By Charles P. Pierce, Esquire
15 February 12
It's been a while, so let's check in on what's happening in the states
which, as we all know, are the Laboratories Of Democracy, and which
these days seem under the control of a research syndicate made up of
Doctor Frankenstein, Doctor Mengele, and Doctors Howard, Fine, and
Howard.
Just in time for Valentine's Day, the Virginia House Of Delegates is
merrily pushing along a "personhood" amendment similar to the one
roundly rejected by the notoriously blue state of Mississippi a few
months back. This is the brainchild of a state Delegate named Bob
Marshall, who is a bit nutty even by anti-choice standards. Delegate
Bob is also a little unhinged on the subject of gay people.
(He'd also like Virginia to issue its own money, despite the many bad
things that happened to Virginia the last time they tried that.)
So, you would think that cooler heads might prevail in Virginia, and
that a bill deemed too radical in Mississippi, and proposed by the
legislature's village idiot might get shuffled off to some dank
subcommittee so as not to embarrass the entire Commonwealth. You, of
course, would be wrong about this.
Let us move along, then, to Kansas where, just in time for Valentine's
Day, a bill is being debated today that would allow the state to
nullify - there's that word again - any local anti-discrimination
statute passed by any city or town in the state. (Tennessee's already
done this, by the way.) You would think that cooler heads might
prevail in Kansas, and that all those proud conservative boasts about
"devolving power" down to the local level would come into play to
defeat such an overreach by the state government. You, of course,
would be very wrong.
Our last stop is in Arizona, which seems bound and determined to vote
itself back to the Stone Age, one law at a time. Not only would this
bill get dozens of books chucked out of the curriculum, it apparently
is so badly written that it would make a criminal out of any teachers
who went home and said to a friend, "This fucking new law about what I
can teach belongs in North Fucking Korea."
One of its sponsors is a state representative named Lori Klein, who
previously became famous for pulling a gun on a reporter in the middle
of an interview, and for defending Herman Cain from charges of
horndoggery by stating that he'd never dogged her, "and I am an
attractive woman." (No jokes. Remember, she's packing.) You would
think that cooler heads might prevail, and Arizona would be tired of
being the national poster child for bad laws and wingnut overreach.
You, of course, would be extremely wrong about this.
I hate to keep harping on this, but what you're seeing in the state
legislatures is the activity of the Republican farm team. The people
voting for laws springing from the mushy brains of people like Bob
Marshall and Lori Klein are the young Republicans who, a few cycles
from now, will be running for Congress, probably from safe Republican
districts that they've helped draw up, and aided immeasurably by
voter-suppression laws that they've helped pass.
Most of them will be the products of the vast conservative candidate
manufacturing base - the kids at CPAC, the College Republicans, the
various Christianist organization. They will not equivocate. They will
not moderate. And they are the future of the party. Anyone who thinks
the Republican party eventually again will have to "move to the
middle" (this translates from the Punditese to "regain its sanity")
isn't paying attention.
In 2006, the Republicans were handed a defeat every bit as epic as any
one ever handed to the Democrats. They did not pause to give it a
second thought. Their resolve hardened. They ran what few "moderates"
were left right out of the party. And, in 2010, they got a wave
election that not only gained them the House of Representativse, but
also the legislative majorities in the states that are now producing
these goofy-ass laws, and a lot more seriously dangerous ones as well.
And, even then, they blew a chance to retake the Senate by running
sideshow freaks like Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell. They
didn't care.
They do not stop, even when they're losing. The country told them,
through the 1998 midterms, that it didn't want Bill Clinton impeached.
Bill Clinton got impeached. In 2005, everybody including their
Democratic colleagues told them that they were going off the cliff in
their meddling in the life and death of Terri Schiavo. There were gobs
of polling data to back them up.
The Republicans kept meddling even after Ms. Schiavo passed.Is there
any evidence that the Republicans are moving "toward the middle" in
their presidential contest? Ask poor Willard Romney if that's the
case. The current frontrunner is a nutball ultramontane Catholic who
lost his last race by 18 points, at least in part because he was one
of the more noxious of the Schiavo meddlers.
The fact is that the presidency is not really that important to them.
They have found a way to make it impossible for any Democratic
president to govern as a Democrat. Their real goal is in the
legislatures, federal and state, where they have been able to exercise
their power on the issues they care about.
They will not change themselves. They are going to have to have the
wingnut flogged out of them over several losing election cycles, and
they've arranged things in the states so that may not be possible. The
president should not be talking about "Congress" and "Washington," and
expect the country to clue in that he's nudging and winking in code
about the Republicans. He should make it clear that one of our two
major political parties is now an extremist party from its lowest
levels to its highest echelons. This should be an issue in the
campaign as imporant as income inequality or campaign finance, but it
won't be.
Barack Obama's just not built that way. And, out in the states, things
are getting crazier by the day. In Virginia, by the way, Bob
Marshall's running for the U.S.Senate in 2012. In any party that was
halfway sane, they'd have sedated him by now.
Ni shagu nazad, Stalin told the Red Army when the Germans invaded.
Not one step backwards.
Stalin would have loved these guys.
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment