This morning, in his rec-listed diary "The Myths That Are Killing Us," Alan Grayson calls the current GOP farce a "demolition derby." That metaphor works for me in terms of the primary race, on a number of levels. But what's happening more generally across the Teapublican party looks, to me, more like the frantic, panicked pace of an ideological shopping spree on Black Friday.
Come past the orange squiggly with me for some discussion, won't you?
In the past six months or so, we've had the following salvos (among many that I won't list here - but feel free to list them in comments) from a Teapublican party that is increasingly erratic, frantic, and grasping for anything that will keep them in power. From where I'm sitting, it almost looks like they all went to the Freakishly Reactionary Ideology Shopping Mall and have been running through the stores in full-out panic, raking random ideological positions willy-nilly off the shelves and into their carts, hoping that their political credit will stretch enough for them to take at least some of their proposals home.
From attacking women's health through attacks on Planned Parenthood and the new insurance requirements as well as the continual "personhood" bills popping up all over the red states, to the latest "he's not an American" attempt to discredit the President by denying the applicability of the 14th Amendment to Black and mixed-race citizens, through the recurring attempts to reverse the progress of history by re-criminalizing gays in the military at the state level and doing their level best to kill the unions, the manic panic of their attempts to turn back the clock really looks like a Black Friday shopping spree to find the perfect suit of ideological clothes to cover their nakedness.
And they are naked. Make no mistake. You see, this shopping spree (and demolition derby) are finally showing the true nature of the Teapublican Party:
Greed. Hate. Sexism. Homophobia. Racism. Fear. Entitlement. Disconnection. Utter cluelessness about the way the world works and what the people want.
Their true nature is showing, because their ideological Emperor (the idea of the Perfect Teapublican America) has no clothes. And more and more people are noticing it every day.
The truth is, the Teapublicans can't handle it. Their base is shrinking and dying off and their opposition is growing and aging into voting age every year (which means their problem will continue to get progressively worse - pun intended). As thereisnospoon predicted, this means they will eventually see an ideological shift back towards progress - 2008 was just the beginning, but it won't be the end. They are becoming more and more hysterical and delusional as they shriek louder and louder that they've found just the right suit for their Emperor to wear, whether that suit is racism, sexism, homophobia, austerity, lowering taxes on the rich, attacks on women, or any of a number of other ridiculous ideological positions. Hence the ideological shopping spree.
Their problem is, more and more people are not that stupid. Every home that gets repossessed. Every person who loses their job to cutbacks, closures, or the death of their union. Every student buried in debt that will never be paid off. Every drop in the Teapublican bucket is turning into a tsunami that will eventually wipe them and their ideology off the face of the country.
Like any shopping addict who shops to ignore reality, they're on this shopping spree to ignore theirs: they're losing. All their major candidates for President are too polarizing to too many of their constituents to be viable against Obama, and they know it. As a result, we're seeing an ever-faster race to the bottom as they scramble to find the Magic Conservative Outfit that will win voters, hearts and minds, and in the process they are alienating wide swathes of their constituency.
But as they frantically shop for the "winning look," as this congressman tries to strip women of their reproductive rights while that congressman tries to re-criminalize being gay and this other person files a lawsuit alleging that Obama can't be President because he's a "mulatto," they are showing their true, terrified, frantic, panicked faces. They are realizing that everyone sees their nakedness, that these petty emperors have no clothes. They are realizing that they have no way to dress up their true nature in a way that will be palatable to anyone except their core teabagger constituency. And they are realizing that everyone else is realizing it.
It's no wonder they're attacking every which way as if they're a wounded tiger in a trap. In some ways, they are. Whatever ability they had to be rational is long, long gone. Now they're just striking out at everyone who seems to be a threat - which is to say, everyone.
It's both beautiful and terrifying to watch. Pass the popcorn - we'll be here for a while yet, but their shopping spree is bankrupting them, and pretty soon they're going to figure it out.