Yesterday I posted about a Chuck Todd report on the NBC Nightly News broadcast that broke through the false equivalence barrier to point the finger at a select group of Republican tea partiers in the House as the reason for the government shut down. A Ryan Lizza New Yorker article looks to have been the inspiration for the piece.
Since that broadcast, there is beginning to be a growing acknowledgment in the media that it is increasingly difficult to blame both sides as being equally responsible for the mess - although they keep talking about gridlock and seeking some kind of compromise when what we're really dealing with here is a ransom demand from a bunch of political vandals. (NPR looks at the Republican disarray here, while also looking at Democratic unity behind a President Obama for once naming names...)
If the rest of the media wants to get up to speed on the crazies currently holding our government hostage and celebrating its shut down, they could do worse than check in with Charles P. Pierce over at Esquire. Pierce has been on the case for a while - Idiot America ought to be must-reading for the clueless members of the Fifth Estate, the Very Serious People, and the Villagers.
With the departure of Michele Bachmann from Congress, Pierce has been running a semi-regular feature in which he has been reviewing the "pack of possible successors to Michele Bachmann as Royal Regent of the Crazy People. (Louie Gohmert is, of course, emperor for life.)" He had an overall blanket summary of them and the rocks they crawled out from under yesterday. ("In the year of our Lord 2010, the voters of the United States elected the worst Congress in the history of the Republic.")
Today Pierce has assembled a Rogue's Gallery of some of the more notable members of the clan.
Representative Vicky Hartzler of Missouri
"Among other things, Vicky Hartzler apparently believes that the heathen Chinese are spying on us through our toasters."
Representative Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma
"...He earlier had enlivened constitutional debate by announcing that, no matter what John Roberts thinks, the Supreme Court doesn't get to decide what's constitutional and what's not."
A Three-Fer with Rand Paul, Tom McClintock, and Steve Stockman
Definitely worth reading, if only for the Molly Ivins quote (more on that below)
Representative Steve Fincher of Tennessee
"We're always on the lookout for bright new scriptural scholars, and by god, you should pardon the expression, we've found one in Congressman Fincher, who decided that the poor people on food stamps need to be banged around by the Bible a little."
There are 12 portraits in the gallery - read 'em all and marvel at one statistic Pierce keeps bringing up: the margin by which they won the elections that got them in Congress. A big reason these people are not worried about facing any heat in their districts is because of the GOP control of state legislatures that allowed them to draw up district lines that made them bullet-proof against Democrats. Which in turn leads to two problems.
As is being noted (belatedly) by the rest of the press, the Republican Party has effectively created a bunch of monsters who answer to no masters except the little birds tweeting in the heads of they and their constituents, and whichever billionaires feel like buying some Congress Critters. The party really has nothing to threaten these people with, to rein them in. Even Tom Friedman has noticed, picking up on something Charlie Cook spelled out recently:
“Between 2000 and 2010, the non-Hispanic white share of the population fell from 69 percent to 64 percent,” wrote Cook. “But after the post-census redistricting and the 2012 elections, the non-Hispanic white share of the average Republican House district jumped from 73 percent to 75 percent, and the average Democratic House district declined from 52 percent white to 51 percent white. In other words, while the country continues to grow more racially diverse, the average Republican district continues to get even whiter.”
The other problem is just who they so faithfully represent. If you have a strong stomach,
Pierce has picked up on a Public Policy Polling report the looks at the kind of views these people hold:
Overall, 36% of Americans and 62% of Republicans believe that the Obama Administration is secretly trying to take everyone's guns away; just 14% of Democrats believe the same. One in four Americans say that President Obama is secretly trying to figure out a way to stay in office beyond 2017 - including almost half of Republicans (44%). And 26% of Americans think that Muslims are covertly implementing Sharia Law in American court systems, while 55% don't think so and another 19% aren't sure. There's a huge partisan breakdown on this one as well - 42% of Republicans fear Sharia Law making its way into America's courts while just 12% of Democrats agree.
Those who still think reaching across the aisle and finding common ground is possible across these gulfs are true disciples of
Dr. Pangloss.
For those who are wondering what happened to land us in this place, Pierce pulls no punches:
"...The true hell of it, though, is that you could see this coming down through the years, all the way from Ronald Reagan's First Inaugural Address in which government "was" the problem, through Bill Clinton's ameliorative nonsense about the era of big government being "over," through the attempts to make a charlatan like Newt Gingrich into a scholar and an ambitious hack like Paul Ryan into a budget genius, and through all the endless attempts to find "common ground" and a "Third Way." Ultimately, as we all wrapped ourselves in good intentions, a prion disease was eating away at the country's higher functions. One of the ways you can acquire a prion disease is to eat right out of its skull the brains of an infected monkey. We are now seeing the country reeling and jabbering from the effects of the prion disease, but it was during the time of Reagan that the country ate the monkey brains."
This is where Reagan's "Morning in America" has inevitably led us - to a place where know-nothing bible thumpers, racists, sanctimonious hypocrites, and grifters on the make can bring government of, by, and for the people to a screeching halt while they demand their blood sacrifice - and they can feel good about it.
Oh, and about that Molly Ivins quote:
In several now-crowded races, no one is likely to get 50-percent-plus-1. The run-offs are scheduled for Dec. 10, which gives the D's the willies because it's a set-up for the Christian Coalition. The average voter figures he did his duty in November. Who holds elections in December? Who thinks about voting during the Christmas shopping bustle? Passionate ideologues, that's who.
That's how we got Rep. Steve Stockman, our proudest contribution to the national Knot-Head Quotient, in the first place. Normal voters stayed home, the Christian right and its disciplined troops turned out in force, and whammo, we sent a hopeless dingbat off to Congress. I'm not saying that all candidates supported by the Christian right are hopeless dingbats: Stockman is special.
For those of you who may have forgotten, Stockman is the glorious gun nut, militia supporter and Polluters' Best Friend who is facing a complaint to the Federal Election Commission from the 1994 campaign and will almost surely draw another this time. In '94, he took $80,000 from the Suarez Corp. of Ohio, which was out to get incumbent Jack Brooks.
Stockman, according to The Beaumont Enterprise and the Houston Chronicle, lied on his resume in '92 about being an accountant, lied about having worked for IBM, lied about being a graduate of the University of Houston-Clear Lake (he did later graduate) and lied about being a computer consultant at the school.
See, that's the thing. It's not enough to take the White House. Hell - it's not enough to take Congress either. It goes all the way back to the states, where district lines are drawn. It goes all the way back to the local races - the farm clubs where fledgling politicians get their first try-outs. (Not counting the super-rich who decide to buy their way in...) It goes all the way back to primaries, where wheat
should get separated from chaff - but doesn't if the only voter turn out is motivated crazies.
The world is made by the people who show up for the job.