Colin Powell: 'Birther Nonsense' Is 'Killing The Base' Of The GOP

[struggle4progress]

21. Gee, Mr Powell! How could that have happened? It's a complete mystery!

Let's review the last 45 years or so

Nixon was a crooked lying paranoiac, who ran the first modern campaign based on pure Madison Avenue techniques and who offered racists a home in the Republican Party, when they fled from the Democratic Party after major progress at the national level by civil rights activists. Nixon surrounded himself with authoritarian ideologues like Haldeman and Erlichman, who maintained ties to wackos like Liddy. His VP Agnew was a nasty wedge-driver and a crook himself. The administration was a pioneer in the abuse of federal agencies for illicit political gains, such as the use of the IRS to harass Nixon's opponents. Another innovation, later copied by the Reagan White House, was the waging of illegal wars

Reagan was an affable ideologue who had a further advantage, from the PoV of Republican inner circles: he was senile and therefore easily manipulated. The Reagan campaigns continued to reach out to Southern racists but added rightwing fundamentalists to the mix. Reagan had no administrative real ability, so his administration was controlled by his appointees; the result was the most corrupt administration in history. Reagan had absolutely no policy ideas, other than that government was evil: his appointee to the Federal Reserve, Greenspan, an Ayn Rand devotee, survived in that post twenty years, drawing a handsome salary -- while actually doing nothing at all, as Greenspan later admitted. Reagan's United States won approval from rightwing wackos by murdering poor powerless peasants throughout Central America, eventually directly from the White House basement, and when this was discovered the country promptly wondered whether Reagan had known anything about it

The one-term President Bush I is remembered primarily for "achievements" such as dismantling airline safety regulations and for a number of disasters, such as the Savings and Loan crisis from which at least one of his sons profited splendidly. But Bush I also helped engineer the coup that placed his son Bush II in the Oval Office.

In the Clinton era, Gingrich pioneered a permanent strategy of constant negative attacks and obstructionism as the road to future Republican electoral successes

Bush II was a favorite of Republican inner circles because he was incredibly stupid and therefore easily manipulated. Bush II continued to reach out to racists and to rightwing fundamentalists, but with the aid of Rove he also reached out to other crazies in a fine-grained manner and used fear of terrorism to dismantle democratic safeguards and undermine democratic institutions and understandings. That was the most frightening Presidency I can remember

The Gingrich strategy of constant negative attacks and obstructionism has been a staple of Republican Party behavior for almost two decades now, and as the party's approval has continued to fall the GOP has become even more dedicated to Nixonian abuses of institutions and cultivating ties with fringe groups in order to maintain power

It is increasingly difficult to imagine effective conversations with Republicans