Mike Lofgren worked in Congress for 28 years, the last 16 as a senior analyst on the House and Senate Budget committees. In his new book, Lofgren tells why Republicans are so over the edge -- and why some people still believe them.
Mike Lofgren was inside the Beltway for 28 years and saw firsthand what's happened to Washington. He has a new book out, "The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted," that examines how we got where we are.
One of his previous columns, "Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult," on Truthout, received over 3,500 likes on Facebook.
In that essay, he said a Republican staffer told him what the Republican strategy was in the Senate.
Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.
Which proves that the Tea Party isn't genuine, but just a gimmick to "come out a winner." But it's funny that that isn't the case at all. The Tea Baggers look like the fringe nuts they are. Unfortunately, those fringe nuts could be poised (hopefully not) to do more damage in the Senate next year.
In a new interview on Truthout, Lofgren also says Republicans are using a knowledge gap by the media to put over their agenda to further the rich and screw the middle class.
Since the GOP is loath to tell the public in straightforward terms what their economic agenda is, and the media are not exactly forcing the GOP's hand, and, finally, the people are operating in a knowledge deficit, Republicans respond by sleight of hand: "We're more American than that Kenyan socialist in the White House!" Or "The Obama administration is riddled with Muslim extremists." Or "Planned Parenthood is taxpayer-subsidized murder." Or "Obama wants to take away your guns." Even "Obama raised your taxes," when in fact he lowered them. Stuff that is not terribly persuasive to well-informed people, but a lot of people are surprisingly ill-informed, and very few institutions - the corporate media least of all - have any interest in their being well-informed.
And while he says it's hard to say things like that "with a straight face," the GOP (and/or Fox News) is filled with "true believers" who will say anything for the benefit of the base.
Lofgren says,
Despite the carnival aspect of American politics, I actually credit Michele Bachmann, Allen West, Louie Gohmert, and the rest of them, with being sincere. They really believe the drivel they are saying, and their groping and inarticulate sincerity connects with a certain populist and anti-intellectual strain in the American people that has been evident since the days of de Tocqueville.
He says the solution to the problems in Congress is easy.
Nothing will be solved in Congress until we get the money out of politics. And by that I mean all private money. Federally funded campaigns will undoubtedly create new problems, but can they be remotely as bad as the auctioning of candidates that occurs today?
I think it's more than that. The money issue will help, but that won't change the fact that some people will believe anything that talk radio tells them.
Still, from the interview and the essay, Lofgren has a firm grip on what's gone wrong.
Note: I have no connection with this book.