Our Un-Democratic Democracy

In a must-read, E.J. Dionne talks about the breakdown of American democracy in today's once great Washington Post Kaplan Daily:

[T]he political far right is, among other things, a big business. The NRA’s chief concern is not sane public policy. Its imperative is to maintain market share within a segment of our country that views the federal government as a conspiracy against its liberties and President Obama as an alien force imposed upon them by voters who aren’t part of “the real America.” Within this market niche, background checks are but a first step toward gun confiscation.

In a well-functioning democracy, the vast majority of politicians — conservative, moderate and liberal — would dismiss such views as just plain kooky. But here is the problem: A substantial portion of the Republican Party’s core electorate is now influenced both by hatred of Obama and by the views of the ultra-right. Strange conspiracy theories are admitted to the mainstream conversation through the GOP’s back door — and amplified by another fight for market share among talk radio hosts and Fox News commentators.

The outsize influence of the National Rifle Rampage Association is one of the examples Dionne uses to demonstrate how the far right has an institutional head-lock on American democracy (think also deficit doltishness, Senate filibuster and gerrymandering).  Where some might see "checks and balances," we see gridlock that frustrates the will of the American people time and time again.

Sunday Morning Reading - Rethuglicans "Estranged from America"

Pollster Andrew Kohut has a great analysis of the problems facing the Rethuglican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party in today's once great Washington Post Kaplan Daily.  A few samples:

The Republican Party’s ratings now stand at a 20-year low, with just 33 percent of the public holding a favorable view of the party and 58 percent judging it unfavorably, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. Although the Democrats are better regarded (47 percent favorable and 46 percent unfavorable), the GOP’s problems are its own, not a mirror image of renewed Democratic strength.

Kohut goes on to identify three factors in the emergence of the far-right bloc that holds sway in the party:  the "Obama backlash" =cough=racism=cough=,  the changing face of America =cough=racism=cough= , and conservative media that serves as an echo chamber and only source of "news" for the base =cough=racist know-nothings=cough=.  Not surprising considering this far-right bloc is 92 percent white, mostly male, married, Protestant, well-off and over 50.  Kohut concludes:

I see little reason to believe that the staunch conservative bloc will wither away or splinter; it will remain a dominant force in the GOP and on the national stage. At the same time, however, I see no indication that its ideas about policy, governance and social issues will gain new adherents. They are far beyond the mainstream.

In other words, the Rethuglican/ New Conservative/ Stupid Party will exist only to frustrate the will of the majority of the American people for the forseeable future.

Cartoon of the Day

(click to enlarge)

From the Party that brought us Watergate, Iran Contra, the 2000 Presidential election hijacking, and lying us into the Iraq war.

Rocks for Brains Quote of the Day

“For heaven’s sake, you have Grover Norquist wandering the earth in his white robes saying that if you raise taxes one penny, he’ll defeat you,” he added. “He can’t murder you. He can’t burn your house. The only thing he can do to you, as an elected official, is defeat you for reelection. And if that means more to you than your country when we need patriots to come out in a situation when we’re in extremity, you shouldn’t even be in Congress...If you want to be a purist, go somewhere on a mountaintop and praise the East or something. But if you want to be in politics, you learn to compromise. And you learn to compromise on the issue without compromising yourself. Show me a guy who won’t compromise and I’ll show you a guy with rock for brains.” (my emphasis) Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) today on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," referring to his teatard Rethuglican Party's no compromise, no prisoners approach to government (see also "Sunday Reading," below).

