Category Archives: Random Blogging

Doctor Faustus, I Presume?

Despite pressure from religious groups, humanitarian organizations and the business community–not to mention the U.S. Senate and the Administration– GOP leadership in the House of Representatives is refusing to bring comprehensive immigration reform to a vote.

They “don’t have time this year.”

They had time, however, to vote on a measure sponsored by Rep. Steve King (R-Crazy) to defund the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and treat Dream Act kids like criminals.

The amendment, from Rep. Steve King (R-IA), undercuts the flexibility that allows the Department of Homeland Security to halt deporting DREAMers and instead focus on people convicted of crimes.

After the vote, the House Hispanic Caucus tweeted,”House Republicans just voted to treat DREAMers and undocumented spouses of servicemembers in the same way as violent criminals.” Only six Republicans voted against the measure.

None of those six Republicans was from Indiana.

We expect Marlin Stutzman, Todd Rokita and Jackie Walorski to vote for measures sponsored by the Crazy Caucus (Michelle Bachmann, Steve King, Louis Gohmert et al). But we tend to expect a measure of moderation from those elected from less rabid precincts.

Susan Brooks ran as a reasonable, albeit conservative, alternative to David MacIntosh. Much of her appeal to the more moderate Hamilton County GOP voters was premised on her own (relative) moderation. And those of us who’ve known her for years had, in fact, known her to be personally pretty reasonable and middle-of-the-road.

But Brooks voted to deport the Dream Act kids.

In fact, Brooks’ voting record is strikingly similar to the voting records of Bachmann, King and Gohmert. Her one act of “courage” (if voting as your constituents clearly prefer can be characterized as courageous) was to end the recent government shutdown.

I suppose it is possible that the Susan Brooks I thought I knew was really a rabid anti-Choice, anti-government, anti-immigrant extremist in disguise. But I doubt that.

I think it’s more likely that she is one of the numerous, ambitious political figures who finds it personally advantageous to pander to the currently dominant wing of her party, and is willing to set aside any pesky moral qualms in order to do so.

Doctor Faustus sold his soul and traded his integrity for a taste of earthly pleasures.

As long as I’m trading in literary and historical analogies, here’s a question: Is the Republican base better off with True Believers like MacIntosh, who’ve evidently imbibed the hemlock, or with those who, like Brooks, are willing to make Fausian bargains?

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A Possible Parallel?

It’s always dangerous to draw parallels between past phenomenons and current ones–contrary to the old saying, the past really doesn’t repeat itself.

But still.

I was intrigued by an article examining the rise and demise of the Know Nothing Party in the most recent issue of “Religion and Politics,” a political science journal. The Know Nothing Party (KNP) was launched in 1851, and it was dead by 1862. It was rooted in the Nativist movement, and was profoundly anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic and xenophobic.

The authors propose three theories for the sudden rise of the KNP: moral panic (a collective response to social change–a spontaneous “panic” propelled by social stress);  a conflictual cultural cycle (persistent cultural patterns that emerge periodically in response to the sudden visibility of ‘out groups’); and something with which I was previously unfamiliar–Revitalization Theory (religiously motivated movements of discontented persons who want to change the culture.)

The authors concluded that there were elements of all three at work. They noted that–as with all such movements–the KNP looked to a (fantasized) pristine past that they wanted to restore.

Shades of “I want my country back.”

About those parallels….a recent Bloomberg poll found that Tea Party Republicans are “more likely to be male, less financially secure, more pessimistic about the direction of the country and much more antagonistic to President Obama.” The poll notes “anger and alienation” by the GOP rank-and-file, based in part on considerable amounts of misinformation. (Thanks, Faux News…) For example

Two thirds of regular Republicans believe the federal deficit has grown this year, and 93 percent of Tea Party Republicans agree. Both are wrong: the budget deficit is projected to fall this year from 1.1 trillion to 642 billion.

To the extent that we can draw parallels between the KNP and the GOP fringe today, the more pertinent question addressed by the article is: what happened? Why did the KNP have such a short life span?

The article pointed to several factors: internal dissension, newly recruited political figures who were inexperienced and incompetent, rowdyism and sporadic violence by some of the “fringe of the fringe” and ultimately, a recognition that their objectives were simply unachievable.

Food for thought. And hope….

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Trying to Understand

In a recent post, I noted that Greenberg, Quinlan Rosner–the well known polling and survey research outfit–has issued a report titled “Inside the GOP,” detailing conclusions from a variety of focus groups conducted with the Tea Party, Evangelical and Moderate factions of today’s Republican Party.

