The Radicalization Of The Republican Party: Seven Years Late, Media Elites Finally Acknowledge GOP’s Radical Ways
Now they tell us the Republican Party is to blame? That the Obama years haven’t been gummed up by Both Sides Are To Blame obstruction?
The truth is, anyone with clear vision recognized a long time ago that the GOP has transformed itself since 2009 into an increasingly radical political party, one built on complete and total obstruction. It’s a party designed to make governing difficult, if not impossible, and one that plotted seven years ago to shred decades of Beltway protocol and oppose every inch of Obama’s two terms. (“If he was for it, we had to be against it,” former Republican Ohio Sen. George Voinovich once explained.)
And for some of us, it didn’t take Donald Trump’s careening campaign to confirm the destructive state of the GOP. But if it’s the Trump circus that finally opens some pundits’ eyes, so be it.
Recently, Dan Balz, the senior political writer for the Washington Post, seemed to do just that while surveying the unfolding GOP wreckage as the party splinters over Trump’s rise. Balz specifically noted that four years ago political scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein examined the breakdown in American politics and zeroed in their blame squarely on Republicans.
“They were ahead of others in describing the underlying causes of polarization as asymmetrical, with the Republican Party — in particular its most hard-line faction — as deserving of far more of the blame for the breakdown in governing,” Balz acknowledged.
“We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional,” Mann and Ornstein wrote in The Washington Post in 2012. “In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.”
They continued:
The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
Tough stuff.
And what was the Beltway media’s response when Ornstein and Mann squarely blamed Republicans during an election year for purposefully making governing impossible? Media elites suddenly lost Mann and Ornstein’s number, as the duo’s television appearances and calls for quotes quickly dried up. So did much of the media’s interest in Mann and Ornstein’s prescient book.
“This was far too much for the mainstream press,” noted New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen. “They couldn’t assimilate what Mann and Ornstein said AND maintain routines and assumptions that posited a rough symmetry between the two parties. (‘Both sides do it.’) It was too much dissonance. Too much wreckage. So they pushed it away.”
For anyone who still harbors the naïve notion that the political debates staged by the Beltway press represent freewheeling discussions where anything goes, the Mann/Ornstein episode helped shed some light on the fact that certain topics and analysis remain off limits for public debate for years — even topics that are accurate, fair and essential to understanding our government’s current dysfunction.
Mann and Ornstein stepped forward to accurately describe what was happening to the Republican Party and detailed the calamitous effect it had on our democracy, and the mainstream media turned away.
So committed was the pundit class to maintaining its safe narrative about “bipartisan gridlock” and Obama’s puzzling inability to find “middle ground” with Republicans (i.e. why doesn’t he just schmooze more?), the press was willing to ignore Mann and Ornstein’s solid, scholarly research in order to wish the problem away.
Quite predictably, that problem has only worsened since 2012, which is what Mann and Ornstein address in their latest offering, “It’s Even Worse Than It Was.”
“It is the radicalization of the Republican party,” they recently wrote, “that has been the most significant and consequential change in American politics in recent decades.”
“The radicalization of the Republican party” — talk about the topic the Beltway press simply doesn’t want to dwell on, let alone acknowledge. Instead, the press has clung to its preferred narrative about how the GOP is filled with honest brokers who are waiting to work in good faith with the White House. Eager to maintain a political symmetry in which both sides are responsible for sparking conflict (i.e. center-right Republicans vs. center-left Democrats), the press effectively gave Republicans a pass and pretended their radical, obstructionist ways represented normal partisan pursuits. (They didn’t.)
Today’s Republican Party is acting in a way that defies all historic norms. We saw it with the GOP’s gun law obstruction, the Violence Against Women Act obstruction, the sequester obstruction, Supreme Court obstruction, minimum wage obstruction, 9/11 first responder obstruction, government shutdown obstruction, immigration reform obstruction, Chuck Hagel’s confirmation obstruction, Susan Rice secretary of state obstruction, paid leave obstruction, Hurricane Sandy emergency relief obstruction, the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act obstruction, and the consistent obstruction of judicial nominees.
