“There is something dangerous about orthodoxy
in the hands of a true believer”
----From “The Quotations of Chairman Joe”
John
Boehner has resigned from the House of Representatives and in so doing relinquishing
his post as ‘Weeper of the House”. In
his place the scum have elevated Congressman Paul Ryan, otherwise known as little
Eddie Munster, to the position of presiding officer of the United States House
of Representatives and 3rd in line to the Presidency.
Boehner
(pronounced boner) by all accounts had a miserable time of it, trying as he did
to weave a line between the forces of responsible governance and the
newly-minted base of the Rescumlican party for which political responsibility
and good governance are anathema. It
proved a treacherous path indeed, a Faustian bargain, reducing a once
promising leader to a mere weeping caricature.
The
crazies, it would appear, are emerging from the woodwork. This is not, however,
a recent phenomenon, nor should we understand it as a product of purely
Republican malignancy. The movement that
has masticated into what we now refer to as the ‘teabagger’ movement began a
long time ago, traceable originally to the disciples of Ayn Rand and the
followers of Barry Goldwater. But they,
alas, were few and full of labor. What
gave the movement real impetus was the Supreme Court Decision in Roe v Wade
In
which the court for the first time declared a zone of personal privacy
extending to reproductive rights. This
mobilized the religious fundamentalists who, seeing abortion as an abomination,
mobilized in large enough numbers to become the foot soldiers of an emerging
political movement.
The
principle culprit, the man who led them unto the national stage, was none other
than Jimmy Carter. It was Carter who,
through the albeit temporary alliance of the Black and White southern Baptist
conventions, found in these ‘foot soldiers’ a ready army of campaign workers
ready to do the tedious and mundane tasks necessary to launch and win a
national political campaign. Winning the
presidential election of 1976 with their support, Carter gave legitimacy to
what was heretofore a largely marginalized and silent segment of the
electorate.
But,
alas, what was to become known as the ‘Religious Right’ could find no home in
the party of Ted Kennedy, Bela Abzug, and Eleanor Smeal. (1) By 1980 American religious ‘fundamentalism’
had transformed itself from a mere adjunct in support of a single issue, and of
a particular presidential candidate, into a ‘movement’. In the hands of Jerry Falwell, and dubbing
itself the ‘Moral Majority’, Christian Fundamentalism emerged as a national
political ‘movement’, moving as it did beyond not only single-issue politics
but to the conservative political ‘right’, embracing Ronald Reagan and the
politics of unfettered capitalist exploitation.
In the hands of these practitioners it was held, with a straight face,
that it was the will of the Lord that not only should the social safety net be
shredded but that personal and capital gains taxes be cut in half.
Over
the ensuing decades it only got worse.
As the Republican party of our forefathers transformed itself into the
Rescumlican party of today it opened its doors and embraced with wholesale enthusiasm
the likes of the heretofore banned John Birch Society, crypto-fascists, not a
few remnants of the Ku Klux Klan and Southern racists, but more recently the
corporate-sponsored Teabaggers, libertarians, and other eternal
malcontents. It has become, by degrees,
a reincarnation of the old 19th century ‘Know-Nothing’ Party,
denying science and climate change, evolution, and universally observable fact.
The
problem is that, given the religious veneer over which this caldron of intolerance
and ignorance is presently covered, the “Political Right” or, as I prefer, the “
Idiot Wrong” has not only gone over to the ‘dark side’, but in so doing has exhibited such a marked degree of belligerence and intolerance as to threaten the very concept of republican governance.
Idiot Wrong” has not only gone over to the ‘dark side’, but in so doing has exhibited such a marked degree of belligerence and intolerance as to threaten the very concept of republican governance.
There
is something about conducting oneself in the public square with the firm
conviction that one has god on one’s side.
If one is convinced that through political action one is working god’s
will then compromise becomes damn near impossible. If one assumes that good, however ill-defined
must rest in one’s own hands and must, in the end, prevail then all other
centers of political power are either suspect, evil, or illegitimate. A certain self-righteousness emerged on the
political wrong manifesting itself as a continuous stream of righteous
proclamations, political obstructions and, when the electorate had the temerity
to turn them out of office, temper tantrums.
Consider the record in recent years of conservative behavior:
* April 2011: House Republicans threaten a government shutdown unless
Democrats accept GOP demands on spending cuts.
* July 2011:
Republicans create the first-ever debt-ceiling crisis, threatening to default
on the nation’s debts unless Democrats accept GOP demands on spending cuts.
* September 2011:
Republicans threaten another shutdown.
* April 2012:
Republicans threaten another shutdown.
* December 2012:
Republicans spend months refusing to negotiate in the lead up to the so-called
“fiscal cliff.”
* January 2013:
Republicans raise the specter of another debt-ceiling crisis.
* September 2013:
Republicans threaten another shutdown.
* October 2013:
Republicans actually shut down the government.
* February 2014:
Republicans raise the specter of another debt-ceiling crisis.
* December 2014:
Republicans threaten another shutdown.
* February 2015:
Republicans threaten a Department of Homeland Security shutdown.
* September 2015:
Republicans threaten another shutdown [over Planned Parenthood]. (2)
Make
no mistake about it. When one is guided
by the ‘light’; when one sees ones actions in the political arena to be a
manifestation of the ‘will of god’, then there is small room for political
debate and no tolerance for political opposition. Accordingly, one sets about the business of
restricting the franchise (voter ID, Gerrymandering, restricting access to
polling places), overturning elections (Bush v. Gore, the mess in Ohio in
2004), and vilifying the political opposition (Faux News, Glenn Beck, Ann
Coulter et. al.) By these means the ‘light
of the world’ has been, by degrees, transformed into a political abyss, a
cauldron of darkness. Christ, it is now earnestly
held, was a confirmed Capitalist, nearly two millennium before the advent of
Capitalism. Facts? What are mere facts in the hands of a ‘true
believer’?
The
Faustian bargain that Boehner forged with the forces of darkness has, at last
come undone. It remains to be seen, now
that he is free of the constraints of power, what his commentaries will be on
the state of our union but others, former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
among them, have vented their frustration at the intolerance and ignorance
boiling on the political surface of the political cauldron. A veritable witch’s brew, balking at the
elevation of little Eddie Munster, protesting that even he was not ‘conservative
enough’ to lead this rabble. Ideological
purity has its limitations, and its price.
____
1. Ted Kennedy is well known. Bella Abzug was a renowned liberal congresswoman
from New York City and avid supporter of reproductive rights. Eleanor Smeal was chair of the National
Organization of Women, also a strong supporter of Roe V. Wade.
3. See Hoffer, Eric. “The True Believer” Perennial Library, Harper and Row Publishers, New York. 1951. 160 pages.
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