No, this is not your typical Halloween story; but it certainly is a most frightening one. Ever since last year’s election, Republicans have been faced with an identity crisis of epic proportions. For many, the “moderate” approach of John McCain was in fact the one that lost the election; what should have happened was that a Conservative, right-wing purist might have fared better and even won the contest. In the ensuing months since the November Massacre, the GOP has had a void of leadership that was only filled (and still is), by right-wing talk show hosts and fringe politicians. Moderate voices need not apply. There have been many in the Party who have veered toward the Center on one day only to be “corrected” by a Limbaugh or Beck and did a 180 the next day and was warmly embraced back into the lunatic fold.
The New York 23rd Congressional special election was indeed a proxy for the ideological forces within the Republican Party. It was a three way race between Democrat Bill Owen; Republican Dede Scozzafava, and Conservative Doug Hoffman. The GOP Candidate was a woman who was pro choice, pro-gay rights, pro gun ownership (in that part of the State, everyone has one) and a fiscal moderate. She supported the stimulus package back in February. The Conservative was the usual pro-life, pro gun, gay hating, gun toting right wing idiot that has been filling the political vacuum for the past few months. The Democrat was the standard liberal, but in fact very close to the GOP candidate in many ways politically. Governor Moosebrains got into the fray by supporting Hoffmann, as did many other Right Wingnuts; Newt Gingrich supported Suozzafava as did many other moderate-Conservatives. Today that all came crashing down when Scozzafava “suspended” her campaign after polls showed that she was behind both her challengers and that the Democrat had a real chance of winning a seat that hadn’t been held by a Democrat since the Civil War.
And the GOP didn’t do a damned thing to stop her.
So it appears as if we are beginning to see not only a right-wing shift and takeover of the GOP, but a fringe tea-bagging, secessionist loving, lunatic faction making their way into power into the GOP. This could lead to many primary challenges for the 2010 mid-terms, and could in fact create a slate of candidates that are so far to the right, that the only hope for moderates is the Democratic Party. When confronted with a tough economy, high unemployment, a protracted battle for health care, and a war on two fronts in the Middle East (possibly three fronts shortly); voters will be offered a choice between a Democratic candidate that will effectively continue President Obama’s ambitious agenda (being slowed down to some success by the Republicans) or an alternative represented by a lunatic fringe right wing candidate. Let’s be honest, people see what’s happening in their lives, and when presented with a choice of the status quo representing all things bad and an alternative (no matter how crazy)…they will pick the alternative.
The greatest mistake of Democrats is the fact that we assume people are intelligent and think; when in fact most people are not well read and are very happy being told what to do. In other words, perfect candidates as cannon fodder for the right-wing loony toons. After dismantling any sign or hope for moderation in their Party, the GOP will have a slate of crazies across the board, crazies that have a VERY good chance of winning; not because President Obama has done anything to deserve getting thrown out of office, but precisely because he has done NOTHING. At all. If he does not look down at his loins and find a pair pretty quickly, what he may be faced with is a Congress that is not only hostile, but RABIDLY right-wing hostile. He has begun to piss off his base, something ANY smart politician does not do. He forgets that die hard ex-hippie guys like me, gays, minorities, and others that make up the Progressives got him elected in the first place. He is trying to govern in the center, and that is a recipe for disaster. He is hanging out with the very same rich bankers that got us into this financial disaster in the first place.
So while the GOP sees his programs as the next 5 Year Plan and he as the reincarnation of Vladimir Lenin; he is doing NOTHING to help unemployment by creating Federal jobs like FDR did. Sure companies are happy and showing profits, but that’s because they are doing it with fewer people they have to pay and are making it work. These unemployed will not be going back to the sectors in which they worked, rather, they will remain almost certainly unemployed for the foreseeable future…and that makes them perfectly willing to vote out the Democrats and put in not only the same Republicans who caused the downfall in the first place, but a whole new bunch that are even more rabid and right wing and would love nothing more than to set up a Christian Theocracy. The President is in fact laying the groundwork for an eventual Fascist takeover that will be complete with the election of a Palin or Pawlenty in 2012. Only he can stop it now. Only he can stop a Vice President Michele Bachmann, or a President Palin.
Because by eating their young, the Republicans are paving the way to ensure that those of us who do not conform to the ideological purity tests that they have been subjecting themselves to, wind up in those FEMA camps that Glenn Beck talked about. They will win in force because of everything I just talked about…oh, and did I mention the President is an African-American?
“Fascism is capitalism in decay” – Vladimir Lenin
Intersections In Real Time 