What can moderate Republicans do to get their party back?

[elucidator]

There’s nothing new about the Tea Party. There has always been a Tea Party, one incarnation or the other. Indeed, one of my favorite moments of political hilarity was when Dick Armey’s Tea Party Express endorsed the positions of Verizon and Comcast in the legal entanglements of the time. That disappeared without so much as a ripple, but a good chuckle. Nonetheless, reading that the Tea Party loved the cable company was a revelation. Also, airline food and painful rectal itch. But Tea Party is only the latest label for a long-standing tradition.

Used to be, they hated Communists. Now, they can’t find any, so they just hate Change. They don’t hate Obama because he’s black, or tall, or educated in elite schools. They hate him because he’s different, because he represents Change. Resistance to change isn’t so much a political position as a personality type. Those of you in your later youth may even recall the Establishment amusement with people who thought Barry Goldwater was not conservative enough. Who remembers the political epithet “little old ladies in tennis shoes”?

Likewise, there has always been a “counterculture” - Occupy, antiwar, hippies, beatniks, Pete Seegar type leftists, Will Rogers, anti-imperialists. There is nothing remotely counterculture about Obama, he is perfectly happy to have our support which he can have simply by being a decent sort of fellow. I’ve almost always voted Dem, but not because I’m thrilled to have a candidate who’s agenda matches mine own, but more as defensive gesture against the Forces of Darkness.

Its not entirely fair to say that the Tea Party is wholly dependent on fat cats. Without them, they would still have web sites, gatherings, candidates, and could do all of this out of their own pockets, if they had to. Just not nearly as much.

The Republican Party seized upon the Tea Party like a drowning man seizes a floating barrel. And they exploited their power to create a redistricting plan that, in many districts, renders the Republican primary as being essentially the election. Now, they don’t need to worry about the Democrats, they have to worry about the Tea Party. What went around, came around. Always does.

Behold, the sweet justice of karma…

[Terr]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

I think the Koch brothers absolutely do. Being a billionaire is no insulation against being starkers.

When the Koch Brothers started out, the company (Rock Island Oil & Refining Company) that became Koch Industries later was a pretty small engineering firm whose claim to fame was invention of a better cracking process, that also owned an oil refinery and a few cattle ranches. The Koch brothers grew it into the behemoth it is today. They didn’t do that by being “starkers”.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Terr

When the Koch Brothers started out, the company (Rock Island Oil & Refining Company) that became Koch Industries later was a pretty small engineering firm whose claim to fame was invention of a better cracking process, that also owned an oil refinery and a few cattle ranches. The Koch brothers grew it into the behemoth it is today. They didn’t do that by being “starkers”.

That’s totally irrelevant. History is replete with madmen who accomplish a lot. Don’t make me name names.

Edit: that sounds bad, so I should clarify my first thought was Howard Hughes; I’m not saying the Koch brothers hold a candle to Hitler and Stalin or anything. Still, though, it’s totally absurd to claim that financial success is an indicator of political sanity.

[Terr]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

That’s totally irrelevant. History is replete with madmen who accomplish a lot. Don’t make me name names.

I didn’t say “accomplish a lot”. I said created a business behemoth.

But do tell, how you think Koch Industries benefits from the shutdown or debt limit crisis. And if you think it doesn’t, explain how Koch brothers managed to build such an enormous company by doing things that would damage it.

[Terr]

@elucidator

There’s nothing new about the Tea Party. There has always been a Tea Party, one incarnation or the other.

Sour grapes You’re just jealous that the other side actually has some politicians that have principles and vote the way they promised during the elections.

[Chimera]

Being successful in business doesn’t mean you’re not fucking nuts. Lots of geniuses are completely off their nut. Lots of successful rich people are too. They’d be getting therapy if it weren’t for their wealth, but instead it provides them the means of surrounding themselves with people who tell them how awesome they are.

[Terr]

@Chimera

Being successful in business doesn’t mean you’re not fucking nuts.

But you cannot be successful in business if you promote ideologies that would make you less successful.

[Terr]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Edit: that sounds bad, so I should clarify my first thought was Howard Hughes;

Cool. Show me where Hughes was “starkers” in politics.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Terr

I didn’t say “accomplish a lot”. I said created a business behemoth.

But do tell, how you think Koch Industries benefits from the shutdown or debt limit crisis. And if you think it doesn’t, explain how Koch brothers managed to build such an enormous company by doing things that would damage it.

Excluded middle. I think the Koch Brothers think that a John Galt scenario is the best possible outcome–that the people realize how dependent they are on the “Great Minds” (by which they mean themselves) and how the government can’t help them. A shutdown will drive home that point, and even if it causes temporary harm, it brings them closer to Randian utopia.

No, I don’t really think that, but it’s certainly plausible. It’s a lot more plausible than the idea that they’re opposed to the shutdown but are too frightened of the Tea Party to say anything about it.

[Chimera]

@Terr

Sour grapes You’re just jealous that the other side actually has some politicians that have principles and vote the way they promised during the elections.

<snerk>

Don’t think that’s it.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Terr

Cool. Show me where Hughes was “starkers” in politics.

Are you shitting me? Are you seriously suggesting that there are no figures in history who were totally fucking nuts yet managed to amass a tremendous amount of political power?

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Conservian

To add, I hold RINOs more responsible for the current status of America’s fading republic than Democrats. For Democrats have increased their embrace of Socialism for decades now. So we already knew what they represented. But it wasn’t until Republicans like Bush-Sr. & Jr. exposed themselves as pseudo-cons. that limited-government ideologues realized their Republican Party had left them, much like Reagan’s once Democrat Party did him.

By this logic virtually every postwar Republican except for perhaps Bob Taft and Barry Goldwater were “pseudo-cons”: Eisenhower who accepted a 90% tax rate for the wealthy and built the Interstates, Nixon who pushed for universal health care and established Keynesian economic policies, Reagan who defended social security and ran up a large deficit.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Terr

Sour grapes You’re just jealous that the other side actually has some politicians that have principles and vote the way they promised during the elections.

We have plenty of them in the Democratic Party and unlike the Republicans those principles are not destructive to the middle and working classes of these countries.

[BrainGlutton]

@Terr

But you cannot be successful in business if you promote ideologies that would make you less successful.

Of course you can, if your promotion is insufficient to get them implemented. Did Henry Ford’s anti-Semitism and Nazi sympathies actually make him any less successful?

[Terr]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Excluded middle. I think the Koch Brothers think that a John Galt scenario is the best possible outcome–that the people realize how dependent they are on the “Great Minds” (by which they mean themselves) and how the government can’t help them. A shutdown will drive home that point, and even if it causes temporary harm, it brings them closer to Randian utopia.

No, I don’t really think that, but it’s certainly plausible. It’s a lot more plausible than the idea that they’re opposed to the shutdown but are too frightened of the Tea Party to say anything about it.

I think they are opposed to shutdowns. I don’t think they are “too frightened of the Tea Party to say anything about it”. There is no way to know what they are “saying” anyway - they don’t run to the media with pronouncements every time they have a thought.

I don’t think the shutdown is an event orchestrated in any way by Koch brothers. I don’t think they like it, and it certainly doesn’t make business sense for them. I don’t think they “bought” the candidates in a way that they can dictate to them what to vote for.

I think they “bought” them in the sense that they encourage and finance those candidates that are closest to the Koch’s supposedly libertarian ideology. And that I don’t see how anyone can have any problem with.

[Terr]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Are you shitting me? Are you seriously suggesting that there are no figures in history who were totally fucking nuts yet managed to amass a tremendous amount of political power?

Any hugely successful businessmen who amassed a tremendous amount of political power and were politically “nuts”? No.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Terr

Any hugely successful businessmen who amassed a tremendous amount of political power and were politically “nuts”? No.

Heck, goalposts like that can move themselves.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Terr

Any hugely successful businessmen who amassed a tremendous amount of political power and were politically “nuts”? No.

You’re doing your best to avoid the point, but yes, I can give you an example: the Koch brothers are hugely successful and have a lot of political power and don’t realize that Ayn Rand is a shitty fantasy novelist. They’re nuts.

And no, I’m not going to go on this merry-go-round with you any more. It’s bleedin’ obvious that success does not preclude nuttery.

[BrainGlutton]

@Terr

I think they “bought” them in the sense that they encourage and finance those candidates that are closest to the Koch’s supposedly libertarian ideology. And that I don’t see how anyone can have any problem with.

Of course one can have a problem with. Why should anyone be allowed to buy influence in politics? Money is not speech.

[BrainGlutton]

@Terr

Any hugely successful businessmen who amassed a tremendous amount of political power and were politically “nuts”? No.

Ross Perot. Never held office, but held enough political power to swing two elections (against his own preference, probably).