Metastasis
Bells said:
I shouldn't laugh, but really?
Really?
I am reminded, without a hint of envy, of our neighbor
Madanthonywayne:
"Republicans could certainly fuck it up again, but the playing field is really in their favor this time around. Here's hoping they don't nominate any candidates who feel the need to explain that they are not witches or express their opinions about legitimate rape."
This really
is the challenge; it is also one of the defining complications of a larger Republican strategy.
To put it bluntly, yes, the stupid in our society deserve a voice. And here I'm not referring to the undereducated among the "most vulnerable in our society", but, rather, otherwise functional people who also happen to be tremendous idiots.
We've called approach by many names, perhaps most commonly the "Southern strategy", originally implemented by a strategist named Harry Dent, along with Richard Nixon and Strom Thurmond. Its most prominent aspects in the twenty-first century are found in the GOP's reliance on
states rights and
law and order rhetoric, something no observer of late twentieth and early twenty-first century American politics could fail to witness front and center over the last five decades.
The passing years have made it harder to argue that the Southern strategy was about anything other than racism; as Lee Atwater, the GOP's leading strategist during the Reagan years, explained in 1981:
You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
(qtd. by Wikipedia)
This is the dirty secret some Republicans have tried to conceal from everyone else, including fellow conservatives. Even stripping away the racism, we see in the rise of desperate, unqualified extremist Republican candidates one of the payments con the Southern strategy coming due. It is usually enough to recall Christine O'Donnell or Sharron Angle as emblematic of the 2010 GOP failure to win the Senate, but it is also worth remembering Sue Lowden, the allegedly "respectable" or "qualified" Republican who lost her primary bid to Angle. In trying to keep up with the demands of the Tea Party movement, she ended up embarrassing herself with what has become known as the
"Chickens for Checkups" proposal to replace health insurance with bartering.
Steve Benen recently had occasion to recall Lowden, while considering the appearance of rising GOP star Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) at the Conservative Political Action Conference:
About four years ago in Nevada, Sue Lowden appeared to be well on her way to becoming a U.S. senator. The wealthy Republican ran into a little trouble, though, about a month after the Affordable Care Act was signed into law.
Lowden argued that health care reform wasn't altogether necessary because she remembered, as a young person, when families would “barter” and “haggle” with medical professionals. In one especially problematic comment, the Senate hopeful said, “You know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor.”
Her candidacy collapsed soon after.
I thought of Lowden yesterday after seeing Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) at CPAC.
In a mid-day address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal fondly recalled how his own birth was paid for in a pre-Obamacare era.
"My dad shook hands with the doctor," said Jindal. “And he said to that doctor, 'I'm going to pay you in full. I'm going to pay you every month as much as I can' … And that's exactly what they did.” Jindal added, “No contracts. No paperwork. No government program. Just two guys in a hospital in Baton Rouge, shaking hands.”
Jindal presumably knows a little something about health care systems – he was a prominent official in the Bush/Cheney Department of Health and Human Services – which makes it all the more curious that he sees “healthcare for handshakes” as a viable model.
Start with that last; the governor probably knows
healthcare for handshakes is not viable, but still finds value in playing that card, given the number of voters who will respond affirmatively.
While there is some recognizable value in pitching for votes—once upon a misty memory, candidates described policies that transcended the office they pursued as a measure of vision and underlying character, not a superficial policy argument—the other side of that coin is the question of how long one can keep those voters happy with a lie.
The larger effect, of course, is that policy discussions don't focus on reality. To wit, there is a perfectly acceptable leftist argument that says, "Fine, whatever, let them do their damn medical bartering." And, yes, there is merit in letting people do whatever they do to destroy themselves. But, at the same time, these are the United States of America, and public officials simply
cannot let that sort of anarchy in the guise of government persist; it creates too many observable inequalities, as well as challenges the Constitution and very idea of the United States as a nation. This, to borrow an overused cliché, is a feature of our Constitution, not a bug.
In the end, the result is a classic dualism; these people want the benefits of being Americans, but none of the responsibilities. And while exploiting this sentimental conflict has certain short-term benefits, we have been witnessing now for at least a quarter-century, the rise of the long-term spectre. What we see in the processes leading to these extremist candidates has been going on since the Poppy Bush administration, at least. It has become more and more apparent with each election.
A few years back, perhaps we might have reluctantly praised the GOP strategy that secured so many state houses, redistricted even deeper entrenchment, and established what might be a semi-permanent majority in the House of Representatives. Despite our disgust for racist voting laws, sexist medical and law enforcement policies, and Christian supremacist nationalism, we must also acknowledge that they managed to pull off this feat of no small difficulty.
But now a payment is due on this free market exchange that might metaphorically be described as selling one's soul to the Devil.
