"Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem."

[Riot]

Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.

By Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein

Published: April 27

Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates.

It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.

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 but 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.

“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.

It is clear that the center of gravity in the Republican Party has shifted sharply to the right. Its once-legendary moderate and center-right legislators in the House and the Senate — think Bob Michel, Mickey Edwards, John Danforth, Chuck Hagel — are virtually extinct.

The post-McGovern Democratic Party, by contrast, while losing the bulk of its conservative Dixiecrat contingent in the decades after the civil rights revolution, has retained a more diverse base. Since the Clinton presidency, it has hewed to the center-left on issues from welfare reform to fiscal policy. 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.

What happened? Of course, there were larger forces at work beyond the realignment of the South. They included the mobilization of social conservatives after the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the anti-tax movement launched in 1978 by California’s Proposition 13, the rise of conservative talk radio after a congressional pay raise in 1989, and the emergence of Fox News and right-wing blogs. But the real move to the bedrock right starts with two names: Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist.

Continued .... three more pages.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...UlT_story.html

[OldDog]

Don’t miss Peter Robinson’s take-down of a piece in the Washington Post by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, two veteran purveyors of Washington conventional wisdom. Mann and Ornstein fret that (you’ll never guess this) our politics are broken and that (don’t be shocked) this is the fault of Republicans. They write:

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.

But, as Peter points out, the positions advanced by the GOP are not ideological outliers. Republicans rode them to a resounding victory in 2010. Polls show that many of these positions continue to command more support than the contrary views of the Democrats. This is certainly true when it comes to the such key issues as Obamacare and, broadly speaking, budget deficits.

Meanwhile, Mann and Ornstein are oblivious to the irony of attacking a Party for “dismissing the legitimacy of its political opposition,” while denouncing that Party as an outlier that doesn’t care about facts, evidence, and science. It is the two veteran Washington think-tank denizens who are attempting to win a debate their side may be losing by declaring the other side to be the bad guys.

As for “scorn” of compromise, Mann and Ornstein overlook the fact that President Obama, needing no Republican congressional support to pass his initial agenda, did not seriously attempt to work with Republicans during his first two years. A Party that won’t reach across the aisle as far as Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, as the Dems didn’t when it came to Obamacare, is no position to claim — or have others claim on its behalf –that the opposition’s intransigence is the root of the absence of compromise.

I’ll leave the last word to Peter Robinson:

For decades, Mann and Ornstein. . .have passed themselves off as above-the-fray, utterly impartial, interested not in ideology but in getting things done. Which is to say, of course, that they reflect, without the smallest flaw or distortion, the conventional wisdom of the mainstream media and the Democratic Party, both of which believe that ever-expanding government is simply the result of responsible governance.

Now here’s what’s interesting. During the very period Mann and Ornstein deride, the supposed crackpot and marginal GOP has captured the House of Representatives in one of the biggest electoral swings in congressional history, picked up seven seats in the Senate, and chosen to nominate Mitt Romney, who, even though in many ways a remarkably weak candidate, nevertheless is already virtually even with the Democratic incumbent in national polls.

Mann and Ornstein don’t have a problem with the GOP, in other words, they have a problem with the American people. “Shut up, sit down, and let people like us run the country.” That’s what Mann and Ornstein–and, again, the media and Democratic Party–have convinced themselves is the message, the responsible message, to carry into this election year.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive...-explained.php

[Riot]

Originally Posted by OldDog

Don’t miss Peter Robinson’s take-down of a piece in the Washington Post by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, two veteran purveyors of Washington conventional wisdom

Thanks for the link. Interesting counterpoint.

[Rudeboyelvis]

Originally Posted by Riot

Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.

By Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein

Published: April 27

Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates.

It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.

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 but 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.

“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.

It is clear that the center of gravity in the Republican Party has shifted sharply to the right. Its once-legendary moderate and center-right legislators in the House and the Senate — think Bob Michel, Mickey Edwards, John Danforth, Chuck Hagel — are virtually extinct.

The post-McGovern Democratic Party, by contrast, while losing the bulk of its conservative Dixiecrat contingent in the decades after the civil rights revolution, has retained a more diverse base. Since the Clinton presidency, it has hewed to the center-left on issues from welfare reform to fiscal policy. 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.

What happened? Of course, there were larger forces at work beyond the realignment of the South. They included the mobilization of social conservatives after the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the anti-tax movement launched in 1978 by California’s Proposition 13, the rise of conservative talk radio after a congressional pay raise in 1989, and the emergence of Fox News and right-wing blogs. But the real move to the bedrock right starts with two names: Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist.

Continued .... three more pages.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...UlT_story.html

Republican Derangement Syndrome in full blown glory. Fortunately, most have the insight to realized both parties are corrupt and beyond contempt - but keep on using every opportunity to bash what you don't agree with - You certainly wouldn't want to come across as hypocritical

[jms62]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

Republican Derangement Syndrome in full blown glory. Fortunately, most have the insight to realized both parties are corrupt and beyond contempt - but keep on using every opportunity to bash what you don't agree with - You certainly wouldn't want to come across as hypocritical

Unfortunately we are in the minority.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by jms62

Unfortunately we are in the minority.

