The conservative movement is too stupid to live, but the GOP is too advantaged by law to die

[phantom power]

Speaker Gingrich quickly discovered that movement conservatives were more interested in blowing up the government than in governing it slightly differently. After two government shutdowns, two bad election cycles, and the reelection and subsequent impeachment of Bill Clinton, Gingrich was gone. What was left behind was a party that looks nihilistic from one angle and overzealous from another. It was a party built for graft that simultaneously railed against pork barrel spending. It was a coalition that had to sustain itself through an ever-increasing series of delusions and denials and lies. More and more dependent on the white angst and resentment of social conservatives, the party began to denounce evolution and plate tectonics and climate science. It invented a War on Christmas and a threat of creeping Shariah Law. It lost any trust or investment or even connection to academia. It retreated into a cult for home-schoolers.

And when it all blew up in their faces…when Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and the Iraqis met us with IED's instead of flowers and chocolates…when starving the government of revenues didn't create economic growth…when the Republican congress proved more corrupt than their predecessors…when lack of Wall Street oversight led directly to economic collapse…when the country reached it's lowest level of effective taxation since the Truman administration…that's when they launched the Taxed (T) Enough (E) Already (A) Party. Has anything more stupid ever happened?

The disastrous culmination of a 28-year campaign to make the rich richer and the middle class poorer was interpreted as the perfect time to launch a tax revolt on the behalf of people who had never paid lower taxes. At the peak moment for government spending, they launched a war on the only available economic stimulus that might save them their job, their home, and their savings. It was no surprise that the whole venture was financed by plunderous plutocrats in their desperate (and successful) attempt to cause a distraction big enough for them to evade accountability for their actions.

The conservative movement is too stupid to live, but the Republican Party is too advantaged by law to die. It would like to remake itself into a party that reflects the values of enough Americans for them to win. But conservatives would rather wallow in their own impotence and rage than change their core beliefs. The GOP will remain bitterly divided for quite some time. The splits will grow when we debate guns and when we debate immigration and when we debate climate and energy. The coalition cannot hold. The most reactionary of the bunch have the advantage of being correct about one thing. Without race-hatred and religious tribalism and gay-bashing and attacks on women's rights, the GOP has no coalition at all. It would simply scatter to the winds. So, they will persist.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/1/6/105318/4727