WHERE ARE THE REPUBLICANS with enough courage to talk this lunacy down???
That is the most meaningful question any of us has posed here.
I think most of us agree, it is about time for the true patriots and the true Christians in the GOP to step in and lean hard against these extremists who have usurped their party's power.
I am from Kansas, and was raised in Iowa in a very politically involved Republican family, but I turned Democrat after ______ (fill in the blank) killed Bobby. (I was 16 at the time, and canvassed neighborhoods for local Dems at that tender age.)
I reveal this personal history to assure everyone, I DO know lots of Republicans, I am now and have for a lifetime been surrounded and outnumbered by them, so I speak from experience. Too many livberals criticize Republicans as a body of selfich, ignorant millionaires, because they do not spend much time in conservative circles not of their own choosing. But some of us have no option, especially out here in the Red States..
And while I don't defend them often, in this matter, I will say that there are many good hearted, intelligent (though stubbornly attached to their misguided ideology) Republicans who are growing ever more ashamed of these miscreants in elephant's clothing.
I dare say, if you take the wingnut Palinites out of the Republican mix, what remains is a pretty bright remnant, and they are almost all Christians, or at least they humbly aspire to that label.
Seriously, when will the SINCERELY intelligent, patriotic and spiritually faithful Republicans put a stop to this madness? Do they even have the power anymore to effect such a moderation, or have the crazies taken over completely?
I fear it may be they are so outnumbered by the frantic fanatics whose hearts constantly devise mischief against our new President and the changes we all hope for, that they will never regain the helm of their floundering vessel.
The evidence of this is that they would have done something long ago to stifle the crazies in their party, if they had the power to do so.
The day is coming, and may actually be upon us, when the only course an honest soul can make is to abandon the sinking ship and swim for shore. Clearly, the "good" Republicans are subject to the worst members of their party.
Once again, let me re-quote that very meaningful sentence;
WHERE ARE THE REPUBLICANS with enough courage to talk this lunacy down???
But this is not the first time in history that Republican wolves in sheep's clothing have goaded their goats into subversive mischief.
In the LA Times there is an interesting article this AM about something the author calls "Wirtism" and it is worth a read, if you want an insight into how the Republican Party has been gamed in the past by the pernicious rich who use that party as tool of greed, and foment dissension bordering on treason in the bottom ranks of uncouth, uneducated Republican Party loyalists.
Excellent link.
August 30, 2009 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your situation sounds similar to mine, JEB. The Republicans I am surrounded by are for the most part good people who care about their fellow man. They too are shaking their heads about the behavior of the wingnuts. Yet, like you mention, they are not speaking up and giving voice to their disgust. It's frustrating all 'round.
Thanks for the link.
August 30, 2009 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
"they are not speaking up and giving voice to their disgust."
Because they would be called traitors by the real traitors...
Since they went after Clinton with trumped-up impeachment, the peer pressure between their ranks has become a veritable cult, in every sense of the word.
Read Lifton's descriptions of the basic cult identifiers, and you will see it all in the Republican Party over the past decade.
Your Republican friends and family (and mine) who bite their tongues instead of voicing their opinion display one of the basic identifiers of cult victimization, the fear of retaliation from other cult members..
August 30, 2009 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Because they would be called traitors by the real traitors..."
Poor babies!
I have no sympathy for cowardly conformists. Many of us had to deal with the very same thing -- being accosted with all the same dirty names -- when we took the unpopular position vis-a-vis US involvement in Vietnam. And most of those instances were backed with threat or actual violence.
Do they not "get" that SOMETIMES one MUST take the RISK of being called a bad name in order to stand up for the "good"?
Do they not "get" that doing so requires COURAGE?
How bad must it get -- how close to "too late" -- before they find their professed "patriotism" and "love of country" and get off their cowardly, conformist asses and TALK BACK to the insane?
August 30, 2009 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is the problem. It is 2009, not 1969. You need to get over those methods that didn't even work back then.
Nixon didn't get out of Vietnam until it was quite clear we had no way of "winning" that war. The protests had nothing to do with it, though they make for good stories and documentary television.
Taking an unpopular position and being effective at advocating for a new way of doing things are two totally different strategies and require different tactics to be successful.
August 31, 2009 6:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
"You need to get over those methods that didn't even work back then."
And which "methods" did I use in 1969 that didn't work?
August 31, 2009 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Um, the ones that saw the war go on for another six years.
August 31, 2009 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
That fanatics have the microphone. Until the silent majority takes the wackos to the woodshed during the primary elections, I believe we will continue to see this cognitive dissonance that suggests the fringe outnumbers the majority.
August 30, 2009 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Won't happen, Jason. Primaries and state endorsement processes bring out the "party faithful" - the true believer fanatics.
