The refusal of the Republican dominated House to consider the desperately needed Hurricane Sandy aid bill was just another example of the Republican Party not getting it. Here was a chance for the, much maligned party to rise above the stupidity and incompetence of George Bush’s handling of the Katrina mess in Louisiana, but the hacks that make up the GOP just weren’t up to the task.
It’s not that they have been much different in the past. We like to think of this kind of congressional ineptitude and self service as being only applicable to the current bunch of clowns that inhabit the halls of congress but the history of this kind of stupidity goes way back, right to the beginning of our nation when Alexander Hamilton wanted the federal government to assume the debts of the states in order to establish public credit. James Madison, a southerner was against it because he thought, Virginia, his state, would lose a few bucks on the deal.
It seems that the South has always been against big government, despite the fact that big government has always supported a South that has more often then not, been unable to hold up its end of the fiscal bargain. Southern states have always taken more from the Federal government than they have returned in taxes, and still, morons like those in Texas want to secede. What the hell are they going to use for money if they don’t have the North to support them?
A perfect example of the Southern Republican logic can be seen in the famous three-fifths compromise involving slaves. The South wanted each slave to be counted as three-fifths of a human being, for the purpose of deciding how much federal tax was owed but then, they wanted them to be counted as a full human being when deciding how many legislators they sent to congress.. What a sleazy, cynical group, and it’s no different today
Right now the eleven states that comprised the Confederacy are the most backward, least educated, least productive and most bigoted in the nation and it’s not by accident. Here is a segment of our society that regards any kind of progressive legislation as an attack on their right to be stupid. These are people who from the beginning of the nation have rejected science, education, evolution and any kind of intellectual activity in the name of a Christian God who, if he has anything like the powers they ascribe to him, must wonder what in the world ever led him to allow them to evolve from the swamp slime that bred them.
Their current debacle has led their biggest hope for the presidency in 2016, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to denounce them as liars. This is right now, the Republican’s best hope to take on whoever succeeds Obama in the next election. And even he sees what a bunch of clowns he has to depend on. If Christie is really as smart as he thinks he is, he will switch parties right now.
Of course, on another note, Boehner has already backed away from his failure to push his party to pass the Sandy Aid Bill. He has already initiated two new bills for $9 billion and $51 billion to replace the single $60 billion bill the states wanted but couldn’t get from the Republicans, why? Who knows, maybe they will cut the $3,611,185,000 that has been sneaked into the bill to cover items that have nothing to do with Hurricane Sandy or its relief efforts. Maybe he sees the firestorm of critical response but just doesn’t have the backbone to fight it.
In any case the bills will eventually pass. Even the far right of the House isn’t dumb enough to think that blocking it would be without retaliation by voters across the country. Yes they would still hold the redneck vote but especially Midwest voters who know what a tornado can do and were on the cusp but went Right in the last election would finally desert them, making 2014 a disaster that would make 2010 look like a Tea party.
As it stands now the Republican Party has made just about every dumb, regressive move that it is possible to make. They have rejected the country in favor of a few super rich backers and Tea Party bigots, Christian fanatics and the anti-union groups, all of which seem determined to fight against their own interests, in search of some fanatic goal.
The last hope that the Republican Party has for redemption is the fiscal debates in which we are now embroiled. One more example of their bullheaded obstinacy and they just might disappear into the fog of history, mush like the Know Nothing Party and National Socialists’.
Interestingly, David Brooks had a column this week that sees the answer to the GOP dilemma as a third Party based on true, more classic Republican Party principles (like we had 30 -40 years ago). This party would appeal to the conservatives on the coasts and the midwest and shun the crazyness of the South and Southwest. The problem as Brooks sees it – is that there’s nobody to step up and work on creating such a Party.