"The GOP’s Grifter Problem"

The GOP’s Grifter Problem

By Jamelle Bouie at Slate

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/05/republican_leadership_conference_the_gop_s_speakers_lineup_is_a_problem.html

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Even if you think these lawmakers and activists are sincere—and I do—it’s hard not to see the whole operation as a perpetual swindle. Take the Affordable Care Act. With the re-election of President Obama, odds of repeal were slim-to-none. But rather than abandon the call for Obamacare repeal, conservative groups—and their allies in Congress—pushed further. Not because they thought it could happen, but because it was lucrative. As Robert Costa described for National Review at the time, “Business has boomed since the push to defund Obamacare caught on. Conservative activists are lighting up social media, donations are pouring in, and e-mail lists are growing.”

The message from groups such as the Senate Conservatives Fund was simple: You can repeal Obamacare! All it takes is a few friendly donations. Indeed, on its donation page, Heritage Action for America—the political arm of the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank—asked supporters to “Please donate now to ensure we have the resources to fight and win.”

Every political movement has its opportunists, and there’s no doubt the Democratic Party has its share of grifters. But MSNBC doesn’t devote its commercial programming to selling gold, and failed Democrats aren’t running for president to drive their book sales. Simply put, there’s a huge market for grift on the right, and—aside from the ethics of it all—it’s a huge problem for the GOP.

Like with Bill Clinton in 1992, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 turned a lot of conservatives into easy marks for the worst provocateurs, who made millions with wild rumors and apocalyptic predictions. In turn, there’s a generation of Republican politicians who aren’t as interested in policy as they are in building clips for a gig on Fox News. As we saw with the GOP presidential primaries, it’s impossible to keep this from the general public. Eventually, mainstream Republicans will have to affirm extreme ideas (i.e., “self-deportation”) to pass muster with the conservative base, and in the process, hurt themselves with ordinary voters.



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