I had the distinct displeasure of working a crew position at a state Republican convention some years back. If voters at large had any idea of the hatred and lunacy the party faithful espouse Republicans would get 8% of the vote on good election days.
August 30, 2009 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is only 16% turnout for primary elections, so I think the solution is a little more straightforward. The party machinery at the state of federal level will be mitigated when normal people decide to start voting in primary elections as a matter of course.
August 30, 2009 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
And that will happen...when?
August 30, 2009 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have no idea. Sooner rather than later, I hope, or we will continue to be fucked over by the powers that be, whomever they are at any given moment. I am going to do my part by dragging or inspiring someone to go to the primary again next year.
August 31, 2009 6:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
The "silent majority" meme is intended to SUPPRESS dissent. It is intended to communicate to those who may like you less than me to shut up about what I'm doing.
What we DON'T need is a MAJORITY cowed into silence by their own chickenshit's fear of being called a dirty name by a statistically insignificant unhinged minority.
August 30, 2009 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed, in principle, but I think the new silent majority is in the center and to the left, the right has become downright non-silent. I could understand someone raging at a town hall about their son being killed in Iraq, that makes sense to me. I alwqays understood Cindy Sheehan's dignified rage, because my own sons and daughter are all draft age.
But these blowhards are essentially raging against healthcare being made available to poor people, no matter what excuse they have.
So the silent majority is now the center-left, and that silence must end at the ballot box, at least.
As for voting in the primaries, well, I think that starts at home. So here and now I will pledge to do so, myself and try as hard to get others to turn out as I did working to get them to vote for Obama.
http://ksforobama.blogspot.com/
It might not do much good here in Kansas to go after the well-entrenched R's , but any example is like a pebble in a pond, the circles each of us generate in our own little pools magnify and extend, to influence other pebbles to drop into other ponds.
We did it in the last election, maybe we can do it again, this time based on how the 'dogs vote for healthcare.
August 30, 2009 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I still think your definition of the "right" is a little broad, given the very words from your own blog. The far right is noisy, the center right and the center left, the silent majority, are just starting to wake up and the far left is as loud as it's always been.
August 31, 2009 6:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm a bit older than some of you, so the popular term "silent majority" to me means "the right."
What I am suggesting is that the REAL silent majority is the center-left. The center-right is afraid of their boss, the far right is screaming insanely like some madman howling at the moon, and the left is and always will be very vocal and animated.
Thus my theory that the REAL silent majority is the center-left.
August 31, 2009 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
For me, the center-right and center-left in this country are mostly aligned from a solutions standpoint. It is the fringe elements in both parties that keep anything from getting done.
I agree that the silent majority of both parties is likely further to the left than the current definition of "center" allows, which makes the distraction from the fringes that much more damaging to our project.
I think most of the differences between reasonable people on both sides of the political divide come down to semantics rather than indicating a true ideological divide.
August 31, 2009 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
"most of the differences between reasonable people on both sides of the political divide come down to semantics "
...especially when those semantics are engineered deliberately to maintain and widen that chasm...
"Doublespeak" was not fictional, we had two terms of it under W.
But the media only shows the struggles between the minority extremes, never the moderation between the majority in the middle.
As usual, it is the media that models the myths.
August 31, 2009 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton and the DLC did the same thing during the 1990s when they pumped up the War on Drugs and Welfare. Johnson did it during Vietnam. Even FDR did it when we locked up Japanese Americans in internment camps.
It goes back the founding of the Republic as the Alien and Sedition Act. No political party is immune to dangers of Doublespeak and insular thinking.
August 31, 2009 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
The silent majority are the 84% of us who don't show up for primary elections. It is the 60 to 70% who won't show up for next midterm general election.
The silent majority is very real and is a substantial part of the country, whether you choose to believe it or not.
August 31, 2009 6:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well said, but again it puts the ball in the court of activists, whose inspiration and energy motivates that silent majority to join the noisemaking.
Like I said, politics is perpetual, it doesn't end with the last election.
August 31, 2009 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
No argument on any of this from me. My main point has always been that progressive "activists" need to take on the clothing of moderates in order to shift the center back to a place more reflective of the whole.
This sort of strategy requires innovative solutions that will be much different from those offered in the past if the outcome is to be different from the one we have seen these last four decades or so.
I don't want my kids to be fighting these same battles because I was too dense to learn the lesson when called upon to do so.
August 31, 2009 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
The LA column by Hiltzik is superb, I had never heard of the wingnut Wirt and his 'movement'.
Hiltzik's point that our media in constantly promoting 'both sides' helping to engender and spread 'alternate truths' or lies is true, they do that for everything from politics to issues like climate change.
Republicans will not talk the lunacy down, because their dwindling base wants to believe, and can't admit the indisputable evidence of the lies and the failures of their own party.
August 30, 2009 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is that why they won't talk the lunacy down, or is it fear that the gun will be trained on them next if they speak out? It's one thing to cross to the other side of the street when the lunatic approaches, and another when s/he's armed. It seems that those who dare to speak out get taken to the woodshed by Limbaugh or one of the other right wing talking heads sooner or later making the dividend for speaking out more of a disiincentive than it might be otherwise. Still, one has to return to Jep's/justin's question in the end.
August 30, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, it reminds me of a story (true) from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's monumental work "the Gulag Archipelago" from near the end of Stalin's reign, where in a meeting of the People's National Congress (or whatever it was called) Josef Stalin made a big speech, the delegates stood to clap.
And they clapped. And on. Some began to sweat.
For over 20 minutes or longer it continued. No one wanted to be the firs to stop and attract attention to themselves because it might mean a one way ticket to the Gulag. I can't recall whether the first one to stop was arrested but that same mindless obedience and subservience is the way the GOP ideology works.
August 30, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
"fear that the gun will be trained on them next if they speak out?"
Actually, these "peers" don't need guns to scare them. Many of them are just pleasing the boss or a rich relative, or their cheerleader girlfriend.
Maybe they should be afraid of crazy men carrying AK's to town hall meetings, but they aren't. What they are afraid of is being humiliated in front of their peer group, or being rejected for a promotion, or being dumped by their Young Republican sweetie.
Their fears are a cheap as their convictions.
August 30, 2009 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope anyone who reads this blog post will note two words, whose adjacency means a great deal more than some might perceive. So I am specifying here more clearly what they mean.
"pernicious rich" is the term of which I speak, and I use it intentionally, like I use the term "good Republicans," to convey my fellowship with so many of them who, while their ideology may be skewed, their hearts are sincere, and their patriotism real.
By pernicious rich, I mean exactly that. Not all rich folks are pernicious, but so many of them have been wasted by their own wealth that there is an inordinate percentage of them who fit the "pernicious" label.
They mislead their fellow Republicans, down a path of sheer hypocrisy, claiming righteous indignation at social issues, and turning around to create ponderous economic and cultural strife, usually for the benefit of some financial instrument they want to protect or extend.
While they have always been part of the scheme, these pernicious rich literally took over control of the Republican Party in '94, and have been backsliding spiritually ever since, even as they tapped the religious right with trumped up social alarms and dog whistles to shore up their aging base.
There have been many labels throughout time for these wealthy social reprobates, they have been called Royalists, Fascists, and many other words that are now considered arcane. But they are authoritarians one and all, and they believe we owe them allegiance because they assume some superior rank due to their wealth.
These are the men (mostly men, there are a few women who are real pernicious wannabe's, just follow Bachman (MN) or Jenkins (KS) around and you will see how desperate they are to enable the rich boys of whom I speak when I say "pernicious rich") who fake the astroturf movements, who pay for all the lies to be published, who hire the Roves and their misanthropic minions to do whatever creepy thing they want, even if it defiles the honor of democracy itself..
The Republican Party might lose a lot of campaign contributions by ditching this "pernicious rich" class, but they might save their political soul, and future, if they could eject those creeps from their leadership ranks.
My guess is that they are already too late to save the party. Like the Whigs of the early 1800's, their mistakes have been too great to recover from.
The vile battle they and their ignorant mob now wage against healthcare reform is just proof the rank and file are mindless lemmings, being led to the cliff.
August 30, 2009 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great Post. You asked the question "Do they even have the power anymore to effect such a moderation, or have the crazies taken over completely?" and the answer is short is NO, they do not.
The people in the Republican party who as you described as "the SINCERELY intelligent, patriotic and spiritually faithful Republicans" have over the last number of years ceded power to the crazy wing Evangelical elements in the party. At first it was a cynical political ploy to win elections; but they created a monster that they can no longer control. In the minds of a wingnut, the only thing worse than a liberal is a moderate (reasonable) Republican and anyone who sticks their neck out will surely have their head lopped off (politically not violently).
August 31, 2009 8:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would agree with just about all of this. I joke about a deja-vu redux of Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party, in the form of Palin's Dead Moose Party, but it may not be such a joke.
While it serve serve to toll the death knell of the GOP, what is spawned from that dissolution could rival Frankenstien's worst monster.
Anyone want to bet the Arizona hate-preacher and his gun-toting parishoner aren't both Palin fans?
There's a bet you will lose.
As for where the moderate R's will go when the wingnuts and fundies jump ship, that is anyone's guess.
August 31, 2009 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink