The Great Republican Crackup: How Angry, White, Southern Men Took Over the GOP and Made Our Government Into a War Zone

[one...two...tree 2,762]

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, ####### 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.

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/153534/the_great_republican_crackup:_how_angry,_white,_southern_men_took_over_the_gop_and_made_our_government_into_a_war_zone/

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Alternet -- Why should I care?

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Steven posting another dumb ####### head in the toilet left-wing article. What else is new?

The author is naive or perhaps a part of the establishment himelf to sit here and play the "we need two solid parties games."

The fvcking problem is we have only two damn parties. Two parties don't get things done, all they do is go back and forth and scratch each other's back while fvcking over the American people. That's exactly what has happened in the last 30 years. Real bickering is just now starting to happen, everything else has been a show to make people think their represenatives are doing their job for them. Instead they are behind closed doors working on deals together that keep the 'little guy' satisfied just enough for vote for them the next time around.

We need a 3rd serious party, we need a 4th and a 5th serious party and the Democrats and Republicans need to be shut down and challenged. Nothing will change until that happens.

The WORST thing you could be called in the early days of this country was a "party man" because all you cared about was the political parties. The two-party system has systematically dismantled the inner-workings of this nation and created a cluster ** of government. We have a legislative and executive branch that are out of control for the past decade or longer, we have a judicial branch that uses activism in many cases to rule, and we have an 'administrative' branch of government that isn't even constitutionally legal... It's huge and ridiculous what has happened.

As long as people keep voting the same jerk offs into office, as long as money buys elections and as long as lies can be spread across the airwaves on certain politicians, then we will be in this mess. We need term limits, we need to repeal the 17th amendment, and we need to eliminate thousands of other Federal positions.

We're not in the toilet because of "Wall Street." While Wall Street might be a symptom of the overall problem, that symptom can be taken care of if the government is doing its job to begin with and that's working for the people and not against them. FOR THE PEOPLE being very key here. That means in protecting our borders, upholding the constitution, and not creating so many damn laws that steal away liberty. That idiot on the radio Mark Levin calls what we have a "soft tyranny." The sad part about it, is that he's right. Something has to give and it will either be the enslavement of the American people that ends up happening or a modern-era revolution/civil war that would for sure rip the country into 'parts' this time around.

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

duplicate post removed

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

duplicate post removed

Are you sure it was a duplicate? It's hard to tell -- Steve's posts all look the same.

Yes, I know it was Paul's post you removed. Still......

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

Are you sure it was a duplicate? It's hard to tell -- Steve's posts all look the same.

Yes, I know it was Paul's post you removed. Still......

same time frame, same lengthy post. he couldn't have typed that again in less than a minute.

[Danno 1,228]

This writer redeemed himself with humor...... his ####### was so rich it was funny, for example.... in order to make his case that the winners of the tea-party were all from the South he had to stretch this far.

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.[/b]

You just know Steve Read this stuff and thought to himself "Wow this guy is brilliant."

[HeatDeath 430]

The author seems to be using a weird definition of democracy. To paraphrase: "Democracy is a system of government in which the 49% minority shuts the h*ll up does whatever their 51% masters tell them, with no complaining. Electoral minorities should be seen and not heard." Sadly, this definition is usually pretty popular with whichever party happens to be the 51% on any given day. [And the politicians in the 49% hypocritically don't question this definition, though they do defy it, because they know they'll espouse the same thing when their turn in the driver's seat rolls around again.]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Somewhere in the wake of the Civil Rights movement, both parties changed their definition of the proper role of government, in an incredibly toxic way. The proper role of government stopped being representing people and coming to reasonable compromises, and started to be about improving people - forcing unpopular legislation on the ignorant masses. Both parties believe in this, heart and soul. They just disagree on the definitions of "ignorant" and "improve". Republicans believe it is their sacred duty to force unpopular legislation on "ignorant" leftists and centrists, and Democrats believe it is their sacred duty to force unpopular legislation on "ignorant" "rednecks" and libertarians.

This is going to sound radical, but there should be no such thing as unpopular legislation. Any legislation which is not immediately obviously a codification of a near-universally-held consensus is being applied at too high a level of government. The whole reason we have city governments, state governments, and a national government, is that there are many issues about which there there is no national consensus, but there are regional consensus'. And there are many issues about which there may be no regional consensus, but there is a local consensus. The beauty of the American system is that there are many local jurisdictions, and each is capable of using its legislature to find appropriate laws for its own population. Differing laws at the state level is a good thing, for the vast majority of potentially controversial issues.

Edited December 23, 2011 by HeatDeath

[Obama 2012 1,714]

The author seems to be using a weird definition of democracy. To paraphrase: "Democracy is a system of government in which the 49% minority shuts the h*ll up does whatever their 51% masters tell them, with no complaining. Electoral minorities should be seen and not heard." Sadly, this definition is usually pretty popular with whichever party happens to be the 51% on any given day. [And the politicians in the 49% hypocritically don't question this definition, though they do defy it, because they know they'll espouse the same thing when their turn in the driver's seat rolls around again.]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Somewhere in the wake of the Civil Rights movement, both parties changed their definition of the proper role of government, in an incredibly toxic way. The proper role of government stopped being representing people and coming to reasonable compromises, and started to be about improving people - forcing unpopular legislation on the ignorant masses. Both parties believe in this, heart and soul. They just disagree on the definitions of "ignorant" and "improve". Republicans believe it is their sacred duty to force unpopular legislation on "ignorant" leftists and centrists, and Democrats believe it is their sacred duty to force unpopular legislation on "ignorant" "rednecks" and libertarians.

This is going to sound radical, but there should be no such thing as unpopular legislation. Any legislation which is not immediately obviously a codification of a near-universally-held consensus is being applied at too high a level of government. The whole reason we have city governments, state governments, and a national government, is that there are many issues about which there there is no national consensus, but there are regional consensus'. And there are many issues about which there may be no regional consensus, but there is a local consensus. The beauty of the American system is that there are many local jurisdictions, and each is capable of using its legislature to find appropriate laws for its own population. Differing laws at the state level is a good thing, for the vast majority of potentially controversial issues.

YES. Thank you. I have been trying to explain this to people for the longest time.

Most people refuse to look at states as "individual countries," but that's exactly what they are supposed to be constitutionally. We've gone so far beyond the scope of what the Federal government is supposed to be and at the end of the day it all comes back to money and power. We lost that battle for power in 1913 thanks to Woodrow Wilson and it's been ugly ever since.