduced affirmative action? I bet you would. I wouldn't. In fact, I think Nixon was one of the worst Presidents ever, precisely because of his economic policies. I'm guessing you wouldn't because he's a Republican. How do I know that? I see sex scandals of Republicans mentioned -- in reference to people completely uninvolved in those scandals -- but no mention of the endless Democrats equally guilty. Of course, they get a pass from the feminists because they're Democrats.
As for plants, there have been several proven cases. You might want to keep up with all the news, and not just that which confirms your world view. A good example, right there in Kentucky, was a guy who showed up at Fancy Farm spouting racist comments and saying he was a Rand Paul supporter, when in fact he was a Democrat who was later filmed at a rally for the Democratic candidate. He had gone to Fancy Farm to try to make the Paul supporters look like racists. That's beyond dirty politics. Anyone who feels like they have to engage in such things 1) knows his opponent is anything but racist, 2) that his supporters are anything but racist, and 3) he has nothing positive he believe in, and thus must tear down his opponent.
You might want to look into the history of leftism and progressivism. I'm pro-choice, but the founder of Planned Parenthood was a eugenecist, who wanted minorities primarily to get abortions -- indeed, the vast majority of Planned Parenthood clinics are found in African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods. This was all part of the eugenics program that was central to progressivism at the beginning of the 20th century, and which was the foundation for current liberal ideology. Until the national socialists showed us the horrors of anti-semitism, there was an absolute connection between socialism and anti-semitism, since the Jews were, after all, the capitalists. One could argue that these things were a century ago, and that isn't relevant to the modern progressive movement (though I have my doubts about that). However, one must also take consequences into consideration. Good intentions don't mean a thing if they result in bad outcomes. Walter Williams once observed that the Klan couldn't have come up with a better way to keep African Americans poor than the welfare system. (Of course, the Klan was once known as the Terrorist Wing of the Democratic Party.)
In the end, I am interested in reality, not ideology. One can critique -- and understand -- the Tea Party without becoming all hysterical and conspiratorial about it. Rather than listening to people who reinforce your prejudices, pay attention to how people actually behave. Pay attention to history. (Historical fact: while 55% of Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act, 65% of Republicans did.) Pay attention to what is actually going on. Tea Party candidates have beaten the Party picks in Utah, Nevada, Kentucky, New York (governor), Delaware, etc. The GOP leaders are NOT happy about this. They want controllable moderates who spout anti-government rhetoric, but who will in the end vote for increases in the size and power of government, and for government spending whenever needed. With a Democratic majority, they could pretend they were against what they were obviously for when they were in power with Bush, while still being sure it would pass anyway. The Democrats do the same thing.
A case in point: illegal immigration. Both sides love keeping this issue alive, and neither side intends to ever do what it right about it. The Republicans use the issue to shore up votes among those who are anti-immigrant; the Democrats use the issue to shore up support among Hispanics. If the problem were solved, both groups would have other issues to vote on, and that may mean crossover -- and neither party wants that. Or consider this: 1/3 of all gays are conservatives, but they vote Democrat anyway because Democrats say they are for gay marriage and because the support research to look for an AIDS cure. Of course, when you get right down to it, the Democrats end up voting against gay marriage, and the only thing they do is support people *looking* for a cure, not finding one. If someone found a cure, 1/3 of the gay population might vote Republican, since that issue would go away. Best, then, to pay people to look, not find. Best to argue that you are in favor of gay marriage, but only bring it up for a vote when you know it cannot pass.
You need more cynicism with what the Left preaches. Leftism is a religion, and it's about as unconnected to the real world as are most religions. I think you and I are mature enough to admit that.
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