The Values Voters Summit is an annual event that gathers together all the religious right wing crazies, and politicians go and pander to them by throwing out red meat rhetoric on their favorite issues for them to devour. For these people, establishment Republican leaders are wimps who won’t really fight for conservative causes by threatening to bring government to a halt unless they get their way.
Watch their reaction when Marco Rubio, in his speech to them today, gave the news that speaker John Boehner had announced that he was resigning as Speaker of the House of Representatives and leaving Congress as of October 30th.
Other right-wingers have joined in dancing on Boehner’s grave, hailing it as a victory for the ‘grass roots’ over the party establishment.
It was widely reported that Boehner was unwilling to link a measure to cut off for funding for Planned Parenthood with passing a bill funding the government, something that had to be done by October 1 when current spending authorization ends. Since such a linkage would never pass in the senate and would be vetoed by president Obama anyway, such a move would have guaranteed a shut down of the government.
The Tea Party faction had warned that if he failed to act as they wished, they would try and force his removal. Boehner must have decided the hell with it, he doesn’t need the aggravation, he’ll just pass the so-called ‘clean’ funding measure without the PP cut and then quit.
Republican New York representative Peter King, one of the so-called ‘moderates’ in the party said of Boehner’s exit, “To me, this is a victory of the crazies.”
Yes, but your party and leadership fed and nurtured the crazies for years so you are to blame for them becoming a mean and vicious group.
Maybe. The curious part to me is that Boehner is not just resigning as speaker, he will also be resigning from his House seat.
I wonder if next year, we’ll look back at today as the first big step in the breakup of the Republican party.
It will be very interesting to hear what Boehner has to say once he starts doing the talk circuits. I wonder if it might be some version of looking across the table at the new breed of Republicans and saying, “You know, I just can’t work with these people any more.” As I mentioned in my response to your last political post, I’ve been seeing that kind of response in other traditional Republicans as well, due to Trump.
Folks are also wondering if there may not have been some type of moral awakening triggered by the Pope yesterday.
Regardless, it must be a tough time to be an old-school Republican. Many of them must be gradually realizing that their “allies” don’t care about the economy, competence, honesty, decency, or even traditionally “conservative” values like financial austerity — they’re just rabidly all about scoring points off the left through any means possible. But where can they go?
I’ll also bet that Roger Ailes is kicking himself for having the candidates pledge not to run a third party at his debate. If Trump gets the nomination, he’s cut off the chance for the “money” conservatives to come up with anyone to put against him to salvage their interests.
@brucegee1962, you asked “Where can they go”? They could move back toward the center and form alliances across the aisle to get things done. There was a time that such behavior wasn’t just limited to the Senate. Historically the House is expected to have less comity and more intensity, but the balance goes back and forth. Right now we are seeing people realize that the pendulum has gone farther than they wished to the right: some of those people will respond by ceasing to push on it.
Is there anybody anywhere (outside, possibly, of a few family members or neighbors) who actually likes John Boehner? His speakership was always a compromise between factions in uneasy cooperation at best.
This looks to me like another major step in the takeover of the Republicans by the teabaggers, to the loss of the corporate sector (though we’ll have to see who replaces Boehner for a serious determination). However, so far the ‘baggers are rejoicing.
Boehner himself is either a better actor than I’d thought, or feels relief at escaping from between the rock and the hard place: “it’s a wonderful day.” Thus thwarted for the moment, my schadenfreude nonetheless awaits the impending fight for the succession with eager anticipation.
There was a comment on The Scalzi’s site that this may be the precursor of a Presidential run. Now I do not care who domestically runs the US but, like the rest of the world i do worry about external policy. I still suspect that some of the more stupid Republican candidates may have an unfortunate accident if they look like winning.
The GOP under Nixon — Anyone here remember Nixon — started playing with the unity of an extreme radical right rump kept as an attack dog, pandering to big money for campaign contributions and money to run the machine, dedicated and disciplined media grooming and manipulation, and the beginnings of rigid party control with a matching internal welfare system. It was the construction of a political machine.
Part of this plan was to construct a nominally independent monster that could be kept on a leash. This monster could be trotted out regularly to serve as contrast and counterpoint to the much more reasonable and moderate main party structure.
Unfortunately the radical right monster that had been manufactured and allowed to get big and scary enough to scare the villagers and enforce party discipline has adapted and thrown off the controls. Ten years ago the GOP leadership could limit the monster’s access to resources. It could be controlled.
The monster figured out how to sidestep party control by tapping directly into the finance, media, and the potent psycho-political crack made of a mix of paranoia, fear, religious fervor, and nihilism. It has broken through the barred basement door and thrown out speaker John Boehner, one of the last rational Republicans left in the House. He was the keeper of the leash.
The monster will now run the House unrestrained. The monster wants to bust up the place. And, possibly, build a new culture based upon an idealized, but entirely fictional, past.
I think a presidential run is wildly unlikely. Although he’s steeped in conservative ideology, Boehner also cares about concepts like allowing government to function, not demonizing opponents, civility, and only picking fights you have a chance of winning. All those things make him an anathema to Republican voters.
Reginald @#1,
I think he is quitting the House so that he can immediately start the clock (I think it is one year) when he becomes eligible to lobby his colleagues and start making big money.
Nothing new here. They hate everyone. Hate is the basis of fundie xianity, something known a century ago.
No hate = No fundie xianity
They hate him, they really hate him
You see, this is the problem of being a villain. You spend you life conscientiously making the world a worse place and trying to make as many people as miserable as possible, and in the end all of the other villains have nothing but contempt for you.
No, I think he was a smidgen better than the rest of them. His ends were just as vile, but at least there were some means that even he wouldn’t stoop to. He actually had some respect for the institution of Congress as well, and he knew its limitations.
The ones who are left seem to be the ones who think that, if the country won’t go their way, then the only recourse is to blow it up.