The 2014 obstruction of the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act was especially galling, as a single Republican senator blocked a vote on the crucial veterans bill.
At the time of the bill’s blockade, Media Matters noted that there was virtually no coverage of the radical obstructionism on CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC or PBS, as well as news blackouts in the nation’s six largest newspapers: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, The Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times, The Denver Post, and Chicago Tribune
In other words, the GOP’s radical brand of obstructionism not only doesn’t get highlighted as something notable, radical, and dangerous; it’s often met with a collective shrug as the press pretends these kind of nonstop impediments are commonplace.
As Obama works his way through his final year in office, at least pundits like Balz are highlighting that Mann and Ornstein (and yes, Media Matters) were right about the GOP and the asymmetrical blame the party deserves for trying to wreck our functioning government.
It’s never too late for truth telling.
By: Eric Boehlert, Media Matters For America, March 29, 2016
“Trump’s Eerie Echoes Of The Ayatollah Khomeini”: We’re In A National Stupor, Drunk On Anger, Deaf And Blind To The Truth
For weeks, Donald Trump’s words “Win, win, win! We’re gonna win so much you’re gonna get bored with winning!” had been swirling in my head. They had become a rhetorical riddle my mind would not quit turning over. The eyes, stunned by what had all the trappings of a debut, proved easier to fool. But the ears suspected an encore performance they had heard before—the repetitive speech, the stunted and imperfect sentences where eloquence had been expected. Both in construct and theme, in the promise to deliver the undeliverable, for inherent to the nature of winning is the notion of exclusivity, the necessary absence of collectivity, Trump’s voice had a familiar echo.
Then a friend forwarded a clip of an archival link from February 1979. It was a short interview the late ABC News anchorman, Peter Jennings, had conducted with the leader of the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini. They were aboard an Air France flight that was taking the leader to Tehran, where delirious millions had lined the streets to welcome him after 14 years in exile.
The Ayatollah who had brought the pious and the secular together was billed as the ultimate trifecta—at once a Shiite saint (an imam, a position to which he was elevated upon landing), the local equivalent of Mahatma Gandhi for opposing the monarchy, and the most visible heir to the lyrical tradition which had produced Rumi and Omar Khayyam.
Taking my lead from the nation, I was ripe to fall in love with the leader despite all that was unlovable about him—the dark robe, the unruly gray beard, the ascetic eyebrows that never parted. Still, glued to the television, I was yearning to hear what that homebound repository of public hope had to say.
“Please kindly tell us,” asked Peter Jennings, “how you feel about your return to Iran?”
“Nothing!” said our turbaned Odysseus.
The suave translator, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, hailed as “one of his own” by the very imam who ordered his execution a few years later, turned “nothing” into “no comment” for the camera.
Jennings persisted: “Is he sad, happy?”
Again, no comment!
“Nothing!” should have alarmed everyone. That unfeeling answer foretold the unfeeling man who thereafter proved capable of carrying out some of the most heartless acts in modern Iran. The Ayatollah could not have been more forthcoming. The trouble was that we, Iranians, were in a national stupor, drunk on anger, deaf and blind to the truth even as it marched across our television screens and brazenly spoke to us. That anger led to a collective ecstasy whose tide Iranians rode into a historic deception.
Hours after landing, the Ayatollah gave his first speech in Tehran’s major cemetery, of all places. His choice of a venue also foreshadowed the decimation that would follow. But our intoxication would not yield to thinking, nor lift by reason.
There was no trace of Rumi in that speech. If anything, Rumi was turning in his grave hearing the Persian syntax so wildly violated. That day, the Ayatollah promised: “We will build homes. But don’t be satisfied with just that. We will make water and electricity free for the poor. We will make public transportation free for the poor. But don’t be satisfied with just that. … We will build this world, and the after-life.”
He also promised to (38 years later I still cringe) “whack the government in the mouth.” In subsequent speeches, he dubbed the United States the Great Satan and put forth his foreign policy agenda for dealing with the world’s greatest power: “It [America] can’t do a damn thing!” That belligerent gesture brought Iran to a nadir in its diplomatic history, to the notorious hostage crisis of 1979.
