Why They Fight

Right now we have to keep in mind that we’re dealing, in effect, with two Rights. There’s the old guard, sleazy, corrupt, in-the-pockets-of-corporatism Right, and the new batshit crazy bagger Right.

And to exemplify that the batshit crazy bagger Right is more than local yokel white geezers in Power Chairs — see this interview with Stephen Moore Michael Needham, the 31-year-old in charge of Heritage Action. He still thinks the House can defund Obamacare. I’m betting money that this kid’s wealthy family has shielded him from defeat his entire life, so it doesn’t occur to him that he might lose. And when the loss comes, you can bet he won’t learn.

19 thoughts on “Why They Fight

  1. These Teabaggers are all “Tailgunner Joe’s” evil spawn. With a large dollop of Christianity – minus, of course, anything Christ actually believed in.

    They make sh*t up, like McCarthy did with his list of “known Communists in the State Department” – and then stick with their own BS, as if that BS was given to them via their prophet(s), by God himself.
    Ted Cruz-ader is their latest prophet – he tells them Obama and the Democrats will fold on Obamare, then dadgumit!, Obama and the Democrats WILL FOLD!!!
    LOOK – THEY’RE FOLDING!
    They’ll fold.
    Waiting for… the folding.
    FOLD DAMMIT!!!
    The fact that they’re NOT folding, is proof that they WILL fold!
    The MORE they’re looking like they’re not folding, THE MORE THEY’LL FOLD!!!
    They’ll fold.
    Waiting for… the folding.

    This Obamacare fight goes even further back than that – back to the creation of Social Security.
    And they’re using the same argument that they used back in the mid-30’s; with the same arguments dusted-off and used against Medicare and Medicaid; and now again, with the PPACA.

    And it’s no wonder so many of them don’t believe in evolution, since they are incapable of learning, and/or adapting.
    They’ve been shrieking “SocialismFascismCommunism!” about everything so loudly for so long, it’s become their mantra.

    Try create a program to help people?
    They again shriek “SocialismFascismCommunism!”
    One size fits all.

    I think that if Teabaggers ever went to a Karaoke Bar, no matter what song was being played, they would shriek whatever song it is they goddamn wanted to, and they’re sure everyone will love it – and the ones who are self-aware enough to realize that people aren’t exactly joining them in their chorus, then they say that it’s because they don’t love music, or are too stupid to know great music, pure music, when they hear it!
    But too many of them aren’t self-aware enough to realize anything.
    They don’t understand what “Sympathy for the Devil” is all about, or why anyone would want to play it, let alone sing to it – so they insist on shrieking “Onward Christian Soldiers,” instead.

  2. No he won’t learn, he’ll just fall up/get kicked up stairs. He has a position that insulates him from repercussion, and ergo he’ll keep making the same bad decisions, and people will keep listening to him.

    Now if that isolates him and his cronies, good. But until then we have to cope with it.

  3. Interesting point re discussion of obamacare. Pulls discussion to the right. Or so they think. I think it makes single payer look very appealing. Enroll everyone with a social security card in the same system. Medicare for All.

  4. I just got through refereeing a youth soccer league playoff, 8-10 year old girls. The final pitted the two best teams, one of whom had not lost a game all season. That undefeated team lost, and most of the girls on the team were crying and blaming the ‘bad calls’ by the ref (me). Not one of them thought to mention that the other team outplayed them in the second half…

    I think it is human nature that when you essentially always get your way, you begin to view that outcome as the norm. Republicans are now in that position – outplayed and complacent. Many of the current crop have never had to face defeat, and they do not know how to handle that reality.

  5. What I get from Michael Needham (not Stephen Moore) is some rich kid programmed at at early age to be hyper-competitive, to win at any cost, funneled into an elite MBA program where these instincts are further refined and trained, and now thrust into political arena, like a nazi U-boat captain, ruthlessly piloting his killing machine in the halls of Congress. His youth, training, and family probably has shielded him from failure, but that’s not what I worry about. I worry about the fact this guy has no soul, no compassion, no heart for anyone not in his socioeconomic class, and like Ahnold’s cyborg Terminator, is out for blood. He doesn’t care what he has to destroy to make his target. He’s the perfect tool for the billionaires behind the GOP who have absolutely no use for democracy, or for that matter, not much use for the USA.

  6. Dan

    I think you’ve actually got a good point there. When we always succeed we begin to view it as a truth. It distorts our perspective, perhaps understandably, but it still distorts it.