Calling Out the "Extreme, Twisted" Republican Party

Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog wonders if the Democrats will have the sense to nationalize the presidential election by tying the albatross of Rethuglican extremism around every Rethuglican running for office:

"Republicans have a radio/TV/Internet noise machine that works round the clock finding people to demonize -- and linking every one of them to all Democrats. Everyone from Rosie O'Donnell to Frances Fox Piven, everyone from Common to Saul Alinsky, is a demonization target, and then every one of them is linked to your local Democratic officeholder or office-seeker. And so your Fox-loving neighbor thinks there really isn't an inch of ideological daylight between your Democratic congressman and some New Black Panther uttering empty threats on a local radio show no one listens to except right-wingers. Your low-info swing-voting neighbor may believe this, too. In any case, the evil-party narrative is already in place.

"Democrats haven't even begun the process of arguing that the entire right, or even a substantial part of it, is scary and extreme and beyond the pale, and there's no reason to believe that Democrats will ever do this. They may be prepared to portray Romney as a right-wing extremist, and that may be an effective strategy, but they'll never portray the entire GOP (accurately) as rotten to the core.

"Or maybe I'm wrong. I hope I am. Otherwise, Romney may be defeated but fail to drag the party down with him, because the defeat will be of him personally, not of his entire extreme, twisted party."

Our Obligation

Our man, Charles P. Pierce, on why "[t]he Democratic party has an obligation to beat the Republican party so badly, over and over again, that rationality once again becomes a quality to be desired:"

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Republican party, root and branch, from its deepest grass roots to its highest levels, has become completely demented. This does not mean that it is incapable of winning elections; on the contrary, the 2010 midterms, as well as the statewide elections around the country, ushered in a class of politicians so thoroughly dedicated to turning nonsense into public policy that future historians are going to marvel at our ability to survive what we wrought upon ourselves. It is now impossible to become an elected Republican politician in this country if, for example, you believe in the overwhelming scientific consensus that exists behind the concept of anthropogenic global warming. Just recently, birth control, an issue most people thought pretty well had been settled in the 1960s, became yet another litmus test for Republican candidates, as did the Keystone XL pipeline, to which every Republican presidential candidate pledged unyielding fealty despite the fact that several prairie Republicans and an army of conservative farmers and ranchers are scared to death of the thing.

"In Washington, there is no leadership anymore, no 'Republican establishment' to which anyone can appeal. The ferocious strength of faith-based know-nothingism in the party's base has resulted in a stubborn refusal to adopt even those ideas — like an individual mandate for health care, or cap-and-trade as an energy policy — that began as Republican ideas.

"In the states, we have seen a staggering overreach on the part of Republican governors in the Midwest regarding labor rights, wildly restrictive voter-ID laws aimed at solving a problem that doesn't exist, immigration statutes that are leaving lettuce to rot in the fields because nobody's left to pick it, and a welter of preposterous antiabortion statutes. And behind all of that, a party base that has constructed its own private history, its own private language, its own private logic, and its own wholly rounded private universe." (excerpt from May 2012 issue of Esquire)

Tenacity, courage of one's convictions, the willingness to fight hard and, of course, resources. That's what Democrats need to bring to the table election after election after election.

Pennsylvania Rethugs Want to Rig Electoral Voting

Pennsylvania Rethugs are hard at work trying to move the goal posts in time for the 2012 elections. We've become familiar with the panoply of Rethuglican voter suppression tools, ranging from the ridiculous (putting out information telling voters to vote on the wrong day, or at the wrong polling place, etc.) to the sublimely ridiculous (mandating voter photo ID cards, trying to disenfranchise student voters, etc.). Now, in Pennsylvania (and to come in other blue states with a Rethug governor like Michigan or Wisconsin?) the Rethugs want to change the method for apportioning Electoral College votes from the winner-take-all system to one that gives votes to whoever wins a Congressional district. Of course, they'll only be proposing this change in Democratic-leaning states; Rethug-leaning states will stay winner-take--ll. The goal, of course, is the "permanent Republican majority" (a.k.a., one-party rule) that Rove/ Limpballs/ and the Koch Brothers long for in their little authoritarian hearts.

Just another reason to defeat these increasingly evil SOBs at every opportunity.

