A Non-Virtuous Cycle

by publius

Previously obscure GA Representative Paul Broun thinks Pelosi is a "domestic enemy of the Constitution."  As a result, he's now getting a bunch of attention.  And while it's an obviously disturbing statement, my fear is that publicizing it only creates incentives for even more extreme statements.

More broadly, the rising level of extreme statements like Broun's needs to be understood as a function of intra-GOP dynamics.  The GOP has been quite effective at maintaining party discipline lately -- largely by threatening primary challenges for even the most modest cooperation with Dems (see, e.g., Crist).  Even Grassley -- who hasn't lifted a finger for reform -- was threatened this summer.  It's no accident, then, that he responded with more extreme criticisms of the reform bills as the summer wore on.

To avoid these attacks, GOP legislators have strong incentives to ostentatiously distance themselves from anything Obama and the Dems support.  It's not enough just to oppose -- legislators need to leave no doubt.  This dynamic, then, leads GOP legislators to make increasingly extreme statements and to embrace increasingly extreme positions like "death panels."  

And if liberals start attacking, great.  There's probably nothing that nervous GOP legislators crave more than to become a subject of liberal attacks -- there's no better way to demonstrate their loyalty to the cause.

The whole thing is maddening.  These are, after all, genuinely disturbing statements that could very well lead to very bad things.  So the statements deserve to be criticized.  My fear, though, is that the very act of criticizing them inspires "copycat" legislators who want an easy way to establish their bona fides.

Comments

[wonkie]

I'm not afraid of the effects of criticism of those sorts of extremists statements. I think the effect of calling out extremism is positive: the language gets labelled accurately and the person usig the language getsdiscredited inthe eyes of all of us normal people. I don't see the downside.

BTW Nancy Pelosi and other female COngresscritters are making lots of hay off the "Put her in her place" remark.

It's ashame that the Republicans have driven all of the normal people out of their party and it is a shame that they remaing wackos support such nasty language but I don't see the down side in publicizing and contradicting them. Let e'm show their true colors!

[sidereal]

This dynamic, then, leads GOP legislators to make increasingly extreme statements and to embrace increasingly extreme positions like "death panels."

, and increasing numbers of independent voters to think they're farking nuts, and decreasing levels of support for the GOP overall, and. .

wait, sorry. Why am I supposed to be bothered by this?

[EL]

Except the further the Republicans go into the weeds chasing their base the more distant they become from general election voters. Their chasing the far right today may lead to extinction in the long run.

[publius]

It depends on what you think causes electoral change. if you want to a pure determinist about it and say elections follow economic indicators, then what the GOP says doesn't matter much. and this dynamic leads to some very bad results when they actually do get power back.

I don't know -- I guess I'm tired of following the outrages. I'm just not sure how productive it is in the grand scheme. But I could certainly be persuaded otherwise

[Roger Moore]

Why am I supposed to be bothered by this?

Except the further the Republicans go into the weeds chasing their base the more distant they become from general election voters.

Yeah, it's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt. Republican leaders firing up right wing kooks to commit political violence is something I'd really rather avoid. And make no mistake, that's the direction that more and more of this talk is headed. The people who get killed in that violence will stay dead no matter what the political fallout. I don't wish for my opponents to do evil, even if my side will benefit from the backlash.

[Warren Terra]

I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, the Republicans are chasing their seemingly dwindling rightmost edge, leading them to charge madly in spirals down the metaphorical drain (and, obviously, to charge madly in reverse - or else they'd be twisting in the wrong direction as they turned constantly to the right to go down a drain in this hemisphere). And their seeming self-destruction can only be good for their opponents.

On the other hand, they're the only opposition we've got. I want an opposition with which I can disagree but that doesn't terrify me, one that seems to be at least notionally connected to the idea of governing and to the real world. And we ain't got one of those in this country.

The Republicans will be back in power, sooner or later; or at least the opposition will. I see no signs of any sanity emerging within the Republicans, and I see no particular signs of a sane third party coalescing from the opposition or splitting from within the Democrats to take their place. So far, it still looks like when the opposition does return to power it will still be the Republicans, and they will still be barking mad.

After all, we look at them and see they're insane. But lest we forget: they're now basically a regional party. And within that party their views are quite popular, what with a majority of Southerners thinking Obama isn't or might not be a citizen. They're not just playing to their partisan base: they're actually playing to their entire electorate, or at least to a majority of it. And that's the scary part: there's no need for them to fear their insanity will hurt them with their voters even in the general election - with the exception of states like Florida, where even the presumably crazy candidate (Rubio) today felt the need to criticize the manifest insanity of the Congressional Republicans.

