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Monday, October 28, 2013

The GOP Mirror Has Two Extreme Faces

Upcoming gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia are being punditocrapically narrated less as conventional contests between Republicans and Democrats than as a match up of a Tea Party radical Republicanism represented by patriarchal prick Ken Cuccinelli (who looks sure to lose his race against the fairly awful DLC Democrat Terry McAuliffe) and a more "moderate" "establishmentarian" Republicanism represented by Chris Christie (who looks even more sure to win his race in a blue state against Democrat Barbara Buono, who is running in a media blackout against the enormously popular governor who has a terrible economic record and disagrees with New Jersey citizens on a host of social issues, but who "talks tough" and is willing to hug the President in public places). Of course, Christie is no "moderate," if that term is pressed to exhibit any kind of policy substance. There are no Republican moderates, Republicanism is immoderate all the way down now. The Tea Party versus Moderate schism in the Republican Party is better understood as a schism between the True Believers and the Opportunistic Hypocrites when it comes to the host of cruel, intolerant, ineffective, macroeconomically illiterate assumptions and aspirations Republicans share across the board at this dismally low point in the GOP's history. Neither am I sure I agree when this schism is described as a matter of a Tea Party "half" of the party against a Chris Christie "half" -- I doubt that fully half the Republican caucus shares Christie's willingness to meliorate his avowedly intolerant plutocratic vision in the face of the changing vicissitudes of real world politics, but perhaps it is understandable that even a marginal minority of Republicans including Christie will seem like at least half.

1 comment:

Dale Carrico said...

I hear that Al Gore and Michael Moore are also fat. I guess it really is true, both sides do it!