Now that the makeup and mindset of the "Party of no" has been fairly well dissected and summed up by the diarist Hunter, the only question is what do we do about it.
However, to find the answer, it might we worth looking back just a little to see how we got here.
Indeed, the question was already laid out in an essay by Bruce Shapiro in a reconsideration of William Rehnquist in 2004.
The reality is that the country has been in a constitutional crisis ever since Bush v. Gore, a crisis accelerated by the Bush Administration’s opportunistic response to September 11. What Bush and his team have understood so clearly is that the same fear of disorder and crime that powered Rehnquist’s career could be resuscitated under the guise of fighting terrorism, and with the same result: radically expanding the power of the executive branch generally and the imperial presidency in particular. What binds Bush and Rehnquist so closely is not anything that should properly be called conservative but an aggressive commitment to dismantling the federal government’s enforcement of civil rights and civil liberties while expanding the state’s power to police and punish.
I point all this out not to feel clever, and certainly not to wish an elderly cancer patient ill. Rather, Chief Justice Rehnquist’s brush with malignancy is a reminder of a Bush agenda that is older and deeper and more enduring than the alarms of September 11 or the agonizing catastrophes of Iraq. The question is not whether this election will provoke a constitutional crisis but whether it will resolve the crisis that has been brewing for years.
The answer to the question in 2004 was and continues to be 'no.' The crisis has only gotten worse. Why?
Perhaps it's because the new sheriff I referenced in 2008, when it seemed useful to preserve a record of Shapiro's evaluation, had not, in fact, arrived and my prediction
Ergo, the seven page letter the Obama campaign has delivered to Mukasey to demand that the fraudulent charges against ACORN be folded into the on-going investigation of the U.S. attorney firings, effectively puts Republicans on notice that things are going to be different from now on.
anti-socials:
There may be an ideological basis for obstructing the Democratic agenda, but it rests on a false premise–that the opposition party is supposed to check the three branches of government.
In any event, the current minority is simply being Anti-Social and that’s the tag they ought to wear.
The Party of No is really too hip a moniker.
What we've got is a gang of anti-socials that happens to have some ideological roots in what used to refer to itself quite proudly as the neo-conservative movement. Which prompted the question "Where did the neo-cons go wrong?" and the answer:
“Neocon” is an abbreviation of “new conservative” and conservatives, presumably, are directed by a desire to maintain the social traditions they value. But, the neocons actually haven’t demonstrated an ability to preserve much of anything. So, leaving the ‘e’ out of neo might make more sense. Indeed, the few steadfast remaining Republicans are widely recognized as the “party of no.”
Moreover, given that there’s no evidence of any effort to conserve by the ‘cons,’ it seems reasonable to suggest that what we’re really having to confront is a new generation of con-men, as in people who take others into their confidence only to deceive them. Or, in effect, to destroy confidence along with everything else that the theory of “creative destruction,” to which some claim to subscribe, justifies.
Was the economic collapse an accidental consequence of mistaken economic theory or was it part of the con to transfer the vast majority of the nation’s wealth into the hands of crooks? I mean, if people are committed to the proposition that destruction is a necessary prerequisite to success–that the resurrection is bound to be more splendid than what existed previously–what’s the rationale for conservation?
Does it make a difference if the economic collapse was planned?
If past is prologue, then the current explicit agenda to wreck the credit rating of the United States, strongly suggests that the economic crash just prior to the 2008 election was not a happenstance, either. Which means that the need for a new sheriff is even greater now than it was then. That candidate Obama seemed a whole lot bolder than President Obama is almost discouraging, or would be if it weren't for the fact that when there's evidence of malice, as there is in the willful destruction that's being visited on the nation, it's not a matter of courage, it's simply a matter of resisting a clear threat to life and limb.
That's probably why most predators don't prey on their own kind. The resistance is likely to be deadly. If the Democrats don't step up, it's very likely that the Tea Baggers will teach the party of greed what 'no' actually means. Nothing can save them from the Seven Deadly Sins.