The title is the modern Republican game plan in a nutshell: It doesn't have to be useful, helpful or advantageous to anyone (even ourselves) if it serves the purpose of keeping the Democrats from advancing things of aid, use and value to others.
More, the Republicans are fired up about this, and it's a simple execution: Stir the pot. Keep stirring. Stir faster. Splash tomato sauce all over the kitchen. When you run out, get another pot to stir. When you demolish the kitchen, get another kitchen to ruin. Don't wash. Don't repeat. (Too useful.) Just repeat.
The "pots" that the GOPers are stirring first and fastest are the battleground states - and they ARE treated as battles by our right-wing brethren. To the Republicans, a fence-sitting state is an outrage that must be sorted promptly. Thus, the swing states are set upon. All the resources of the national party and conservative affiliates are devoted to forcing one decision or the other: the complete capture of the state in question... or its effective destruction.
Stir. Stir the pot. Stir faster until nothing's left to stir. Then move on to the next state.
Consider the states where the Tea Wees are most agitated and active in terms of willfully harmful legislation. They can't harm the deep blue states - they lack the leverage. And they aren't upturning the deep red states because Republican think socialism is okay when they don't have to share it with Democrats.
Nope, it's the battlegrounds where the Republicans make war most loudly and proudly against the American people, because they figure either (a) they will win or (b) leave nothing worth winning for the Democrats to crow about.
Since it's all about winning for Republicans - total capture of the political and economic life of the country, or leaving nothing but plowed salt and scorched earth behind, they don't have to worry very much about things like accuracy, value even the long term political calculus of doing things like, oh, cutting Medicaid and Medicare when circa 70 percent of over-65 voters vote GOP these days.
Another huge issue is of course the issue of why Republican Women Voters exist at all, when to my thinking it seems the GOP is saying collectively, "You know, them Taliban have it figured out with regard to women-folk... if only they turned to Jesus."
Yet... even that kind of crazy... works, when your core base is always voting and you have the deep pockets to pump out propaganda that activates GOP leaners, sends Dem core constituencies into fits and compels Dem leaners to stay at home and keep their money in their pockets.
It's crazy, but it's true that crazy is working for the Republicans. And the scariest thing is they're not even pushing the envelope of how nuts they can get. There's a lot of further right to go and the Tea Wees want to "go there".
To their credit, the Republican party still sets the bar on organization and mobilization. Having decades of accumulated expertise, infrastructure and the deep pockets to purchase not just ads but build a complete conservative media industry from scratch wasn't crazy at all. It was a significant achievement and it did not happen overnight.
And what that focused, sustained effort obtained for the GOP was the freedom to be nuts in the modern day; they did the hard work of building something of value to themselves long ago. Now they just need to flick the on switch for their Political War Machine and watch it trample their enemies.
They don't even need to have it do sensible things ... I men, that's not what politics is for, for them.
For, them it's a battle. Always a battle.
Always an opportunity to stir the pot, stir it faster, then stir it some more.
Oh, yes: What to do about it? You can't give up on democracy. You can't give up on participation. If you feel sometimes, the price of keepin' on keepin' on is too burdensome emotionally or economically, look to places like Wisconsin and ask its teachers. Look to the people who lost their elected local governments in Michigan: ask them what despair was worth. Or in Florida, where hundreds of thousands more citizens MIGHT not get to vote in 2012.
Hope too costly for your heart? Despair's got a price that is far more dear.
Also, folks in fortunately deep blue states: Don't tut-tut Democrats in states that are currently under the Tea Party heel. They're the ones fighting the fight now that you MIGHT have to fight yourself if the battleground states fold.
Because the Republicans aren't going to stop stirring the pot. Crazy's working great for them so far.
Because people quietly giving in to it - out of frustration that no good, useful valuable thing can happen in its presence - is exactly why the GOPers are being "crazy". To make your energy zero. To break your heart for good.
Don't let them win that battleground , too.