[sidereal]

Republican leaders firing up right wing kooks to commit political violence is something I'd really rather avoid.

I'm pretty sure the pressure's running in the other direction. Republican politicians say stupid stuff because their primary electorate demands it. Nobody is going to shoot anybody because of something Paul Broun said. He doesn't generate that much respect.

If 'Republican leaders' includes Limbaugh and Beck, that's a different story. They engender a lot of respect and spend all day rabble rousing.

But politicians -- I'm perfectly happy to see them pander their way into irrelevance without too much worry.

[wonkie]

It bothers me that the Republican party has become the equivalent of what used to be referred to as the rightwing lunatic fringe. It bothers me b ecause lots of voters don't pay enough attention when they vote and that creates an openning for wackos with plausible presentations to get elected with votes from people who do not know what an extremist they are voting for. Rossi out here in Washington state nearly got elected and he's one of those Rand cultists type Republicans. This is a state that has a parasitic and hypocritical red state side (eastern Wash.) and a liberal side with a real socialist history (western side). There really isn't a costiuency for a politician who combines very very reactionary attitudes toward women with the belief that the government has no responsiblity beyond cutting taxes for the rich (and translating his relkigious prinsiples into law!). He got votes for being a smoothy.

It really worries me that at some point the Republican Presidential candidate will be someone worse than Bush but with a campaign that is managed more effectivley than McCain's. It is not good for us to have a political party comprised of crazy people who can sell themselves as normal because their party's reputation hasn't caught up with reality.

[Jesurgislac]

Wonkie, on the Chris Christie thread, Jrudkis is a live example of how Republican voters really don't care if a politician with an (R) next to his name commits crimes.

That the Republican party is is the political equivalent of the UK's BNP, but with a much broader support and much more money, is scary. That Republican voters are quite willing to join the Republican noise machine in covering up Republican crimes by smearing Democrats is fairly disturbing.

[Dustin]

wonkie, while I get that your remarks about "parasitic and hypocritical" Eastern Washington are referring to the loudmouthed types out here constantly badmouthing Seattleites and West-siders, while living in a geographical area largely subsidized by Western Washington's tax revenue, it still rubs me the wrong way, as an Eastern Washingtonian. I know you know we're not all that way. Maybe make some more careful distinctions next time.

[liberal japonicus]

OT, this is pretty incredible (in the original sense of unbelievable) Wow.

[Jesurgislac]

OT, this is pretty incredible (in the original sense of unbelievable)

It sure is, but then, if Henry Kissinger can win the Nobel Peace Prize, why not Barack Obama?

[chmood]

I for one welcome our aspirational overlord!

[mckinneytexas]

Someone calls Pelosi "a domestic enemy of the constitution" and this merits its own post? Holy cow, some folks need a skin graft because right now the leftish epidermis is a bit thin. Wasn't a routine epithet for Bush "Bushitler" back in the day? Wasn't Bush routinely called a murderer? I seem to remember the progressive left having nothing civil to say about Republicans or conservatives, ever. DailyKos, Moveon.org, etc. are not hotbeds of civility anymore than the hard right. Get a grip and quit whining.

[KCinDC]

McKinney, could you identify which Democratic members of Congress used the term "Bushitler"? Hell, could you identify anyone of any significance at all (not some random blog commenter who might even have been a Republican troll) who used the term? And how do those numbers compare to the numbers of Republican political and media leaders who have compared Obama to Hitler and Stalin?

[Jesurgislac]

The difference is, MckinneyTexas, that in no way is Nancy Pelosi "a domestic enemy of the constitution" - that's just Republicans getting their knickers in a twist over a woman and a Democrat having power their party doesn't. Ugly misogynistic bigotry expressed in the form of vile insults.

Wasn't a routine epithet for Bush "Bushitler" back in the day?

No, even though Bush had launched aggressive wars on other countries, had founded concentration camps, had legalized torture, and illegally wiretapped his political opponents in a scheme so criminal John Ashcroft refused to be party to it.

Wasn't Bush routinely called a murderer?

Sadly no, despite his being responsible for an as-yet-undetermined number of people being tortured to death, and causing the deaths of over a million Iraqis: and then there's the question of how much responsibility Bush himself should carry for the people drowned in New Orleans because he didn't care enough about the safety and wellbeing of the United States to focus any Presidential attention on setting up a federal disaster agency that could respond to a hurricane about to wipe out a US city.

