From all accounts, Democrats in the House of Representatives are delirious over their defiance of decorum, their recent all-nighter on the House floor, where they pushed the envelope to the extent of shouting down House Speaker Paul Ryan, perhaps the most pummeled personage in the history of this blog. Well, I have a hard time…
Search Results for: Tea Party
Government Spending, the Climate Change of the Tea Party Right
To function properly in Washington, everyone needs a bogyman. One of the first things a newcomer learns in the nation’s capital is that the Chinese ideogram for “danger” also means “opportunity.” Whether this ubiquitous device exists anywhere outside the text for Motivational Speaking 101 is a moot point. What is not a moot point—what is…
Republicans to Tea Party: Remember what we said about immigration? Yeah, it was all bullshit.
The Republican Party Establishment, which has been kissing Tea Party ass for the past four years, is up on its hind legs and shouting again. All the “experts,” like Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol, agree: we need to learn to speak Spanish! Florida Senator Mario Rubio, whose name even sounds Spanish, is the self-anointed leader…
Why do the heathen rage? From Perot Party to Tea Party
Yes. As I’ve asked so many times in the past, why do the heathen rage? The Tea Party folks do have roots. Sarah Palin’s self-pitying tirades against the lamestream media could have been lifted, almost word for word, from George Wallace’s attacks on Yankee liberals, biggity Harvard professors looking down their noses (as they most…
The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party? Part II Part 2: Matthew Continetti and The Right
A few years ago, I wrote an extended piece bearing the title The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party?. Recently, in response to a couple of engaging (relatively) meas culpas—Matthew Continetti’s The Right The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism and Tim Miller’s Why We Did It—I began preparing an update. I originally planned to…
Shorter Yuval Levin: Just because the Republican Party’s right wing is acting like a bunch of nihilistic idiots doesn’t prove that they are a bunch of nihilistic idiots. At least, I hope it doesn’t.
Yeah, philosophical gent that he is, ole Yuval likes to take the long perspective on things, and after some hemming and hawing about what’s been going on in the House of Representatives, comes up with this conclusion: Even if the spoils of the speaker fight [i.e., the “reforms’ demanded by the far right] aren’t transformative,…
The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party? Part II Part 1: Tim Miller’s Why We Did It
A couple of years back, when, it seems, I was feeling particularly down in the mouth, I wrote an extended piece bearing the title The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party?. Recently, a couple of actual Republicans have written books asking themselves the same question, viz. Matthew Continetti (The Right The Hundred Year War for…
The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party?
We’re in such a mess these days, one can either bemoan that mess, or wonder how we got here. I feel a little helpless to be just bemoaning, and, as the situation changes from day to day, one is compelled to constantly update one’s bemoans, which in retrospect can begin to sound both repetitive and…
Republican senators explain: “You thought we were the party of the CONSTITUTION? No, we’re the party of PROSTITUTION! There’s a BIG difference!”
Damn straight there is. If either Mitt Romney or Susan Collins votes “here” when the final vote arrives, I’ll be grudgingly impressed. If either votes to convict, I’ll be stunned. Otherwise, I’m not paying much attention. To my mind, anyone who claimed to be “weighing the evidence” was simply pretending to be stupid. Trump’s grossness,…
The “Struggle” for the “Soul” of the Republican Party: When Vapid Met Vaporous
Unless you actually have a life, you may be aware of a “struggle” going on now for the “soul”, loosely speaking, of the Republican Party. In one corner you have Brink “Mr. Nice Guy” Lindsey, arguing in National Affairs for “Republicanism for Republicans” and in the other Tucker “Bow Tie/Blue Collar” Carlson, who moans that…