The ne plus ultra metaphor that captures the Repug congressional minority: auto-erotic asphyxiation

[marmar]

From OurFuture.org:


digby
Submitted by Rick Perlstein on July 29, 2007 - 10:08pm

She's tougher than me:

When it comes to "partisanship" the Republicans have turned it into a fetish --- a risky, self destructive form of political autoerotic asphyxiation in which they are willing to risk killing themselves for the sake of the ultimate thrill.


When I reached to make the same point, the metaphor I arrived at was a milquetoast "buying more lottery tickets"—making crazier and crazier bets, possessed of the compulsive gambler's magical thinking that everything will work out in the end. The bottom line, however, is the same: sane political actors eventually cut their losses. And that today's conservative Republicans are not sane political actors. More digby:


This is why our institutions are failing. The founders never counted on politicians "doing the right thing." Profiles in courage are always in short supply and no government can depend upon good intentions. But they did assume that they would, at least, want to preserve their own careers and constitutional prerogatives. The modern Republicans are so committed to their party that they will follow their 28% president over the cliff, and that is a mindset we haven't seen since the civil war.

GOP power politics have exposed some weaknesses in our constitutional framework: as long as there are 34 Senators willing to back the president no matter what, short of a coup, he can pretty much do anything he wants until the next election....

People wonder why they would give so much power to the president since a Democrat could hold the office someday. I think they know the Democratic party is just not as temperamentally amenable to authoritarianism. They know that Democrats will, in the end, act out of their own self interest rather than out of partisanship since they don't have the kind of discipline or homogeneous constituency the Republicans have. (Bill Clinton was saved by the people, not the Democratic congress who were prepared to jump ship at the first sign of a decay in public support. Luckily for him, the more the Republicans pushed the more the public stood behind him.) These Republicans are completely unresponsive to anything but party loyalty and their hardcore base.


Different America than the one all of us grew up in, this. Tell your kids to pay close attention. They're living through history.

http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/digby?tx=3

[The Magistrate]

1. An Interesting And Astute Analysis, Sir: Thank You For Sharing It

A pleasure to give it its first recommendation for the Greatest page....

[yurbud]

2. given what we keep finding out about these guys personal lives, that's more than a metaphor

it's their plans for the weekend

[Vidar]

3. Good article. Thanks for sharing.