The destruction of the Phoenix

The destruction of the Phoenix

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115134/gop-death-watch-final-days-republican-party

This article is discussing the destruction of the Republican Party from the viewpoint of the GOP leadership. The destruction is driven from the right by grass roots organizations. It may well be the death of get along go along business as usual, but break out the marshmallows, there is a brighter side. The is a energized base ready to recreate the party. Jefferson said that the country is not a democracy of all people, but of the people who participate. We are gaining participants.

on specific issues: " DeLay took ethical end-runs " is a lie now proven to be so in court. This is the Democratic politics of personal destruction. A partisan prosecutor disobeyed his oath of office to make a political vendetta against an effective Republican. This is like the IRS persecutions of individual republicans. This overreach is what is fueling the ground roots backlash, of both democrats and republicans with a fair number of independents. We are as mad as hell and won't take any more.

"What has happened over the last two months, leading to the shutdown, and political paralysis in Washington, is the result of deeper factors " One factor is that the view that a partial paralysis of the federal government is a bad thing is not shared universally. The federal government is the cause of not the solution to many bad things. The reason the shutdown is necessary is to save the pork. If identified beneficial programs were separately funded, than all the others would be exposed as non beneficial. We can't have that, say our masters in Washington.

"Since the late 1960s, America has seen the growth of what the late Donald Warren in a 1976 book The Radical Center called "middle American radicalism." It's anti-establishment, anti-Washington, anti-big business and anti-labor; it's pro-free market. It's also prone to scapegoating immigrants and minorities. It's a species of right-wing populism. It ebbed during the Reagan years, but began to emerge again under the patrician George H.W. Bush and found expression in support for Ross Perot and for Pat Buchanan with his "peasants with pitchforks." And it undergirded the Republican takeovers of Congress in 1994. It ebbed during George W. Bush's war on terror, but has re-emerged with a vengeance in the wake of the Great Recession, Obama's election and expansion of government, and continuing economic stagnation." Surprisingly I agree completely. But I think it is a good thing. Middle America is by definition "Normal". The radicalism is on the other side. The DC masters have grown too big for their britches. It is time to take them down