You see, unlike these epithets being thrown at Pelosi, Bush actually was guilty of these appalling crimes. That Republicans shut their eyes and hummed welovebush and pretended that the outrage decent people felt was just an irrational hatred of Bush, is tribute to your party's appalling ability to support evil for partisan power.

[Marty]

"The difference is, MckinneyTexas, that in no way is Nancy Pelosi "a domestic enemy of the constitution" "

What possible relevance could your opinion of whether she is or not(it is just an opinion) have on the point of this post?

"You see, unlike these epithets being thrown at Pelosi, Bush actually was guilty of these appalling crimes."

Again, your opinion of the criminality of these actions has no bearing on the point of this post, or the point of mckinneys comment.

[Jesurgislac]

Marty: What possible relevance could your opinion of whether she is or not(it is just an opinion) have on the point of this post?

Aw, Marty. Not content with making clear how deep the mud stinks on the Christie thread, you want to come here and smear mud too?

Again, your opinion of the criminality of these actions has no bearing on the point of this post, or the point of mckinneys comment.

Stupid, too? Mckinney tried to equate insults slung at Bush which he had deserved a million times over, with some random crap thrown at Pelosi which anyone with even a moderate knowledge of the US Constitution can see is perfectly random. "Bushitler" was a stupid insult, but "murderer" was not: Bush is ultimately and very directly responsible for every single victim of his policies of kidnapping and torture.

Your trying to claim that it's just my opinion that Bush is responsible for those tortured to death by US agents and soldiers, legally and morally a murderer an unknown number of times? That's your problem. That you consider murder to be a minor sin if committed by a Republican President, because your partisan support overcomes any moral sense that torturing prisoners to death is wrong, is unfortunately a wider problem than just your inane lack of morality: every other Republican willing to support kidnapping, torture, and murder if a Republican does it is part of the problem.

[Pericles]

I'm a Republican and I find these statements shameful. I wish there was some way to organize for moderate republicans in primary battles in order to break this dynamic.

Wonkie, on the Chris Christie thread, Jrudkis is a live example of how Republican voters really don't care if a politician with an (R) next to his name commits crimes.

You brought that crap here? This is just a personal vendetta against Jrudkis. It seems like this site has one set of rules for trolls on the right and another set of rules for trolls on the left, e.g. Jesurgislac.

[chmood]

ON-topic:

At times like this, I rather hate my native state.

Tom Price ("my" representative...) running from the Birther question (literally);

Erick Erickson's poisonous and irrational-is-an-understatement RedState gives the south wind a wretched tinge;

The non-stop race-baiting that went (and still goes) hand-in-hand with the Republican gerrymandering that has kept electoral districts in this state majority-Republican for nearly 20 years;

The sheer weight of the Confederate voting bloc (and trust me, it's KKK in everything *but* name), which keeps non-Confederates scared of what attention they might draw.

All this adds up, as publius says, to an internecine pissing-match, intended to establish and defend in-party cred...yet it's disturbingly reminiscent of the bombast and bluster that we used to hear from the puppet governments of the Iron Curtain countries - all that sound and fury only signifying submission and obeisance to the bigger dogs.

Broun is a pathetic little dog, who can only get his yaps in after the big dogs are racing off again. He, Price, Chambliss, Isakson, Erickson et al are living (but slimy) examples of the eternal truth that a comfortable living can be made from the politics of division.

It may be too late to avoid *any* bloodshed - too many police officers have been gunned down by the Cold Dead Hands Brigade (and I'm at least as leery of the police as RedStaters are or the rest of government).

I'm actually putting my money on the 2010 elections...when I expect the GOP to lose still more seats (assuming that voting-machine fraud can be contained (and yes, in the vote-fraud sweepstakes, Diebold & Co beat ACORN every time: on processes registration applications; the other tallies votes. YOU do the math)).

It will likely be the ugliest election we've had since Andy Jackson, but it should put to rest this idea that the "conservatives" are somehow the natural rulers of the nation & that everything has to please them.

Rambling, sorry...too many racists slamming the President today....

[Carleton Wu]

DailyKos, Moveon.org, etc. are not hotbeds of civility anymore than the hard right. Get a grip and quit whining.

The difference is that, on the one hand we have some websites, and on the other hand we have a United States Congressman. We all understand that DU and freerepublic are going to yammer away.

Statements such as this one, justifying violence against the government, ought to be restricted to the fringe. And we're in the right to loudly complain when they seep into the mainstream.