The heedless students who scaled the walls of the U.S. compound that November have since regretted their act, for they learned that wrecking relations takes only hours, while building them takes decades.
The protesters who chant “build that wall” at rallies throughout America are bound for a similar lesson.
For the same reasons the Ayatollah openly detested the educated, Mr. Trump loves the uneducated. Needless to say that neither public transportation, nor water and electricity ever became free for any Iranian, just in the same way that all Americans are unlikely to turn into winners. Americans often ask why Iranians, who seem to be so far above their regime, do not revolt to overthrow that regime. The answer, in great part, is that the hangover from the previous one gone so awry still lingers.
A few years ago, I swore allegiance to the flag of the United States and promised to protect it against any threats. I see one now. Therefore, this essay.
By: Roya Hakakian, The Daily Beast, March 29, 2016
“Bernie Sanders’s Superdelegate Hypocrisy”: What Are Sanders’s Real Metrics For Political Success?
For months, superdelegates, or unelected representatives of the Democratic Party who have votes at the nominating convention, have loomed large as a force in the presidential primary. Hillary Clinton has dominated Bernie Sanders in “committed” superdelegates (though they can always change their vote), and Sanders and his supporters are vocal about the uphill battle they’ve faced as a result of the Democratic establishment’s pro-Clinton bias.
Superdelegates aren’t small-d “democratic.” They aren’t bound to represent the will of their state’s Democrats, and in this primary season especially, many chose a candidate to support before their state’s voters even indicated their own preferences.
Still, superdelegates know that voters see them as undemocratic: in 2008, as it became clear Barack Obama would beat Hillary Clinton, superdelegates supporting Clinton switched their vote to support him in order to keep the party united. There’s no winning a general election if you defy the will of the people.
Which is why it’s especially rich that Bernie Sanders’s campaign has begun recruiting superdelegates to challenge Clinton’s increasingly large lead.
After Sanders’s huge wins in Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii on Saturday, he went on television to make his case.
“A lot of these superdelegates may rethink their position with Hillary Clinton,” he said on CNN. After such large states had supported him in such large numbers, he went on, they should re-evaluate their allegiance.
In an interview for the Washington Post, Sanders advisor Tad Devine told Greg Sargent that “Sanders would call for this [superdelegate] switch if Sanders trailed in the popular vote and was very close behind in the pledged delegate count, too.”
But in November, Devine told the Associated Press that “The best way to win support from superdelegates is to win support from voters.”
Now who’s being undemocratic?
I support Sanders’s campaign for president. But more than that, I support the “revolution” of newly-politically engaged primary and general election voters he claimed would transform American politics into a fairer arena. If such a revolution fails to win the majority of democratically-elected delegates, and even fails to win the majority of the popular vote, how can it be said to be a revolution at all?
There’s a case to be made that Clinton’s early advantage in committed superdelegate support may have discouraged would-be Sanders supporters from voting for him, but that doesn’t seem likely: First, Sanders and Clinton have long been the only two viable Democratic candidates, so why wouldn’t primary voters choose Sanders even if they knew about Clinton’s superdelegate lead? And also, as the “anti-establishment” candidate of the pair, Sanders’s populist support has more often than not been emphasized by Clinton’s superdelegate support, not undermined by it.
The question then is: what are Sanders’s real metrics for political success? If he continues with his current delegate strategy, it seems popular support isn’t one of them.
By: Matt Shuham, The National Memo, March 28, 2016
“Many Republicans Won’t Back Trump, And Trump Voters Hate Cruz”: Could A Downballot Wave For Democrats Be Coming?
David Brooks notwithstanding, this is not a wonderful moment to be a conservative. A new poll out of California highlights the disaster looming for the Republican Party across the nation, but particularly in blue states.
