David Sirota: Debating Grover Norquist, America's Leading Fake Populist

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



Debating Grover Norquist, America's Leading Fake Populist
By David Sirota

June 16th, 2008 - 9:25am ET


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SEATTLE - This week on my national book tour, I had the opportunity to debate conservative leader Grover Norquist on KUOW - Seattle's NPR affiliate. The topic of the debate was my new book, THE UPRISING, and specifically the rise of populism in American politics. You can listen to the debate here - it begins about half way into the interview.

Norquist, one of the architects of the original conservative uprising of the 1980s and 1990s, is a good indicator of where the conservative movement is today. As you can hear, the Right is angry with the Bush administration for not being more conservative on a whole host of issues - and you can sense from Norquist how ideologically bankrupt conservatives really are today.

For a generation or so, the Right has dynamically adapted its reactionary ideas to sound like a populist, anti-Establishment, for-the-little-guy agenda. But thanks to all the crises we now face from those ideas - an energy crisis, stagnant wages, national security catastrophes, a global warming emergency - it has become much easier for progressives to unmask the Right as what I called Norquist: Fake populists.

The concept of fake populism is an important one as we move into the superheated general election campaign.

Just as Norquist tries in the debate to package environmental degradation, oil industry handouts and tax cuts for billionaires as policies designed to help us regular folks, so will John McCain try to present more NAFTA-style trade deals and more war in Iraq as populism. And the more we label it for what it is - fake populism - the more we will show the country the difference between a true majority agenda and the Beltway elitism of the Right.

What struck me most about the debate with Norquist is how truly out of touch with ordinary people he really is.

This is a person who in the face of $4.50 gasoline and $40 billion in ExxonMobil profits tells us that we should give away more policy goodies to the oil companies. This is a person who in the face of polls showing the public thinks the tax system is fundamentally unfair in the wake of the Bush tax cuts, says we should nonetheless push forward with even more regressive tax cuts. This is a person who in the face of massive budget deficits and social service cuts, says we should slash corporate tax rates, even though our effective corporate tax rate is among the lowest in the industrialized world. This is, in short, a person who is so insulated inside the Beltway and so coddled by the Big Money interests that have financed his career that he quite literally has no idea that there's an uprising going on throughout the country - and no official photos of him with statues of Ronald Reagan can hide that reality. He seems genuinely unaware of the trends on both the Right and Left that I report on in my book. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/debating-grover-norquist-americas-leading-fake-populist

[sharesunited]

1. My goal is to shrink Grover Norquist down to a size

that would allow us to drown him in the bathtub.

[KoKo]

2. lol's...that's a good one. K&R for Sirota...

[ellie]

3. Bwahahahahaha!

Hilarious! I hate that toad with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.

[gratuitous]

5. That's nothing

I hate Norquist with the white hot intensity of a thousand nuns.

[calimary]

11. Take a number.

Said she who was schooled by same!

:P

[brentspeak]

4. If only Willy Wonka's candy factory really existed

As Norquist is greedily stuffing his face full of strange candy, Willy Wonka unenthusiastically says, "Stop. Don't. Come back."

[pansypoo53219]

6. smaller

so he can be drowned and flushed down the toilet.

[MasonJar]

7. As chubby as he is that will take some effort, but let's go one better

and shrink him down so that he will slither down the drain with the rest of the refuse.

[sallyseven]

8. He has been greedy and insane since the

1980's. Why do you think he would change now? This man has no morals.

[devilgrrl]

9. Grover Norquist's 25th College Reunion

I like pulling out this story which was posted several years ago on smirkingchimp.com. The original link is no longer available...

======================

Grover Norquist at his Harvard 25th Reunion

Posted: 2003-06-11 20:15

Grover Norquist attended his 25th Harvard Reunion last week. I doubt if he enjoyed himself.

The Harvard Class of 1978 is soundly liberal—not hard left, but they would feel generally at home here at SC. Quite concerned with social equity, multilateralism, the environment, nuclear proliferation, poverty, health care, and more. 53% describe themselves as Democrats, while 17% are Republicans and 13% call themselves Independents. 36% call themselves liberal, 32% are moderates, and 14% call themselves conservative.

As you might expect, Grover is not popular among his classmates. More precisely, he is loathed and considered dangerous, if not psychotic. There was a widespread undercurrent of "How could this loser become the most powerful person in our class?" (One discussion ended with the conclusion that we should rush him and give him a wedgie.)

Even people who didn't know him well remembered his oily pony-tail, his scrawny goatee, and his habit of talking with his mouth full. But few of us were graceful back then, and none of us would want to be judged on our behavior back then.

He was on the most-attended symposium panel discussion on politics. The rules of attending required that the entire affair was off-the-record, but no such stricture was placed on the extensive conversations immediately before and after the discussion.

It is safe to say that he represented himself to his Harvard peers quite differently than he does to the public. With his us, he dealt matter-of-factly with the mechanics of his work, avoiding the demogogic soundbytes and sounding more like the technician explaining his craft.

One classmate observed that this was almost more insulting than the soundbyte Grover:
"Hey, we haven't seen each other in 25 years—I'm a dentist now!"
"How the heck are you? I'm working to destroy the American way of life!"

He made mundane the true evil of his work, and it pissed people off. It's not "same-old, same-old" backslap time for people who realize the threat Grover poses.

He made a big deal about how our ideological framework is fully etched at the age of 21. Maybe for you, Grover—and those who know him agree that at 21 his ideological viewpoint was fixed. The facts of future events have not shake his certainty that he has it all figured out. There is no self-doubt in Grover Norquist—nothing can change his conviction that he was right all along and will be forever. As a result, no one wants to talk with him. What's the point?

Among his peers' observations: "He was the most gullible person I knew at Harvard. We could get him to believe anything. We made a game of it."

"He was the first person I met who called himself a Libertarian. He told me it was my duty to own a gun."

"I had lunch with him once and was so disgusted at his table manners that I never even sat near him again."

"He has no moral compass and no self-doubt."

"I asked him how he could raise money for Jonas Savimbi, who had the biggest child-army in Africa, and he said that was what it took to defeat Marxism."

"He's a Marxist who hates Marx."

"He hasn't dealt with his sexuality. Instead, he's turned it into hate." (Grover, at age 46, is unmarried.)

The Reunion covers five days. Most people have fun. Not Grover, though. To his credit, he continued to show up at events—but no one talked to him. I watched him at two of the large meals (under tents, as the skies opened up upon us). He would get his plate of food, and then wander amongst us, looking for someone to sit with. My sympathetic side kept saying, "C'mon, ask him over, just say Hi. The guy is lost." I am ashamed to say that I couldn't bring myself to do so. I let him wander, and I watched. He ate alone. I'm not proud of this -- but what would I say? "How's life with you?"

[Doctor_J]

10. That fat "confirmed bachelor" won't debate anyone face-face

he prefers friendly forums where no one will contest his lies. He's a lot like Limpballs that way.

[devilgrrl]

12. Kick! This must be heard

Norquist pulls nuggets from his ass!