Editorials & Other Articles

Bucky

(53,986 posts) Thu Oct 22, 2015, 05:59 PM Oct 2015

TPM: What The Big GOP Meltdown Reveals From A Guy Who Saw It All Coming

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/ornstein-gop-meltdown

[font size="4"]What The Big GOP Meltdown Reveals From A Guy Who Saw It All Coming[/font]
[font size="1"]By TIERNEY SNEED | Published OCTOBER 13, 2015[/font]

The modern Republican Party had been careening toward this kind of wheels-off-the-track moment for a long time. Its knee-jerk rejectionism, high-stakes brinksmanship, strict demands for ideological purity, and willingness to take hostages had been on display in one form or another in a series of political clashes since the 1990s.

But you knew that already if you read the 2012 book "It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism." While not predicting the current GOP leadership crisis, it sounded the alarm that the party was on a dangerous course and taking the country with it. The book argued that responsible governance had been severely crippled by the Republican Party's push to the right and its adoption of take-no-prisoners politicking.

TPM asked one of the co-authors if he was feeling any vindication.

“Damn straight I do,” Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said in an interview with TPM late last week. “But I would have rather been proven wrong -- honest to God -- because we're talking about the fucking country that is at stake here.”

2 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

TPM: What The Big GOP Meltdown Reveals From A Guy Who Saw It All Coming (Original Post) Bucky Oct 2015 OP

Maybe if they made attempts to work in the last few years instead of interrupt the GOP might look Thinkingabout Oct 2015 #1

But for most of the time, pure obstructionism works. Bucky Oct 2015 #2

Thinkingabout

(30,058 posts)

1. Maybe if they made attempts to work in the last few years instead of interrupt the GOP might look

Reply to Bucky (Original post)

Thu Oct 22, 2015, 06:03 PM

Oct 2015

Better than they do, they tried to block President Obama on every move, their intention was stated.

Bucky

(53,986 posts)

2. But for most of the time, pure obstructionism works.

Reply to Thinkingabout (Reply #1)

Thu Oct 22, 2015, 06:08 PM

Oct 2015

and by "works" I mean "gets them reelected over and over".

It's only a trainwreck when their antics wake up the sleepy electorate (as with Bill Clinton's impeachment). If you judge them by their economic incentives rather that, say, their moral obligations as American political leaders, it makes perfect sense for them to go through the occasional clown show for the sake of holding onto power. I mean, what's their alternative.... actually fixing the nation's problems? Where's the power in that?

Reply to this discussion