Republican Party Implosion: too many factions, all with policy positions that are too extreme to work for an entire nation… GOP goes Boom.
Related Article: Tea Party Ted Hoedown Throwdown
Political parties are a lot like organized crime (only there’s a lot more money in politics). Overlay Mafia turf wars on Republican Party politics, and we begin to see that there is a street battle going on between the various gang factions. GOP politicians are battling for the most territory within the wealthy neighborhoods; where the donor class lives. That street fight is creating a very unstable party circus tent.
Within the politically elite cul-de-sacs, the 2014 election is already well underway, and 2016 is being staged behind the curtain. The result of the fight for cash is causing the snake to eat its own tail. We see Republicans in Congress vying for the political position that will get them the most sound bytes on cable news where they wave and shout “Hey There look at me being defiant!” and therefore get a new excuse to send fundraising emails immediately thereafter (sometimes these emails are literally sent a minute or two after a press conference).
In today’s world of republican politics, large sum fundraising requires:
- Being against the President no matter what the policy. “No fake President Obama! The sky is NOT blue!“, and;
- Partaking in the abortion and gun drinking game competition to prove they’re the most conservative person in the room.
While the latter process is bringing the GOP to the brink of imploding like a Kansas women’s’ clinic, both activities combined simply make them look like drunkards falling down the steps of the Capitol.
Republicans, literally, can no longer afford to be moderate.
In Republican Party politics of times past, to win all one had to do was go Jesus For The Jugular on your opponent, and wrap yourself in the American flag – other than religion, taxes, and military, republicans were basically free to think on their own. Today, however, if republicans take a moderate position, they won’t raise enough money to get re-elected. That’s a big problem when a person’s only talent is being a politician.
Even POLITUSIC sees ads on this site or Tea Party groups trying to kick out members of the GOP because they aren’t conservative enough for the bitter-angst of the Tea Party base. In order to keep their jobs in Congress they have to be confrontational and cater to the fringes of the GOP base; commit at least 9 Crimes against Human Kindness and Facts in public, or they won’t raise enough cash to win their next election (as well as likely face a primary challenge from the right). The end result of this ever-more-extreme political positioning will cause the GOP implosion. We already see upticks of internal fights, and caucus break ups that create additional sub-factions within the GOP. Each new fracture makes the structure less stable.
It’s not that the campaign money is limited, it’s that the number of places politicians can access the money is. A key example is the right has 200+ million dollars all being allocated by various Koch brothers controlled organizations… get the attention of even one Koch brother billionaire, and a politician becomes very well funded, indeed.
Inversely, make just one Koch brother angry, and a politician faces a wall of negative campaign commercials. There are No Surprises in Republicanland other than how far down the rabbit hole they’re apparently willing to drop. The Republican Party is also shrinking, which makes the fight for republican funds even more desperate. It’s as if the streets of the city of Republicanland have merged into only a few, very wealthy streets, and the republican gang members have to fight desperately to determine who gets the richer, but smaller geographically, turf onto which they can set up their campaign tent.
And so, the battle to get the most money from the Koch brothers has begun to manifest itself into a tap dancing street war between the republican establishment, the right, and the far right (a show complete with bears riding tricycles, and dogs that jump through hoops). Increasing squabbling within the GOP will lead to some micro-explosions of various factions, and possibly a total implosion of the party – because the Republican Circus Tent no longer has its strong, center poll that holds up the middle of the structure. One hopes that after the far right implodes, the rest of us can Come Together and salvage what’s left of our 10% Congress.
The business of creating political crises is a good one.
It’s a horrible way to run a country, but it’s a great way for a political party built on paranoia to raise a lot of money. Trying to Set Fire To The Rain when there is No Rain achieves absolutely nothing for the country – but it makes great TV.
“I’m not Canadian” Ted Cruz and Speaker of the House John Boehner are playing ping pong with the Defund ObamaCare bomb. They all know that republicans will never succeed at their ruse, but it gives them a chance to say “defund the train wreck that is ObamaCare” on television many, many times, which is all they care about, because many of the large republican donors see sport and profit in sabotaging ObamaCare, and generally trying to turn the World Upside Down because they can jump in front of a camera and say it’s the President’s fault for being a bad leader.
