The Tea Partei has asserted itself as the new and dominant force within American Rightist politics.
The traditional power behind the Republican Party has been stymied in doing business as usual, and it appears the Tea Partei will force the nation off the cliff next week, reports the New York Times:
The Republican freshmen of the 112th Congress may never see the legislation of their dreams become law, but the scope of their victory in reshaping the debt ceiling bill to reflect the fiscal hawkishness of the most conservative House members cannot be overstated.Und, es ist Richtig to maintain strong Partei principles. To stand together in Bruderschaft and against the crazy dirty hippie socialist liberals who control everything. Because if you don't, your Sturmabteilung bretheren may come after you:
This victory was presaged by a fight over a short-term spending plan earlier this year in which the freshmen demanded far larger spending cuts than the Republican leaders would have imagined. The power of the 87 freshmen appears sealed, at least for now.
"Certainly there’s satisfaction in it," Mr. Brooks said of his legislative victory. "That’s why I ran for office. You want to help your country."
Tea Party leaders from the Tea Party Express, Tea Party Nation, Tea Party Founding Fathers, and United West are targeting their hero Rep. Allen West (R-FL) and three other GOP freshman for supposedly trading in their Tea Party principles to support House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) debt ceiling plan.The Tea Partei seems composed of people like its most public leaders, such as Little Sarah Palin and Grand Turtlebear Bachmann. Their issues so far have been Obama's birth certificate and protecting the "sanctity of marriage", and saying No!! and I Kill You!! to Democrats at every opportunity.
Chaffing under his new title of “Tea Party defector,” West scoffed at his supporters’ derision this morning on the Laura Ingraham Show. “If [Tea Party] folks, one minute they are saying I’m their Tea Party hero and three, four days later I’m their tea party defector, that kind of schizophrenia I’m not going to get involved in,” he said.
The Tea Partei has succeeded in derailing the Congress into considering the gutting of social Security and Medicare; that's what this has been about. Period. A reasoned discussion could have been had with the Democrats about lowering the deficit at any time -- and Social Security or Medicare isn't sacred to Obama (hell; he loved the Bowles-Simpson Catfood plan). The Rethugs know Obama is practically one of them. So, some compromise could have been reached.
But this wasn't about fiscal conservatism. It wasn't about the National Debt. Doing the right thing by the country is not the goal of the Partei. The past several months, leading up to the events of this week have been tactical moves by 87 House Representatives (and rightist interests, many very wealthy) to push a rightist and extreme social agenda upon the country which a majority of the American people do not want.
The overwhelming majority of Us reject the Tea Partei's goals. We don't want Social Security and Medicare cut. We don't want other social programs terminated. We don't want to continue subsidizing the playful lifestyles of the wealthiest Americans, simply because they are rich and deserve so much more, and the other 98% can live with less. We believe that a compromise should be fair, and that includes raising taxes on corporations and the top 2%; let them pay their fair share.
But, the last month of manuvering by Partei has been to take Speaker Bohener and Yertle the Turtle by the balls; within the GOP, its been one long, slow squeeze. And two days ago, the Speaker of the House had to give in -- putting a bill up for a House vote which reflected the Tea Partei's demands (some, laughable; in particular the one about a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution), and allowed for no possibility of compromise with Senate Democrats.
So, the Lumpen 23% of the country which believe everything Lard Boy and Mikey Wiener and Bill-O tell them can say yeah; that'll show the dirty hippies. But along with the assumed fiscal conservatism of the Tea Partei comes... other things, primarily intolerant and stupefyingly ignorant points of view.
If the Tea Partei minority feels Just Fine about stuffing their idea of the New Austerity down the throat of the country -- even if the country doesn't want it -- what's to stop the rising new power from doing so from, let's say, a 'faith-based' view, like Little Sarah's, or Grand Turtlebear Bachmann's?
What's to stop these persons from performing the same tactics next year, or in 2013; shutting down the government, threatening to blow the lid off the world's precariously balanced economies, just to demand the government enact legislation to achieve goals which The Majority Of The American People don't want?
Is that where we are? Will the tyranny of the minority become the way we're governed, now? This is the same kind of paralyzed, polarized, politics-of-the-extreme governments which occurred in Europe in the 1930's before... things became very unpleasant.
The Democrats in Congress will, of course, tut-tut and say how unfair and difficult it all is, before talking about 'bipartisanship' and 'compromise' -- and bending over, again. Gosh, they are so good at that now.
Meanwhile, the cliff is that way; just ahead.
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