And while it is true that some of these state-office districts easily explain the popularity of extremist candidates like Susanne Atanus. The real question in that context is whether or not such rhetoric can make the transition. In Louisiana, for instance, the answer appears affirmative; not only is Bobby Jindal governor, but for some reason his name continues to circulate as if he has presidential potential. And this is a state where family-values voters sent Diaper Dave Vitter to the U.S. Senate, because a respectable Christian man who hires prostitutes to change his diapers is a better choice for the Pelican State than a Democrat. Or something like that.
Over in Colorado, Republicans are preparing the transition of Cory Gardner, a popular Congressman from Colordo Fourth, into the U.S. Senate. And, yes, it is possible he will lose to incumbent Sen. Mark Udall. But here's the thing: Gardner is taking on the Senate race in lieu of
Ken Buck, who will now run for Gardner's opening House seat.
What does it say to the rest of the voting nation when we see Republicans in Colorado
so determined to get a proper
rape advocate into Congress? In cold, tactical considerations, it would seem the Colorado GOP knows Buck can't win the statewide election, but they're determined to send him to Congress one way or another. The big danger here for Republicans is that Udall will fend off Gardner. The Fourth District will likely vote for Ken Buck, even if the former Weld County prosecutor who used his office to advocate for the rights of rapists to rape, actually gets caught committing a rape.
And therein lies the question. To the one, it is very important to the GOP to not have any prominent, crazy candidates. To the other, they seem unable to help themselves on that count.
Dick Black is another interesting case; a Virginia carpetbagger, he wants to graduate from state politics to the Beltway Brotherhood. And it's fair to say "Brotherhood" despite the fact of women in Congress, because Dick Black
really doesn't like women. Or maybe he really
loves women. At any rate, they're nothing more than sex toys and baby factories to him.
It is hard to convince skeptical voters that this sort of behavior is significant of outliers, because these ideas and candidates are emerging across the map and at every valence of our politics. Sometimes the only reason certain issues have a place at the table is the sheer force of numbers in a democracy. Under any cold, statistical calculation of reality, the "women's issues" should be settled as matters of policy already. But they're not, and this is almost exclusively because of those who want what they want regardless of the Constitution or even basic logic.
To consider Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN6) as an example:
Bachmann expressed regret over Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's veto of a bill that would have protected the rights of business owners to refuse service to gay couples (if their refusal is based on religious objections).
"I believe tolerance is a two-way street," said Bachmann, who seldom spoke of the need for tolerance during her long battle against gay rights. "People with religious beliefs have to be respected. Right now there's a terrible intolerance afoot in the United States and it's against people who hold sincere religious beliefs."
(Black)
Consider the underlying logic, here:
Bachmann believes tolerance is a two-way street, therefore we must ensure that by enshrining intolerance in state law.
This is worrisome to voters who are not dedicated conservatives. Especially after the 2010 result derided by Democratic sympathizers as "jabortion" ("jobs, jobs, jobs, abortion ... jabortion"), Republican operatives who want people to view the conservative candidates according to jobs and economy are finding that task much more difficult. Voters have
every reason to look behind the curtain in order to see what will
really happen if these candidates win elections.
Unfortunately, things will have to get worse for the GOP—and everyone else, as a result—before they start to get better. We already see hints of this kind of extremism in presidential politics, and we're likely going to be asked, either this year or in 2016, to consider extreme platforms as if there is nothing unusual about them.
Indeed, the Atanus victory is itself a curious example. Running against Schakowsky? Right, that's going to go well. But the GOP might well have every reason to concede Schakowsky's seat (IL9) as safe Dem. So instead, Republican primary voters have elevated an extremist in order to ...
well, it really is hard to determine why°.
And that really is an important question. Why are Republicans doing this to themselves and everyone else? This is a difficult time for the GOP; I don't envy them the task of putting the pieces back together.
____________________
Notes:
° it really is hard to determine why — Yes, Chicks on the Right is a real thing, although it is either (A) suggestive of an underlying problem about how conservatives view women, or, (B) a provocateur project of nearly antisocial dedication.
Works Cited:
Wikipedia. "Southern strategy". February 6, 2014. En.Wikipedia.org. March 20, 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
Siegel, Elyse. "Sue Lowden Defends 'Chickens For Checkups' Proposal". The Huffington Post. June 27, 2010. HuffingtonPost.com. March 20, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/27/sue-lowden-backs-down-fro_n_554105.html
Benen, Steve. "Jindal's 'healthcare for handshakes' model". MSNBC. March 7, 2014. MSNBC.com. March 20, 2014. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/jindals-healthcare-handshakes-model
Black, Eric. "Michele Bachmann endorses tolerance". MinnPost. March 5, 2014. MinnPost.com. March 20, 2014. http://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2014/03/michele-bachmann-endorses-tolerance
Mockarena. "We Might As Well Congratulate Jan Schakowsky For Winning Re-Election Right Now". Chicks on the Right. March 20, 2014. ChicksOnTheRight.com. March 20, 2014. http://chicksontheright.com/posts/i...-schakowsky-for-winning-re-election-right-now
