The Crazy Party - By PAUL KRUGMAN - Can we say “hoist with their own petard”?

[kpete]

* THE BIG STORY THIS FALL WILL BE THE GOP: Paul Krugman’s column today pushes back on all the Green Lanternites, pointing out the folly of blaming Obama for failing to compromise with a GOP that is in the grip of a base that has taken a turn into sheer insanity:

No, this story is all about the G.O.P. First came the southern strategy, in which the Republican elite cynically exploited racial backlash to promote economic goals, mainly low taxes for rich people and deregulation. Over time, this gradually morphed into what we might call the crazy strategy, in which the elite turned to exploiting the paranoia that has always been a factor in American politics — Hillary killed Vince Foster! Obama was born in Kenya! Death panels! — to promote the same goals.

But now we’re in a third stage, where the elite has lost control of the Frankenstein-like monster it created.

So now we get to witness the hilarious spectacle of Karl Rove in The Wall Street Journal, pleading with Republicans to recognize the reality that Obamacare can’t be defunded. Why hilarious? Because Mr. Rove and his colleagues have spent decades trying to ensure that the Republican base lives in an alternate reality defined by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Can we say “hoist with their own petard”?

Of course, the coming confrontations are likely to damage America as a whole, not just the Republican brand. But, you know, this political moment of truth was going to happen sooner or later. We might as well have it now.

the rest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/opinion/krugman-the-crazy-party.html?_r=0
via:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/09/20/the-morning-plum-as-obamacare-marches-forward-gop-marches-off-cliff/#comments

[DURHAM D]

1. Yep - "the elite has lost control of the Frankenstein-like monster it created"

[kpete]

2. something for you DURHAM D

peace,
kp

[CatWoman]

4. BWAHAHAHAHAHA

[icarusxat]

21. too bad you have to be smart

to understand this one...

[Kennah]

25. Stupid people can understand it. Republicans can't.

[corkhead]

3. I relish the possibility that their story ends the same way as Mary Shelley's did.

[csziggy]

29. But how much of the village and castle will be destroyed

Before the Tea Party monster goes into exile?

[paleotn]

30. Just about there already....

...in some places you have to be certifiably insane to win a republican primary. Sensible republicans (are there any left?) need not apply. Those republicans elected before this madness took hold better start acting crazy or they'll get "primaried" themselves. Mitch McConnell may never actually face Alison Lundergan Grimes. He very well may lose his primary to a "true conservative" nut case.

[JHB]

5. Just to make sure everyone has their Inside Washington score cards right...

...By "Green Lanternites" you refer to pundits, talking heads, and sundry others who downplay Republican obstructionism and prefer blaming "both sides" to avoid having anyone (at least anyone worth speaking of*) accuse them of partisanship or being "liberal media".

Such people invoke handwaves of insufficient "leadership"/"selling it"/etc. for legislative setbacks of the President's proposals, as if sheer willpower on his part could overcome the Soviet Politburo-grade lockstep by Republicans to block everything. Thus the reference to the Green Lanterns, where the lore is that those super-rings do their super-things via the willpower of the user.

Correct?


on edit: forgot my footnote:
*: "worth speaking of" in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" sense:

Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free.

Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and reward amongst the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before - and thus was the Empire forged. Many men of course became extremely rich, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of because no one was really poor - at least no one worth speaking of.

[Cryptoad]

6. Krugman for Chairman! nt

[Taitertots]

17. Krugman for President, I know he says he doesn't want to...But that is the best part

What better way to ensure a lack of ulterior motives than to find someone who isn't motivated?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. Note that he points out it was the elite that created the Tea Party....

In DC the GOP has been repeating the myth that the Tea Party was a grassroots non-partisan group.

Everyone knows it was an ultra-conservative astroturfed creation of the GOP.

[Demeter]

12. "it was an ultra-conservative astroturfed creation of the GOP"

NOT any more, it isn't. It's the real thing now.

[harun]

13. There is nothing real about it.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. The only "TP" in DC is in the "BA".

[icarusxat]

22. Oh puhlease...

Here in Utahville we gots us a senator who got the banksters to let him off the hook for his mortgage...

tell me again who these teabaggers are fightin' fur...

[Demeter]

24. I'm talking about the 99% grassroots, not the elected crooks

The ordinary people, who are mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore, not even from the people they put in office in their ignorant zeal and boundless pain...

[paleotn]

31. Same here in North Carolina....

....there's a small, but vocal segment that's mad has hell about...about...well about something....damn Liberals did it, they're sure....and aren't going to take it anymore! "Damn those feds, getting their hands all over my Medicare!" The problem is, these crazy uncles tend to infect those who don't really pay much attention to politics, but marginally lean conservative. Thus, the election of certifiable nuts in general elections, when we Liberals and those who marginally lean left don't show up at the polls.

[ThomThom]

33. tea party will be the real thing when they start running candidates

under their own banner and not just influencing the right.
At that point the rethugs will loose every election. They can't afford to not have them vote republic.

[Demeter]

35. Or under a coalition banner, but you are correct

Just as the Left is not a "real thing" and hasn't been for quite some time.

I'd like to form a People's Party that exists for the 99%ers. I think it would be a big enough tent for Tea Party and Progressives both.

The Tea Party isn't fundamentally conservative: it's scared, angry, aware that things aren't right, but not aware enough to come up with a solution. It's been traumatized, and told that that trauma is all the Left's fault, when in fact, the Left had little or no influence.

If the Left can demonstrate empathy, and share solutions that satisfy Tea Party and the rest of the 99%....
we will take back our country, together.

[Hekate]

8. Made me smile over my morning coffee

Watching the GOP unfold the crazy since 1995 has been bewildering, frightening, and ultimately nightmarish.

I know it started with Nixon's Southern Strategy, but that you could discount as regressive racism we were growing out of as a country. It was the spectacle of Gingrich! then the working out of his special vocabulary list (which I didn't know the source of until I came to DU in 2002) which turned the very word "liberal" into a dirty word the same way anti-Semites were able to make "Jew" into a dirty word. Since then it's just been jaw-droppingly evil.

I would so very much like to see the GOP elite enjoy threefold return for their evils, and the utter destruction of the party at this point, because they so richly deserve it.

But sadly, getting rid of them from the body politic may be like having to undergo some really unpleasant surgery: it's going to hurt before we get better, but if we don't do it, we may die.

Krugman's final words:

Of course, the coming confrontations are likely to damage America as a whole, not just the Republican brand. But, you know, this political moment of truth was going to happen sooner or later. We might as well have it now.

[Enthusiast]

27. Remember back to the days of the 1990s when Newt was at the height

of his arrogance and influence. Was there ever a more arrogant asshole in existence? Member that guy? The very image of arrogance. I didn't think it could actually get worse, but it did.

[YOHABLO]

32. He hasn't gone anywhere .. he's on CNN's rehash of Crossfire .. oh brother.

[underpants]

9. Dashboard believers

That's what I call them

[DonCoquixote]

10. I would love to share PK's glee

But I honestly believe that the Tea Party can use this to feed their base. It can also be used by Hillary to say "see, I am not these people, so what if I am barely left of Reagan?"

[SleeplessinSoCal]

11. Likening the Republican Party to the "USS Ronald Reagan". Slow to turn around

All the money and effort put into making the party misinformed in order to vote against their best interests will take a very long time to correct IMHO. The USS GOP hasn't even begun to recognize how far off course they are.

Btw, There is a USS Ronald Reagan, of course. A "nuclear powered supercarrier"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ronald_Reagan_%28CVN-76%29

[jmowreader]

15. There are other resemblances

Both are also hard to get moving, hard to stop once they're underway, expensive past the point of believability, and designed for mass destruction.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

18. Hence - Ship of State n/t

[blkmusclmachine]

16. Obama's 30,000 Drones will clear up any misconceptions about the kind of Country this is now.

9/11 was just their excuse.

[BillyRibs]

19. Folks In the top 10% seem to suffer

from historical amnesia. The moneyed elite thought they could control the German workers party as well. we all know how that went.

[Stuart G]

20. K and R thanks for posting nt

[DFW]

23. Crazy=Cruzy n/t

[TrollBuster9090]

26. Two Words for Republicans to Remember: YASSIR ARAFAT

Yassir Arafat spent three decades whipping the young, idealistic men of Palestine up into a homicidal/suicidal rage over Israeli occupation of Palestine. Eventually, the Israeli's felt the heat and gave him what he'd probably wanted all along. Not the destruction of Israel, but an autonomous Palestinian government in the occupied territories.

He soon learned, however, that once you unleash that monster, you can't put it back into it's cage, and it wasn't long before the very terrorists he'd created were turning on HIM for being an appeaser and capitulator.

The same thing is happening to the GOP right now.


Given the long history of the neo-cons in the GOP, and their involvement in Middle Eastern politics I'm surprised somebody like Henry Kissinger didn't warn them that this was going to happen.

[soryang]

28. night of the long knives indefinitely postponed n/t

[Scurrilous]

34. K & R