As you also hold the very opinion that is the entire subject of the article, can you identify a little of what they say about your opinion that you find incorrect?

[Danzig]

except they aren't the only problem:


http://news.yahoo.com/obama-administ...185827971.html

[GenuineRisk]

Well, in the interests of bi-partisanship, here's a piece ripping apart that WaPo op-ed. But not for the reasons you might expect. Highlights below, but the whole thing at the link:

http://doghouseriley.blogspot.com/20...s-late-is.html

The GOP hasn't "moved from the mainstream". It's gained more power. The "center of power" hasn't gone much of anywhere. It may have followed Goldwater West and South, thanks to the evil genius of Nixon, but it's not exactly a seismic shift from Joe McCarthy to Jesse Helms, from John Wayne to Glenn Beck. When th' hell was it Chuck Hagel's party? When was it Nelson Rockefeller's, for that matter? They called Truman a commie, for chrissakes.
__
Question: is all of this designed to palliate the conscience of the American centrist, or is it really what it purports to be, the slowest recognition of the extent of a brick wall since the Mogols? Eisenhower had to name Richard ****ing Nixon as his running mate. The contemporary Republican party was born in 1964, not coincidentally the same year the Johnson administration decided that black people could have some rights. It's the party of Bill Buckley's racism, and of Pat Buchanan's, as well as Steve King's, of Carl McIntire's religious mania and Pat Robertson's, as well as Rick Santorum's. It's the party which wrapped every little adventurist foreign excursion from Korea to Iraq II in patriotic fervor, and which found it necessary to rewrite the history of every last one (excepting, maybe, the Glorious Liberation of Grenada); Nixon's traitor hunt of 1946 was little different than Andrew Sullivan's in 2001, and, no, he's one of yours. No one with eyes and ears could possibly have missed this, apart, somehow, from the DLC and today's tiny island leper colony of sadder-but-wiser centrists.
__
Okay, sure: the Republican party has become increasingly dilatory and obtuse in the halls of power, but that's not a change of the last four years. Had Republicans had the power in 1981 they would have dispensed with all the Reagan sainthood bullshit and just rammed through their radical agenda, instead of getting Democrats to agree to do it for them. And there's no question this has been facilitated, both by a venal and cowardly Democratic party, and a venal and cowardly Press. But, really, enough of this stuff. I'm not gonna make common cause with Democrats, or rueful Republican centrists, who suddenly notice what the GOP has become, and expect a medal for saying so. The time to speak up was thirty years ago, when this stuff was just as plain, and was being covered by a transparent rewrite of unpleasant history, and a clear retrenchment on individual rights. Y'know, when Reaganism was the Wave of the Future the Republican platform had no more chance of actually governing than it does today. David Stockman was just as big a liar as Paul Ryan. I'm going to settle for having been right about this **** all along, and hope we don't kill too many innocents when it all blows up. Don't offer to help me shovel now. You've already done enough.

[Riot]

The contemporary Republican party was born in 1964, not coincidentally the same year the Johnson administration decided that black people could have some rights. It's the party of Bill Buckley's racism, and of Pat Buchanan's, as well as Steve King's, of Carl McIntire's religious mania and Pat Robertson's, as well as Rick Santorum's. It's the party which wrapped every little adventurist foreign excursion from Korea to Iraq II in patriotic fervor, and which found it necessary to rewrite the history of every last one (excepting, maybe, the Glorious Liberation of Grenada); Nixon's traitor hunt of 1946 was little different than Andrew Sullivan's in 2001, and, no, he's one of yours. No one with eyes and ears could possibly have missed this, apart, somehow, from the DLC and today's tiny island leper colony of sadder-but-wiser centrists.

I certainly agree with that. I was bred, born and raised as a northern businessman Republican, and that's exactly what internal struggles in the party have always been about.

But Bill Buckley, in spite of his obvious racism, squashed the evangelical wing and wrapped the party in the cloak of wealth, intellectualism and elitism, successfully keeping Republican power in the hands of the grandees.

They lost that power in the 2010 election, and now they are fighting to regain it from the crazies that won't vote their financial interests: Santorum against chosen robot Romney - to get ownership of Congress back.

The Democratic party has moved to be what centrist Republicans used to be - see Obama (and the electoral support he received, and continues to receive, from centrist Republicans for whom the party has moved far right, out from under them).

We have very few true liberals in our Congress nowadays. This country desperately needs a very progressive party to help drag the entire country back left, into the 21st century. We have the moderate centrist party - the Dems; and the right wing party, the Republicans, and a third party splitoff with two wings that have surprising power nowadays, the evangelicals and ultra conservatives who want to eliminate government entirely.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis

Republican Derangement Syndrome in full blown glory. Fortunately, most have the insight to realized both parties are corrupt and beyond contempt - but keep on using every opportunity to bash what you don't agree with - You certainly wouldn't want to come across as hypocritical

It would be helpful in this thread if you would discuss the content of the article, pro or con - as you clearly hold the very view the article spends four pages discussing arguments against - rather than simply coming out with ad hominem attacks on other posters.