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Republicans Are Losing, But Is the Tea Party Winning?

The GOP is losing; the Tea Party isn't

The Morning Joe Show with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist has established certain routines. The hosts and their circle of guests in this morning talk show on MSNBC each in their turn, tell a tale of woe for the Republican Party. They bad mouth it as a party of losers that hasn’t learned anything from its defeats. Round and round they go belittling the Party for its repeated election loses. Each one wonders what it will take to get through to the adults in the room that they are on the wrong path if they want to win in the United States today. How many election loses will it take to get to through to them before they wise up and chart a new course?

On a recent show, I witnessed some pushback to this daily denunciation … and from a Republican no less! He commented that these supposed losers think they are winning. Therein lies the tale. There is no constructive purpose in belittling the Republican Party for not being the Party of Lincoln, Reagan, Bush, and McCain, and then faulting it for not changing course. The Republican Party today is not the Party the host left, it is not the Party of Lincoln, Reagan, Bush, and McCain. It has no desire to be the Party of Lincoln, Reagan, Bush, and McCain. Therefore to judge the party on traditional Republican standards is a waste of time.

TEA PARTY/FREEDOM CAUCUS

The Tea Party now Freedom Caucus has been around since prior to the 2010 election. Then the combination of midterm election for the party out of power, the new census districts, and, Obamacare, the Tea Party exploded onto the national political arena. The Tea Party won bigtime at the state and federal level. These victories enabled it to carry forward into the 2020 census and to perpetuate voter suppression. There have been long term consequences to the 2010 victories that reverberate to this very day even with some rather strange Senate candidates in subsequent elections.

My expectation back then was that the Tea Party would form its own party and selected its own presidential candidate in 2012. In effect, it would become a third party feasting on the remains on the second party. I was wrong. Instead it remained within the Republican Party feasting on its carcass. It succeeded in forcing two Republican Speakers of the House to take early retirement. Now it has a third one tied up in knots even before he becomes the Speaker. Marjorie Taylor Greene vigorously supports Kevin McCarthy for Speaker because she knows she can dominate him. The Tea Party/Freedom Caucus is prepared to move forward aggressively in 2023 through its control of committees. It will launch attack after attack against the Democrats. So on what basis is it correct to say the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus is losing?

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

The Republican Party, however, continues to wither on vine. Its members retire because they are old and have had enough. Its members are primaried. Real Republicans have been bullied and cowed into submission. When Republicans do support bipartisan actions it often times is because they are retiring and can’t be punished.

It was bad enough that Real Republicans had to submit to every criminal act committed by the twice-impeached loser President.

It was bad enough that Real Republicans had to acquiesce to a failed insurrection.

Now the new mouthpiece for the Freedom Caucus has openly supported the January 6 insurrection. Her only objection to it is that it failed. If she and Steve Bannon, who have yet to testify under oath about it, had been in charge the results would have been different. No more pretense about Antifa. No more pretense about BLM. No more pretense about FBI plants and false flag operations. No more “normal tourist visit.” No more “legitimate political discourse.” The curtain has been pulled back. The truth has been revealed.

We want to cross the Rubicon. We want total war. We must be prepared to do battle in every arena. In the media. In the courtroom. At the ballot box. And in the streets (Gavin Wax, Young Republican).

This Party has not lost. If anything it is getting stronger within the Republican carcass. The proof is clear: Real Republicans do not denounce it. They remain silent. They acquiesce. Instead, the leaders of the Freedom Caucus are to be rewarded with positions of power in the new House.

THE DOUBLE CIVIL WAR

The Civil War so eagerly anticipated by the Freedom Caucus first will be fought within the Republican Party. Lines have already been drawn in the sand. The wrangling over the Speaker position is underway. Even with the Loser in-chief on the phones, getting to the magic 218 number remains problematic. This battling is merely a harbinger of things to come even if it is resolved.

The same applies to the debt limit. The emphatic “Hell, no!” from McCarthy is part of the political performance he needs to do to secure the votes that will put him over the top. He does not want to start his time in office with a Republican-initiated shut down of the government.

Again, all these maneuverings are even before the new Republican Speaker would take office.

THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN

Lost amidst all this discussion about the Speaker position, is the triumph of the Confederacy. LBJ famously predicted the Democratic loss of white southern voters following the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965). That prediction came to pass. Over the years, the Confederates migrated to the Republican Party.