Some of those conclusions simply confirm the hunches of political nerds like me, who obsessively follow politics and government. For example, the report notes that “the base thinks they are losing politically and losing control of the country–and their starting reaction is ‘worried’ ‘discouraged’ ‘scared’ and ‘concerned’ about the direction of the country and their powerlessness to change course.”

We sort of figured that.

Despite the disproportionate media attention generated by the Tea Party faction, Evangelicals continue to make up the largest bloc in the GOP base, and they focus far more on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion than either of the other factions. Evangelicals characterize the President as a socialist, as ‘worst President in history’ and as ‘anti-American.’ These accusations are echoed by the Tea Party faction. (For those of us who do not fall into these categories, these extravagant and overwrought accusations have a “never-neverland” quality to them–they make you want to scream things like “Do you even know what a socialist is?” and “Where were you when George W. Bush was President?)

The research paints a picture of dispirited moderates who wonder where their party went; however, it also notes that moderates are a rapidly diminishing presence in the party. They are “very conscious of being illegitimate within their own party.”

The report also acknowledges the Elephant in the Room (no pun intended).

The GOP base is “very conscious of being white in a country with growing minorities.” As they see it, “Their party is losing to a Democratic Party of big government whose goal is to expand programs that mainly benefit minorities.” As the report delicately notes, “Race remains very much alive in the politics of the Republican Party.”

There is a good deal more, and the entire report is worth reading. For those of us who wonder why the GOP has expended so much energy and vitriol trying to prevent working-class Americans from accessing basic healthcare, the answer is that  they are panicked by their conviction that “Obamacare” is the “end game”– a program which will cement voter loyalties to the Democrats.

The next explosive–and divisive– issue, according to the report, will be climate change. “Climate skeptics are a majority in the conservative factions.”

All in all, the report paints a picture of a party that has been captured by what used to be considered the fringe–or, more accurately, the fringes. And while those fringes overlap somewhat, there are major differences that do not bode well for what used to be a Grand Old Party.

I’ve been predicting a schism for nearly twenty years, so obviously I’m not a reliable soothsayer….but the divisions–both within the party and from the American mainstream–are getting pretty deep.

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In Which I AGREE with a Tea Partier

Maybe we really are in the “End Times.” I entirely agree with what a Tea Party Senator has just said.

Utah Senator Mike Lee was arm-in-arm with crazy Ted Cruz during the recent shenanigans that shut down the government. But in the wake of that fiasco, he has made a speech that at the very least shows a self-awareness we are not accustomed to seeing from Tea Party folks, and in places sounds positively progressive!

“Especially in the wake of recent controversies, many conservatives are more frustrated with the establishment than ever before,” Lee said. “And we have every reason to be. But however justified, frustration is not a platform. Anger is not an agenda. And outrage, as a habit, is not even conservative.”

Instead of “outrage, resentment, and intolerance,” the party should project a message—and more than a message, a principle—of “optimism,” he said.

“American conservatism, at its core, is about gratitude, and cooperation, and trust, and above all hope,” Lee said. “It is also about inclusion. Successful political movements are about identifying converts, not heretics.”

 But the paragraph that most struck me was one in which Lee actually seems to occupy reality, and to see what most Tea Party folks resolutely refuse to acknowledge:

“This opportunity crisis,” he continued, “presents itself in three principal ways: immobility among the poor, trapped in poverty; insecurity in the middle class, where families just can’t seem to get ahead; and cronyist privilege at the top, where political and economic elites unfairly profit at everyone else’s expense. The Republican Party should tackle these three crises head on.”

Actually, I’d settle for a GOP that wasn’t insistent on making them worse.

That said, if this speech actually represents Mike Lee’s current perspective, it is immensely welcome–if considerably overdue. Maybe we could get him to talk to several members of Indiana’s Congressional delegation.

I’m especially looking at you, Todd Rokita and  Marlin Stutzman.

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Sums It Up

One of my “virtual” friends recently posted the following to Facebook. It made me think–and it also made me sad.

I like universal health care not just for its moral reasons but because it encourages job mobility, entrepreneurship, takes the burden off our manufacturing industries, and leads to cheaper health care costs. I like to spend money on public education because it makes our workers competitive in the international market. I want cap and trade because reliable and knowledgeable humans who are super-awesome at economics tell me that the long-term costs of inevitable climate shift will be worse than doing nothing. I want solar power and other green alternatives in order to ease climate change and to make us energy independent so people in countries half a world away with thousand-year-old grudges will stop yanking us around. I favor separation of church and state because, like Thomas Jefferson, I don’t want people of faith to have other faiths shoved on them by the power of the government.

In other words, as “Lefty” as all of that makes me today, I’m pretty much a 1972 Republican.

How did we get to the point where these sensible positions made him–and so many others– unwelcome in the GOP?

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