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phantom power

(25,966 posts)
Thu Mar 12, 2015, 10:03 AM Mar 2015

I don't think the modern Republican party believes in anything called "the national interest."

Everybody having a good chuckle these days over a Texas state legislator named Molly White, who has gone full Calhoun on the issue of marriage equality. What a funny lady she is, ho-ho.

...

I'm sorry. But I am not laughing any more. I think they mean it.

The modern Republican party has become an authentic mechanism for political subversion, and it's not just unknown crazy people from Texas who are driving the train. A rookie meathead submarines the president's foreign policy. Rick Perry is currently running for president on a platform more suited to a campaign conducted under the Articles of Confederation. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader of the United States Senate, has suggested that governors out in the several states ignore the Environmental Protection Agency. At every conservative gathering, from CPAC on down, there at least is one panel touting the benefits of nullification and old-school states rights politics. Yes, a lot of it is about how states rights got whipped over civil rights in the 1960's, but it's not all about race. It's about a deliberate, calculated attempt by one of the only two political parties we allow ourselves to dismantle the federal union. They want the country to come apart so they can sell off the pieces to the people who run their campaigns. They are free to prove to me that I'm wrong.

...

I believe they mean it. I believe they want to carry us back not just to the Gilded Age, but to the golden era in the 1780's when you needed a passport to go from Connecticut to New Jersey. I believe that is the basis for the efforts of people like Perry and Governor Bat Boy down in Florida to poach industries from other states and to hell with the national interest. I believe that is what animates ALEC in its campaign to create little hell-states individually across the map and its larger campaign to keep the federal government from doing anything about it. I don't think the modern Republican party believes in anything called "the national interest."

The Republican party is a mechanism for the subversion of the federal republic. It doesn't matter if the party's stars are doing it to please The Base, or because they don't know any better, or because they think it's the right thing to do. They are actively working to undermine the American union. This should be the first question asked of any Republican leader, of any Republican candidate, and certainly of obvious anagram Reince Preibus, the emptiest suit in American politics. They should be asked, every day, in every forum, if they believe in the Supremacy Clause, the Reconstruction amendments, and the federal union. These are yes-or-no questions. I hope we can get the answers before Molly White gets elected to the House of Representatives.

But one thing I'm not doing any more is laughing.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a33605/how-the-gop-subverts-the-republic/
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randome

(34,845 posts)
1. They do but only in the narrow situation when the national interest intersects with their own.
Thu Mar 12, 2015, 10:15 AM
Mar 2015

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

pampango

(24,692 posts)
2. They want "the golden era in the 1780's when you needed a passport to go from Connecticut
Thu Mar 12, 2015, 10:36 AM
Mar 2015

to New Jersey."

They love walls of both the literal (with Mexico and around affluent neighborhoods) and figurative (regressive taxes and weak safety net) that keep people separated and suspicious of each other. It serves their purpose - "Every man for himself" instead of "We are all in this together".

Nay

(12,051 posts)
4. Of course they don't. Looters only believe in piling up loot. Religious fascists only believe in
Thu Mar 12, 2015, 10:38 AM
Mar 2015

forcing others to their will.

stillwaiting

(3,795 posts)
5. The "national interest" for Republicans = increasing the wealth of the elite.
Thu Mar 12, 2015, 11:20 AM
Mar 2015

In ANY way possible.

They worship Mammon, and they are anti-Christ.

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