Tag Archives: Grover Norquist

The Spell Is Broken

Bullying can work for a time, as we’ve seen with both the NRA and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform.  But eventually the very rigidity and absolutism that give you so much power become a liability, and those who were cowed into submission by your irrational demands turn on you.  At first, just a few, and then the numbers swell, and your days of stealing lunch money are over.

The ballots of November 6  and the bullets of December 14 finally, finally ended these two interconnected (Grover sits on the NRA’s Board) reigns of terror.

Fairer tax laws and firmer gun laws are coming.  Neither the NRA nor Grover will ever have so much power again.  The spell has been broken.  The lost children of Newtown understood that once a spell is broken, you are free, and you see the world as it really is.

Quote of the Day

“I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge.”

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) about his never-raise-taxes pledge to Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform.

Norquist wasn’t on the ballot, but he lost big in the election.  His days of getting all the GOP lunch money may finally be over.

GOP — It’s Not Me, It’s You

Sometimes I wonder if I exaggerate how extreme and insane the GOP has become.  Then I find something like “Let’s just say it:  the Republicans are the problem,” in which one of the co-authors is from the super-conservative American Enterprise Institute.*  So I’m reminded and reassured that when it comes to the GOP, it’s not me, it’s them:

“We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional.  In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted.  Today, however, we have no choice by to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

“The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics.  It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

“When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

“While the Democrats may have moved from their 40-yard line to their 25, the Republicans have gone from their 40 to somewhere behind their goal post.

“But the real move to the bedrock right starts with two names:  Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist.

“But the forces Gingrich unleashed destroyed whatever comity existed across party lines, activated an extreme and virulently anti-Washington base — most recently represented by tea party activists — and helped drive moderate Republicans out of Congress.

“Norquist, meanwhile, founded Americans for Tax Reform in 1985 and rolled out his Taxpayer Protection Pledge the following year.  The pledge, which binds its signers to never support a tax increase (that includes closing tax loopholes) had been signed as of last year by 238 of the 242 House Republicans and 41 of the 47 GOP senators, according to ATR.

“We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story.  But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality.

“If they [voters] can punish ideological extremism at the polls and look skeptically upon candidates who profess to reject all dialogue and bargaining with opponents, then an insurgent outlier party will have some impetus to return to the center.  Otherwise, our politics will get worse before it gets better.”  Emphasis added.

* Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, WaPo

Is Mitt Stuck as Mayor of Loonyville?

From a fun read, “WTF, GOP?” by Monka Bauerlen and Clara Jeffery, Mother Jones:

“You coulda been a contender!  Economy in the tank.  Congress successfully gridlocked.  Consider:  Base energized, Yes-We-Can shock troops disaffected, major donors to the president’s campaign picketing his speeches.  True, with Occupy on the rise, it did become (cue Jon Stewart falsetto) awkward that your leading candidate was an unapologetic poster child for the 0.0025 percent.  Still, all you had to do was set Clinton ’92 ‘It’s the Economy,  Stupid’ messaging on autoplay and coast to November.  Instead, a way on ladyparts?

“Sure, it’s been entertaining.  Schadenfreude, as the German saying goes, is the best freude.  But liberals take note:  Not only is a robust dialogue crucial for an intellectually engaged democracy, it also happens to be required to Get.  Anything.  Done.  Even if the Republican brand suffers long-term damage (and the jury’s still out), conservatives will make up north of 40 percent of the vote, most importantly in the US Senate.

“Surely we are not alone in worrying that the Grand Old Party is losing touch with reality — obsessing on issues entirely divorced from both 21st-century mores and the pressing economic challenges of the day.  But excepting Bush speechwriter David Frum’s cri de coeur in New York magazine (rewarded with RINO opprobrium from his colleagues), name-brand Republican thinkers steer clear of a frank diagnosis.  They might bemoan a weak field of candidates — George Will has basically written off the White House and tried to rally the troops around holding the House — but no one dares take on the twin planks of Loonyville:  Grover Norquist’s no-taxes-never-ever pledge and Roger Ailes’ facts-be-damned spin on the ‘news.’

“The realpolitik leaders on the right made a bet that they could ride the latest populist wave as they’ve ridden others, using the momentum to pull the rest of the country rightward. But they got greedy.  The current cohort’s overreach threatens to blow 30 years of careful strategizing, from the school-boards-on-up long march to power to Karl Rove’s microtargeting breakthroughs.”  Italics in original, emphasis added.