(Image: an excellent book, but not linked in any way to this latest power grab)

Monday Reading: Charlatans and Cranks Edition

Amplifying the observation that the inmates are running the Rethuglican asylum, Paul Krugman has a blog post, "Charlatans and Cranks." Yep. That just about says it all.

What Ailes Hath Wrought

New York Magazine's Gabe Sherman takes an extensive look at Roger Ailes's GOP-TV operation over at Faux News, and comes up with so many pithy observations, it's hard to pick one that stands out. But we've picked one anyway:

"Ailes's [Rethuglican presidential] candidates-in-waiting were coming up small. And, for all his programming genius, he was more interested in a real narrative than a television narrative -- he wanted to elect a president. And all he had to do was watch Fox's May 5 debate in South Carolina to see what a mess the field was -- a mess created by the loudmouths he's given airtime to and a tea party he'd nurtured."

The irony Sherman nails ("nAiles"?) is, of course, that Ailes and his minions have been major players in dragging the Rethuglican Party farther and farther right, creating phony and divisive narratives and unnecessary fear, to the point that Rethugs are now beholden to and to a great extent paralyzed by the monster Faux, Limpballs and hate radio have spoon-fed: the know-nothing, crackpot Far Right. (Oh, and Ailes thinks Sarah Palin is stupid... No shit, Sherlock!)

Monday Morning Reading - Class Warfare Edition

Let's hear from the New York Times and one of our favorites, E.J. Dionne, in the Kaplan Daily this morning on Rethuglicans and their favorite people. We quoted him a few days ago, but it's worth repeating the words of Warren Buffett from a few years ago: "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."

Civil War Analogy of the Day

"With its paranoid misreading of Obama as a socialist (echoing the 1860 South's misreading of Lincoln as an abolitionist), with its zeal for confrontation and its utter disregard, evident in its 2012 budget proposal, for the minority poor, today's Republican right betrays a mind-set that hearkens back to the secessionists who fired on Fort Sumter. Shutting down the government isn't comparable to shooting it down, of course, but the South's war on egalitarian government and labor standards threatens to diminish our country." -- Harold Meyerson in today's Kaplan Daily, discussing the grounds on which the Civil War is still being fought: whether Northern or Southern labor systems and versions of government will become the national norm. Read it.

Boss Hogg Barbour: "Fat Cats' Candidate"

We've often wondered what was the appeal of Gov. Haley "Boss Hogg" Barbour (Overseer-MS) as a potential presidential candidate. After all, Mississippi ranks last or near last among all the states in poverty level, infant mortality, education, etc., etc. In a word, it's a pit. Granted, it's been a pit for a century, but as far as we can tell Barbour hasn't succeeded in raising the quality of life there one tick in his long career. A man like Barbour should have been able to bring some of his insider, string-pulling capacity to bear on his state, one might think.

What insider, string-pulling capacity is that, you ask? Well, once again the Dick Whisperer surprises us in his Kaplan Daily column on Barbour. After knowing about Barbour's history, any (oxymoron alert!) grass-roots teabagger, (oxymoron alert!) populist Rethug might think twice about Boss Hogg being their party's standard-bearer. Or not.

More Rethug Candidate News!

No doubt as a public service, Wonkette has three pieces today on potential Rethug presidential candidates. Just as you would expect, ignorance, hypocrisy, prejudice, and dishonesty are all on full display!

-- Poot Gingrich has new Biblical interpretations to share;

-- Haley "Boss Hogg" Barbour speaks out on abortion, while simultaneously making an abortion of civil rights history; and

-- Tim "No Good 'N'" Pawlenty stands strong against mooslim Americans (or is that an oxymoron for you, Tim?).

The Rethug Agenda: "Useless Distractions"

Witness as Bill Maher hilariously rips the Rethugs several new ones (after closing the annoying ad):

Remember

I'd run this on every station in the U.S. over and over again before and after tomorrow's election.