But something has been lost in the focus on race. Confederates did not like damn Yankees telling them what to do. Confederates despised the Yankee elitists dictating to them how to live their lives. Those Confederate values live on with the Freedom Caucus today. That attitude may be seen in the derisive treatment of Anthony Fauci and the resistance to wearing masks. It attests that there was more to the opposition to abolition back during the Civil War.

Confederate confrontation with the Federal Government during the COVID crisis expresses the continuation of the Civil War fought under different means. We have already seen on January 6, the Confederate flag waved in the Capitol, an action not achieved in the Civil War. Now the Confederates and their allies are poised to take over control of one of the two Houses of government. Don’t tell them that they are losing and need to change.

The Morning Joe Show needs to stand back and examine the larger picture. The Republican Party they miss also was the Union Party. Lincoln, Reagan, Bush, and McCain were all Unionists. The Freedom Caucus despises all those who support the Union cause. Their heroes are those who fought for the Confederacy. They have not lost in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022. Quite the contrary. They stand on the brink of power in one House. They are gunning for reducing/eliminating programs that help all Americans and support those that only help real Americans. Better not to build a municipal swimming pool than to waste taxpayer money on one that even, you know, those people can use. So instead of continually reprimanding the Republican Party for being a Party of losers, one should step back and realize the South has risen again.

How Nancy Pelosi Helped Elect Donald Trump: A Tale of Two Women

Nancy Pelosi, August 18, 2011 (https://www.realclearpolitics.com)

Several years ago, Rachel Maddow, MSNBC, devoted the opening segment of her show to government shutdowns. She was interested to know why the federal government always seemed to be shut down, on the verge of a shutdown, or threatened with a shutdown. She traced the cause to a group of RHINO Representatives then called “Tea Party” and now called “Freedom Caucus.”

Her examination led her to the conclusion that these representatives came from districts where they did not have to worry about Democratic candidates. I do not recall if she used the word “gerrymander” in her analysis, but what she did was to compare the state vote totals for Representatives with the actual allocation of Representatives for the state. As best I can recall she used the three states of Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania for her data set. What she found in each case was that the number of Republicans elected was disproportionately higher than the statewide Republican vote. The result was the proliferation of these RHINOs who were rambunctious, disruptive, and uppity leading to government shutdowns.

Her analysis stopped there. Let’s examine what she omitted.

WHY DOES THE MORE REPUBLICAN A DISTRICT IS MEAN THE LESS THE REPRESENTATIVE ADMIRES LINCOLN?

Just because a district is primarily Republican in its demographics should not necessarily mean its representatives are people of malice who despise or do not admire Abraham Lincoln. How come the first Republican President and Mount Rushmore President is not a hero to the RHINOs from Republican districts? What about Teddy Roosevelt? What about Dwight D. Eisenhower? What about Ronald Reagan? Nancy Pelosi on the floor of the House recently quoted Reagan on immigration to deafening silence from Republicans. She demonstrated that Republicans have abandoned not just Lincoln but Reagan, too. After all, a Republican who could win in California is of no interest to Republicans today.

WHY ISN’T THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS UPPITY?

The Congressional Black Caucus is about equal in size to the RHINO Freedom Caucus. To the best of my knowledge, its members never worry about Republican Party opposition candidates. Their seats are as safe and secure as those of the RHINO Freedom Caucus. Members can hold them for decades and sometimes even bequeath them as a legacy. Maxine Waters may be colorful may she is not uppity like the RHINO Freedom Caucus. The Congressional Black Caucus is not in the business of shutting down the government even though it is just as well positioned numerically to do so as the RHINO Freedom Caucus.

WHAT ABOUT THE WHITE URBAN LIBERALS LIKE NANCY PELOSI?

Another group of elected representatives who never have to worry about opposition candidates are the urban white liberals like Nancy Pelosi herself. I am not familiar enough with Congressional politics to know how such representatives there are. Regardless of the exact number, one presumes there are enough of them from the major cities of the country to be a formidable presence. For example, my own suburban New York district is represented by Nita Lowey who has been in Congress forever, had no opponent in the 2018 election, and now through seniority and the Democratic takeover holds a powerful committee position in the new Congress. She is not uppity nor are her fellow white urban liberals.

