Ok, so many of us either joke or cry about the Tea Party and the Great Republican Death Spiral. I've often personally speculated that eventually, this will shift us to two new parties - the Libertarians/Blue Dogs and the Progressives. But a couple of things have made me wonder whether the danger is greater than we imagined.
It's clear the political process is broken in many many ways, most obviously evidenced by the 60-vote Senate and by the fact that a government dominated by a single party cannot enact legislation that it was elected on without a tortured year of "compromise" (read: giving stuff away for nothing) and political games. That in itself is bad enough, but there are other indications that something deeper is going on.
Take this report for example, that Democratic offices have been hit with bricks and death threats have been made against the children of lawmakers who voted for the health reform. When was the last time these sort of things happened? This isn't disagreement - it's terrorism, fueled by the craziness of the wingnuts and the Tea Party.
And then there's the other Terrorism that shall not be called Terrorism, from George Tiller's murder, to the Holocaust Museum shooter, to the Pentagon shooter, to the Austin IRS building plane crash. The last two interest me the most, because they were specific acts of violence against the physical embodiment of government.
Then today I see this analysis, by Melissa Harris-Lacewell, of the Tea Party's racial and homophobic epithets (well worth a full read):
[T]here is a very important difference between Bloody Sunday of 1965 and Health Care Reform Sunday of 2010. In 1965 Lewis was a disenfranchised protester fighting to be recognized as a full citizen. When he was beaten by the police, he was being attacked by the state. In 2010 Lewis is a long time, elected representative. When he is attacked by protesters, he is himself an agent of the state. This difference is critically important; not because it changes the fact that racism is present in both moments, but because it radically alters the way we should understand the meaning of power, protest and race.I find this analysis somewhat persuasive given the rest of the evidence. The core premise of the GOP at the moment is not just the standard distrust of government, but rather skepticism about the legitimacy of the state, law, and democracy.
...
The Tea Party is a challenge to the legitimacy of the U.S. state. When Tea Party participants charge the current administration with various forms of totalitarianism, they are arguing that this government has no right to levy taxes or make policy. Many GOP elected officials offered nearly secessionist rhetoric from the floor of Congress this weekend. They joined as co-conspirators with the Tea Party protesters by arguing that this government has no monopoly on legitimacy.
The State: Harris-Lacewell's analysis, as well as the unwillingness to acknowledge the terroristic nature of crimes by right-wing extremists discussed above.
The Law: Opposition to civilian trials for the accused, going so far as to suggest that the Attorney General is a traitor for obeying the Constitution. Guantanamo. State secrets used as an excuse to dismiss lawsuits outright. FISA and warrantless, then retroactively immunized, wiretapping. Cheney's admission to war crimes. This dismissal of law shouldn't be surprising, as we've been told for 8 years of Bush not to respect the Law, followed by 1+ years of Obama making disrespect for the Law bipartisan.
Democracy: The desire to see Obama fail and the general unwillingness to legislate or accept the consequences of elections. The latest attempts by fourteen state attorneys general to challenge (on grounds that should receive sanctions) the new health care law's constitutionality because they cannot accept legislation. (They have no arguments, but that will be the subject of my next post, I believe.)
I'm not sure what this will mean in the end. Perhaps there will be outrage even in the Republican party, like how even they thought the Al-Qeada 7 ad went too far, and they'll rein it in. But as the verbal hatred and violent attacks for what used to be mere disagreement continue, along with secessionist rhetoric, I wonder if Harris-Lacewell's comparison to the Civil War isn't scarily close to reality. At the very least, if democracy and law don't offer a way out for the angry Tea Partiers, I can't be sure this ends shy of bloodshed. But maybe that's just the pessimist in me.
Update: Apparently Rachel Maddow beat me to it:
This is really quite frightening. Mike Vanderboegh is the name of the person taking credit for these acts of terrorism. He is, quite simply, the heaad of a terrorist network. This is not political speech, it is incitement to lawbreaking and violence. He needs to be arrested and prosecuted. Now.
5 comments:
a couple things:
- while i would love to see more diversity of opinion on american ballots, there are risks. in canada, for example, there are often times when the federal legislature is just as paralyzed as we've been for the past year because no one can get consensus (or enough votes) to pass anything.
- there's too much incentive in affiliation with major parties and too much risk to diverge.
I'm not sure what you're getting at in this comment. I think that the parties will shift as the current GOP dies out in irrelevance, and we'll still have a two party system, though with a major left-ward shift. But the point of this post is that I'm worried the people that are being brought along with the GOP Death Spiral are going to keep turning to violence before that happens.
oh, i misinterpreted "shift us to two new parties - the Libertarians/Blue Dogs and the Progressives". i thought you meant we'd shift to a system with democrats, republicans, Libertarians/Blue Dogs, and Progressives.
OK, I just spent a few minutes surfing a few news sites. Did I miss something? Wby does this get reported by no one other than Rachel Maddow? Do the "mainstream" media consider these people such wing-nuts that they need not be taken seriously?
Well, to be fair, Keith Olbermann mentioned it too...
Yeah, I wish I had an answer for that. In general the MSM is deathly afraid of taking on the right and being labeled "liberal media," but this seems a little extreme.
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