    Paired with a sense of entitlement and near-royalty, and an essentially religious belief in their rightness (plus the usual greed and avarice) and Republicans were set up for a fall.

    Where I get concerned is that since the fall is obviously coming – and demographically will continue – I am concerned about how they’ll act. Republicans essentially only know doubling down, and when your strategy is based on “those people” then at some point doubling down is going to get nasty. Or nastier.

  7. The young Repug kinda missed the communication dynamic in Jon Stewart’s ribbing of Kathleen Sibelius. To think it was a pronouncement of failure is the same as seeing Jesus in the spaghetti.

  8. My god, Michael Needham is completely out of his mind:

    Look, ObamaCare is going to be the end of the American free-enterprise health-care system. We needed a plan to stop it.

    Yes, let’s go back to the old system of letting the health insurance companies do whatever they want because everybody loved that so much.

    A united conservative party making the case, day in and day out, about the fundamental unfairness of the way the president is implementing this law is a winning argument…

    It blows my mind that they think this is a great talking point. The president made some tweaks in the law, and we’re supposed to see this as some kind of usurpation, on par with quartering troops in our homes or taxing us without our consent. Not to mention that they don’t think they law should be implemented anyway.

    …there is nothing in my mission statement that says anything about the Republican Party. Our mission is to advance the conservative agenda. We are nonpartisan and we really mean it.

    Ah, OK. Got it. Right. The Tea Party is nonpartisan. I didn’t know that. Thanks for clearing that up. Somehow I thought it was.

  9. “Unfortunately, Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the federal deficit would soar. The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations. It means we have a well-earned reputation for reliability and credibility, two things that set us apart from much of the world.”

    Ronald Reagan, 1987

  10. Some great comments from various places:

    “Ted Cruz (R-Land of Delusion) and Sarah Palin (R-Reality TV) are leading a hundred person march on the White House. This will undoubtedly shake up the dynamic.
    “Green Eggs and Ham Forever.

    “ted cruz is an undercover liberal”

  11. Why is there a government shutdown going on? Because the Republican Party wants to get rid of ObamaCare,” says the highly disciplined Mr. Needham, who rarely strays from that message.

    Glad to hear it. Some lunatic named Boehner was trying to tell me it was because the President wouldn’t negotiate, or some such nonsense.

    Typically, in America, when a group has a public policy change or innovation they wish to make, they work hard at it over a period of years, building coalitions and making deals and doing outreach and education to win public support, and passing small steps on the way. Like, say, Ted Kennedy did over a career of decades to get the nation to the point where we could pass the ACA.

    If the Republican Party wants to get rid of Obamacare, there are legitimate methods for them to try. But they haven’t been able to have success with them, and like children they’ve tossed over the gameboard.

  12. Yes, OBUMMERcare will be the death of the USA!

    Witness the health care hellhole that is MA!!
    It has bankrupted that state!!!

    Haiti is sending the poor people in MA food, Bangladesh is gathering its resources to send CARE packages, and the poor children of Mississippi are petitioning UNICEF to come to MA’s aid!
    OH, THE HUMANITIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Wait…
    What?
    They’re not?
    NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVER mind…

  13. Note, also too:
    Sarah “The Whore of Babblin’-on” Palin, and Ted Cruz-ader, met at a Confederate-flag bedazzled protest in DC, and the Universe didn’t have the decency to end.
    No ‘bang’ – not even a ‘whimper.’

  14. I’m wondering ( since its close to holloween ) does Palin travel with an insulated coffin filled with snow balls from Alaska that she sleeps in. Gawd, I’m so tired of that screech owl!

  15. Pingback: The Mahablog » Eve of Destruction

  16. Actually the “new” right is still the “old” right. They’re the ones with birthdays from the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1940’s who still can’t believe that they can’t hold a proper lynching anymore like their God-fearing parents did. And they’ve done their best to instill proper race pride into their kids and grandkids. And it’s worked for the most part.

    Then there’s the “just want money and power” Republicans who will shill racism and religion if it will help their cause and get the racist sheep to vote for them, but they don’t believe in racism or religion, not really. They object to the lower classes not knowing their place and respecting their betters, but this has very little to do with color.

  17. The shut-down and default was planned by the following: Jim DeMint, David Bossie, Ginni Thomas, Edwin Meese, Chris Chocola, Matt Kibbe, Michael Needham, Erick Erickson, the Koch Brothers. Yesterday the Heritage Foundation tweeted the House GOP not to cooperate with any proposals to end the shut-down and default. List from Bill Moyers web-site.

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