2010 Elections

Maddow’s analysis was incomplete. It failed to show why this particular group of Representatives who do not have to worry about opposition candidates acts in a way entirely inconsistent with the way other similar groups of Representatives behave. Nor did it address the diminished status of Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Reagan in the Republican Party. Nor did address how it came to be that Republicans were in position after the 2010 census to draw such gerrymandered districts so that they could elect Congressional (and state) representatives far in excess of popular vote count.

The missing piece from her analysis was the impact of the 2010 elections, a wave election that substantially benefited the Republican Party. This redistricting did not happen in a vacuum. It occurred in response to other events. Yes, there had been problems with the economy. Yes, America had elected its first bi-racial President. And then there was healthcare.

Remember Nancy Pelosi and the passage of a healthcare? Now that she has returned for second stint as Speaker of House, her accomplishments the first time around are being touted. Foremost among her achievements as a great Speaker is the passage of healthcare legislation. When confronted with Republican obstacles to its passage, she adamantly declared almost eight years ago:

We’ll go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, we’ll go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we’ll parachute in but we’re going to get health care reform passed for the America people.

Like Churchill voicing the indomitable British will to never surrender, Pelosi exclaimed the Democrats would triumph no matter what wall the Republicans built to prevent them from reaching their goal.

It was at the moment when Pelosi became the poster-person for the condescending arrogant self-righteous elitists, a position she holds to this very day. There is in America a significant portion of the population that adheres to the motto “Don’t tread on me.” These people do not like being told what to do. It is relevant whether or not what they are being told to do is in their own interest. The guiding principle is that they are being told what to do and have no choice but to comply, to obey, to be treated as slaves.  Since colonial times, this segment of the American population has expressed its antipathy to condescending arrogant self-righteous elitists. They hate having no choice and that is what Pelosi told they had: no choice. Then came the elections. Payback.

I get home delivery of the New York Times. I read the paper with two hands, the way people are supposed to get the news.  That means about once every other month, there will be an op-ed piece by Paul Krugman on healthcare. He will praise what it has accomplished, note there is room for improvement, and mock the Republicans for being unable to even develop an alternative of their own despite all their whining and shouting. But what economist Krugman never does is to consider the political costs of healthcare.  He never considers what subsequently happened to the Democratic Party beginning in the 2010 election. While it is easy to blame deplorable white racists who fear losing white privilege, that also is an explanation that makes condescending arrogant self-righteous elitists feel good about themselves. Perhaps instead of telling Don’t-Tread-on-Me Americans what was going to be done to them, they might have started by asking the people what they wanted. Instead, like the Very Stable Genius, they already knew the answer and were ready to force it on people if necessary.

While there may not be a direct connection between Pelosi going over, under, around, and through the wall to prevent healthcare to the 2016 election, it is a major part of the story that helped worsen the divide among Americans that a skilled con artist could exploit. Somehow this spoiled billionaire with no sense of empathy or sympathy has convinced Don’t-Tread-on-Me Americans that he cares about them. Keep in mind though that the Queens boy from the wrong side of the river has his own genuine issues with the elitists from the right side of the river in Manhattan.

Ann Coulter

At the same time that Maddow was omitting all this from her analysis of the government shut down, Ann Coulter, the second woman, offered an alternative view. She expressed how proud she was of her “boys,” apparently not a racially offensive term when used by white people about white people. She exulted in their courage. As a result of their heroic actions, spending was cut and the budget was balanced. At least it was in that timeline. In our timeline, the practical results were non-existent. However, it did enable uppity, rambunctious RHINOs to feel empowered.

So here were are years later with yet another shutdown. In this instance, the shutdown was snatched from the jaws of cooperation. When Fox, Ann, Rush, and the leaders of the RHINO Freedom Caucus read the weeny President the riot act he quickly folded. What had been a professional wrestling arena campaign gimmick suddenly became a hole he was digging himself deeper into. The talking heads are right: whatever compromise should emerge to resolve the situation, the Republican base can be conned into thinking it is a victory. However that may not work with Fox, Ann, Rush, and the RHINO Freedom Caucus. They will be harder to con hence the hardening of the lines.

Now the shutdown ratchets up in intensity threatening to become a national emergency. It may come down to first there being enough Republican Senators to pass the budget legislation and second there being enough the override a veto as well. Come to think of it, that would require the same number of Republican Senators as to remove a President should he be impeached. There is a lot a stake here.

Maybe in the end, Pelosi will not only have helped to elect Trump, she and Ann will have helped to remove him.