Down in the states, Republicanism isn't working out so well

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2016/04/08/1512687/-Down-in-the-states-Republicanism-isn-t-working-out-so-well


Down in the states, Republicanism isn't working out so well
Apr 08, 2016 2:11pm EST by Hunter


One of the essential sights of any election year is the ritual distancing of Republican candidates from the actual, ongoing actions of Republicanism. I don't know that I'd call this "discomfort," though; it's been the party strategy for as long as I can remember, only made sillier as the party ratchets itself rightward in every state, on every issue.



I've also never heard them opine on the financial clusterfuck that has been unleashed in states like Kansas and Louisiana, who followed the Republican economic prescription for success to the letter and have found the only result to be an economic fiasco of historic proportions. Most of these issues are, in fact, spoken about directly or indirectly in the Republican Party platform; it is not exactly a surprise that Republicans act with open hostility toward LGBTQ Americans, or toward non-white Americans, or consider tax cuts at the expense of even essential state services like schools and roads to be the highest and best use of conservative principles, but nevertheless each Republican candidate has to act stumped, very stumped, when you point out all the places where Republican legislators are indeed acting upon the same rhetoric as espoused by that candidate in their own states and offices, and the results are conspicuously Not Good.

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But what's especially interesting about this year is that the leading Republican candidates are unusually perfect mirrors of the party factions competing viciously throughout the various states. Ted Cruz is the candidate for theocrats who wish to elevate certain conservative Christian beliefs above all others, and to dismantle whatever federal laws or agencies might stand in the way. Donald Trump is the face of bitter, resentful white men who have internalized the Fox News theory that they are being screwed by brown people but can rely on corporate America to be their wealthy trickle-down saviors. John Kasich is the candidate of the steady establishment, the one who stands for most the same things as the other two but who still holds to the old-school formula that you shouldn't say those things in public if you can somehow dodge doing it—and the 2016 Republican base has absolutely no interest in it. Why should they?

All three approaches have their adherents in the states, but it's rampant Ted Cruzism, aka tea partyism, that's been shredding budgets and sending companies running. This more than anything may be why national Republicans hate him so very, very much; by bringing Republican extremism national, he's stripped them of plausible deniability of all those bizarre and hostile and really not-working-out-all-that-great ideas. Ideas which are in the party platform, to be sure, but ones that cause "discomfort" when you point them out.