[Why do you think there’s been a massive increase in creepy anti-ObamaCare commercials, coupled with threats of government shutdown followed by very strange-feeling “rallies” of House republicans? (during which they incessantly chant and shout “yeaaah” in ways that feel far too “Scientology” for most people’s tastes) It’s vital to remember that as of the House’s CR vote: the ACA healthcare exchanges have not yet started! Americans can begin signing up on Oct. 1st, and they go into effect in 2014. That’s why the republican donors are pushing their politicians so hard right now: a last ditch effort to make the law fail by dissuading young people from enrolling. It’s not a train wreck yet, but republicans are doing everything they can to sabotage the tracks. Give the issue 30 seconds of thought, and it’s painfully clear what they’re doing – they should be embarrassed – but republicans always count on Americans being ill-informed and generally ignorant. It’s the GOP’s MO: keep them poor, keep them stupid – stay in control.]
Tea Party Ted Cruz and the extreme right-wing republicans are 3:00AM informercials trapped in a Circle of greed and self-righteousness. They are Donate Now! buttons personified. At least Newt Gingrich waited until he was out of office to turn himself into a 1-800 number. Politicians these days do it as soon as they get to Washington.
In the most recent battles, the budget and debt ceiling (again), we see that the Republican Party doesn’t even want to pass a budget. We must remember that everything we see is really about a CONTINUING RESOLUTION – it’s not even a proper budget! Fund the government, get rid of ObamaCare. They cannot accept that they lost that issue, so all they can do now is effort a sabotage – intentionally break the machine, then shout “I told you so!” House republicans are basically kamikaze pilots at this point.
After this most recent, “vote again to show our donors we hate ObamaCare” budget crisis, the dreaded debt ceiling “debate” begins. Republicans know that the best way to maintain the hate of their base, and therefore the ability to raise money, is to have a well-publicized crises every quarter: be wallowing in a constant, fabricated state of crisis. The Sweetest Thing to a republicans in Congress is a crisis they themselves created; they can shape so it perfectly fits their base’s ideologies.
Sadly, what they have achieved with this strategy is moving the center position overall debate to the right. Because the far right is so crazy and the left is generally spineless, every time such crises happen, what is seen as a solution to the chaos moves the country more to the right, rather than stay in the middle – let alone move back to the left, which is where most Americans exist in their daily lives. Republicans may walk away from these fights Bruised, but they’re steadily reaching their goal of pushing the goalposts more to the right. (Even most republicans exist daily more as a democrat in practice – it’s only when they’re asked about politics that they say “I’m a republican, and democrats are ruing this country!” I’m not kidding: look at daily living choices for a week – how people act in their routines – are those actions more like democratic policies or republican? Labels are difficult to wash away.)
In the fight for the minority super-rich and the loud and ranting support Tea Party base, republicans in Congress are clearly fighting one another to be towards the top of the pyramid scheme that is republican politics. As they continue to fight, they will continue to lose more numbers in their party. That results in even fewer places where republicans can raise money. The fighting and intensity of that fighting thusly increases, focussing the intensity into a smaller and smaller point of viable supporters and donors. As with most matter, when you get a lot of force focussing on into a small point, you get an implosion.
Organizations that found themselves on Purity die, and are reborn again in endless cycles.
As a result of the republican purity drive the GOP takes every 50 years or so, the party will eventually implode (though we should note that does not necessarily result in it disappearing). It always happens. They’re not seeking A Sunday Kind of Love … they’re seeking a Sunday-morning-only purification kind of love – no separation, no pluralism, no exceptions. They purify, they deregulate, they build a wall, and they clamor over the bodies of the electorate for more donor money. Anyone who is merely an Almost Lover to the extreme right ideologies will be kicked out of the ranks; be primaried from the right. As a result, the party falls in on itself because it no longer has a center. Whatever survives the implosion slowly rebuilds into “a new republican Party” destined only to fall into the clutches of the same cycle once again.
It’s the story of Republicanland that is destined to repeat: a Steady As She Goes, cyclical rebirth of a political party that is totally lacking any reflection of the nobel rebirth of a phoenix from the ashes. It’s more like crooked zombie fingers attached to grey hands breaking through the rain-soaked ground deep within a lonely cemetery. Thanks to Citizens United, this particular cycle feels more intense than it has in the past; the music more ominous; the sky a littler darker.
As is always the case, the positions and strategies that republicans thought would make the party strong will end up being the cause of its implosion – I can’t wait to see what will be reborn from the ashes of the Republican Party this time… let’s all just hope democrats are strong enough to prevent the Republican Party from totally destroying the country in the process of its own destruction.
Published: by | Updated: 04-21-2015 17:43:30
