Visual Source: Newseum
"Look! The Emperor has no clothes!"
By now, you've likely seen David Brooks' column on House Republicans being extremist and fanatical (and see Hunter's and litho's pieces from yesterday.)
Over the past week, Democrats have stopped making concessions. They are coming to the conclusion that if the Republicans are fanatics then they better be fanatics, too.
The struggles of the next few weeks are about what sort of party the G.O.P. is — a normal conservative party or an odd protest movement that has separated itself from normal governance, the normal rules of evidence and the ancient habits of our nation.
If the debt ceiling talks fail, independents voters will see that Democrats were willing to compromise but Republicans were not. If responsible Republicans don’t take control, independents will conclude that Republican fanaticism caused this default. They will conclude that Republicans are not fit to govern.
And they will be right.
Some reaction:
Ezra Klein:
But there's little evidence, at least as of yet, that Republicans are going to take the deal -- or even that they can take the deal. That raises the question of whether they've gotten here by being savvy, tough negotiators, or whether the reason they keep saying "no" is that they've lost the ability to say "yes." As David Brooks writes today...
Greg Dworkin (that's me):
While I wouldn't describe it as having the upper hand, Obama is forcing the Republicans to live with their extremism, no matter how whacky it appears to the rest of the country. It's gotten to the point where even conservative columnist David Brooks is forced to concede the facts. He writes...
He is correct, of course, though I suspect it pains him to admit it (why else wait until now, when it's been obvious for months?)
Politico:
David Brooks, the New York Times scribe known as liberals’ favorite conservative, got no love from bloggers on the right Tuesday after penning a column trashing the tea party movement and calling on congressional Republicans to accept a small tax increase.
Conor Friedersdorf:
Everybody is talking about the latest David Brooks column, "The Mother of All No Brainers." A scathing attack on the GOP for its refusal to cut a deal on the debt ceiling, it's been called "remarkable" by political scientist Jonathan Bernstein, who says it's a big deal for the columnist to criticize fellow Republicans so harshly. Megan McArdle concurred with its contention that revenue increases are a necessary part of any bipartisan agreement to avoid catastrophic default. Tim Carney of The Washington Examiner says it's based on the false premise that Democrats are offering entitlement cuts in exchange for merely eliminating tax credits -- they're after increases in income tax rates too, he insists. Perhaps most notably, David Frum calls the column "a manifesto for our times," after explaining that "The Obama program can (and in large measure should) be repealed," but that default on debts "is not an acceptable tool of politics."
The column and the reactions to it are significant partly because one faction on the right, the establishment moderates, are sending a signal to Tea Party candidates and their supporters. They're saying, "We want you to win this game of chicken -- but whereas a faction on the right would rather crash than be first to swerve, that isn't the way we feel, and we'll blame you if there's an accident."
So what do you do when the guy playing chicken has a death wish? Friedersdorf adds:
Better to address the fundamental problem: the Republican Party has failed to persuade the American people that the small government vision it claims to favor is the right way forward. The failure spans many decades. In fact, almost every pathology on the right is explained partly by the refusal to acknowledge this, and thus the inability to either find a remedy or to adopt an alternative vision of conservatism.
Won't happen. When you got nothing, you go with the already printed posters in the attic. Elect Herbert Hoover.
Harold Meyerson:
When zeal runs amok, the sense of proportion suffers. Today’s Republicans remind me of some leaders of the American Communist Party whom I got to know decades ago, after they’d left the fold. “We believed in the party line, in its infallibility, so completely,” one ex-commie told me, “that we’d forget the larger strategy for the momentary tactic.” So it was with Communists of yore; so it is with Republicans today.
Much more of this, and it will soon be be safe to admit on cable TV that Republicans are nutcases.