Yes, team of Saturday progressives, they planned the shutdown and debt ceiling crisis. Here's the first call for a Federal default -- Jim DeMint issuing marching orders at CPAC 2013.
The date is March15th, 2013. As president-elect at Heritage, Jim DeMint lays out the rush over the cliff. Teabaggers push a hoax that they're defending the future of the country, where it's more to the point that the baggers are authoritarians who are willing to follow anybody playing leader to do damn near anything.
Full Text of Declaration of War for Lemming Nation
If you want to listen to it on YouTube skip to 1:10:00 for the intro:
Priorities for Movement Conservatives:
-- "We cannot give up on repealing Obamacare"
-- No amnesty or route to citizenship for non-citizens who came in outside the system
-- Balance the budget within 10 years. Or don't pass the debt ceiling increase immediately
-- "Stand up for marriage" by denying it to gays
Ain't that a hoot. Close to recommending head-butting and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy as a hobby. ("You can be the next Mike Webster !") Key section of the transcript -- the section glorifying political self-harm -- below the orange muffin:
Losing is conquest, getting your teeth knocked out is a victory.
...a group of downcast conservative leaders here in Washington asked me to speak to them about the future of the conservative movement. They wanted to know what conservatives should do. My answer was simple: get up, spit out a few teeth, wipe the blood off your lip and get back in the fight.
Our situation is a lot like the boxer who had been knocked down multiple times in the third round, he was bloodied and could barely pull himself off the canvas before the referee counted him out. He was about to get knocked down again when he was saved by the bell. He stumbled to his corner and collapsed on his stool. Then his manager whispered in his ear, “You’ve got him right where you want him.”
Tonight, you are the boxer and I am the manager. ... To understand where we are as a movement and our path forward, we must remember that there is a distinction between the Republican Party and the conservative movement. National Republican leaders have not advanced a conservative agenda for almost 20 years.
Is this not an apocryphal rant ??? The stuff of End of Day zealotry?
The item-level lies astonish:
-- Ordinary elected Republicans are not conservatives
-- The national Republican Party rejected/rejects the Tea Party
-- Getting bloodied and losing the fight doesn't matter
-- "Spit out a few teeth" is an acceptable political result
Delusions prevail. In practice they are preferred to pragmatic evaluations of problems. For DeMint his view of democracy puts it below the status of propaganda mills. "Promotion" from the Senate to lead Heritage Foundation ???
Well, O.K. He believes it.
The policy priorities went only to DeMint's high points:
-- "We cannot give up on repealing Obamacare"
-- No amnesty or route to citizenship for non-citizens who came in outside the system
-- Balance the budget within 10 years. Or don't pass the debt ceiling increase
-- "Stand up for marriage" by denying it to gays
Ain't that a hoot. DeMint thinks these four positions are going to be viable going forward in America and they believe him. This is supposed to form a practical baseline for building a political party. And the CPAC audience claps loudly.
Plainly getting conservatives beaten senseless with ideological play-acting is A.O.K. I had no idea the Tea Party leaders were so far off base.
That's what they think. We got no problem with them heading over the cliff.