The most troubling problem is that even in a big blue state like California, Trump holds a commanding 7-point lead over Ted Cruz. As Trump will certainly hold the plurality of delegates entering the national GOP convention, Republicans are currently trying to figure out whether to back him and let come what may, or wrest the nomination from him in a brokered convention. But the brokered convention strategy relies mostly on Trump’s not reaching an outright delegate majority–a question that may not be resolved until California’s large batch of delegates is determined. If the business magnate wins big in California, he will probably reach the delegate majority he needs, crushing establishment hopes of subverting his nomination.
But the even more troubling issue for Republicans is that the party is deeply, deeply divided no matter what they do. Many moderate and evangelical Republicans despise Trump and say they will not vote for him. Meanwhile, Trump’s voters cannot stand Ted Cruz:
A quarter of California Republican voters polled said they would refuse to vote for Trump in November if he is the party’s nominee. Almost one-third of those backing Trump’s leading competitor, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, said they would not cast a ballot for Trump. Voters who back Trump, meanwhile, are critical of Cruz, with only half holding a favorable impression of him.
Much of this is probably overblown, of course: when Republicans are faced with the prospect of a Clinton or Sanders presidency, the vast majority will still hold their nose and toe the line for the GOP. But these numbers constitute an unprecedented level of disaffection with their choices. That’s understandable: many ideological and theocratic conservatives don’t feel they can trust Trump on policy, establishment and future-minded Republicans know that his racist appeals will destroy their future, even as more moderate, populist and ideologically flexible Republicans are turned off by Cruz’ oily cynicism and radicalism.
Even a modest drop in turnout by the GOP in blue states and districts could lead to a downballot debacle for the Republican Party, and could even cost them the majority in the House given a big enough wave. The Cook Political Report and other prognosticators have revised their house race projections to account for the Trump effect (and quite possibly for the Cruz effect as well.)
So far, the GOP has latched itself to the hope that even if it must throw away the presidency this cycle, it can count on control of the House, the Supreme Court and most legislatures. With Scalia’s passing the Supreme Court is lost given a Democratic win in 2016, the Senate will likely change hands, and their House majority seems set to shrink or even disappear. Many legislatures may also flip as well given a wave election.
Things can change, of course: an economic downturn or major terrorist attack could alter the landscape significantly. But as things stand, circumstances are ripe for a GOP debacle up and down the ballot.
By: David Atkins, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, March 27, 2016
“Nuff Said”: Rogue State And Misogyny: Trump’s Foreign Policy
Since I did my due diligence and slogged through Donald Trump’s interview with the Washington Post, I have no desire whatsoever to try and get through the one he did with the New York Times. But Max Fisher did the work for me and tried his best to understand Trump’s foreign policy. Here’s the part of that analysis that stood out to me:
Trump’s favorite word in his New York Times interview is “unpredictable.”
“We need unpredictability,” he says. “Would I go to war? Look, let me just tell you. There’s a question I wouldn’t want to answer. Because I don’t want to say I won’t or I will.”
Unpredictability is central to the Trump foreign policy doctrine. So is an emphasis on zero-sum relations with all nations, a disdain for allies, a status quo position of belligerence and uncooperativeness, a strategy of using leverage and bullying to extract concessions from other countries, and an innate suspicion of the international order.
What Trump is describing, in his vision of American foreign policy, is what we might otherwise call a rogue state.
Trump’s America is, like North Korea or at times Putin’s Russia, a rent seeker leeching off the international order rather than upholding it.
Frankly, I am at a loss for words beyond that. It is incomprehensible to me that rational people would seriously consider voting for a man like that to be Commander-in-Chief. The anger/fear that drives those folks must be some powerful elixir.
Kevin Drum also waded through the interview – which was conducted with David Sanger and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times and noticed something extremely telling.
Trump spent the entire interview practically slobbering over Sanger. Haberman might as well have been nonexistent for all the attention she got and the number of times Trump interrupted her to turn his attention back to Sanger. You may draw your own conclusions.
Here’s my conclusion: Franklin Foer is right when he says, “But there’s one ideology that he [Trump] does hold with sincerity and practices with unwavering fervor: misogyny.” Nuff said.
By: Nancy LeTourneau, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, March 28, 2016
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