[John Thullen]

Well, TPM has a thing up about Republican filth candidate Robert Lowry in Florida firing a handgun at a human sillouette of his opponent and Democratic incumbent Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz at yet another violent Republican event.

Lowry, being the kind of cowardly, cocksucking sub-human Taliban filth that Republicans vomit up to infest my government, fired at an unarmed human sillouette.

He didn't even permit the sillouette to have a machete to chase he and his family around and hack them to pieces.

Word is he shot the sillouette in the back with a cop-killer bullet.

Where does the Republican Party want to take this?

Do they want to take this to a where there is nothing left but dead Republican motherfuckers all over the place, because there is only a line or two left to cross?

Get control of your party, people, before someone else has to out of self-defense.

[Sasha]

John Thullen, that's as disturbing a post as it is funny. But you appear to enjoy some form of de facto immunity from the posting rules, so I won't complain.

[John Thullen]

When the world starts enforcing its posting rules against the violent, racist Republican Party, I'll stand down.

I offer side-splitting vengeance in one hand and an olive branch in the other.

Why can't liberal cardboard human sillouettes have their own NRA-type militia to defend themselves against murderous threats from the two-legged, flesh and blood predators in the Republican Party.

A Republican cardboard human sillouette would shoot first and ask questions later if the roles were reversed, wouldn't they?

Well, they'd talk tough, wet themselves, and then shoot.

Or they'd strap a weapon on to attend their kid's soccer games and then turn it on their husband and wife, and then themselves, if the Republic is lucky.

Now, if you are Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her bodyguards, the next time you run into Mr. Lowry, what are you going to do?

How does anyone really know whether Mr. Lowry is going to murder liberal politicians in cold blood, or not?

The terms of the debate are now changed.

The trick is to keep laughing right up until the moment when it's no longer effing funny and to fire off the last killer joke.

[The Crafty Trilobite]

Sasha, AFAICT, Thullen generally stays well within the posting rules. The profanity in this particular piece appears to be a violation, but do you care? I note that the unusually vituperative tone of this piece is a satire of the phenomemon being discussed in the post and thread.

Wonkie, I agree with your concerns. It's not just Congresscritters, either. President Palin 2012 remains a very real possibility -- she could easily win the nomination the way that party is going, and if Obama screws up big enough, she'll be the only alternative, so she'll win.

At which point I probably emigrate...

[Sasha]

John Thullen,

What Lowry did is indefensible. I want to be clear that I meant your post was funny, not Lowry's threat. I still harbor reservations as to whether violent, tough guy posturing is the proper response to violent, tough guy posturing.

[Sasha]

The profanity in this particular piece appears to be a violation, but do you care?

No, not at all. I'm just not that into violence.

[Jeff]

Previously obscure GA Representative Paul Broun thinks Pelosi is a "domestic enemy of the Constitution."

If he truly believes that, he should have her tried for treason. If he doesn't, or if he fails, he should be tried for libel / slander.

C'mon, Broun, stop with the weasel words -- put your personal freedom behind your words or STFU.

[John Thullen]

Yes, Shasha, I understand your point.

"I'm not just not that into violence."

Me neither.

But the Republican Party increasingly is into violent rhetoric and now acts, not just on the part of their oaf base and radio shouters, but now their candidates are practicing their marksmanship on Democratic cardboard candidates (sneaking up on them from behind in the shrubbery, or from distant windows like they did when shot the cardboard sillouettes of Martin Luther King and John. F. Kennedy and hung the cardboard sillouette of the Census worker in Kentucky).

They've upped the ante since the Clinton days when they would shoot at cardboard sillouettes of cantalopes in their backyards.

I repeat: Where does the Republican Party want to take this?

After all, if cardboard sillouettes of Jews in 1932 Germany had taken action, they would have saved alot of trouble for flesh and blood Jews later.

I repeat: Decent Republican cardboard sillouettes need to take back control of their Party, before the cardboard sillouette of me does it for them.

[John Thullen]

And another thing:

The least my cardboard sillouette could do, besides honing my marksmanship skills, is learn to spell "silhouette".

[russell]

John Thullen, that's as disturbing a post as it is funny.

It's precisely as disturbing as the reality.

[Shane]

chmood hits on something. -- The real value of ACORN is to dilute, disempower and obstruct attempts to deal with the Diebold / voting machine fraud.

Sneaky.

[Irrumator]

Yeah, that's it Shane. Ignore the fact that ACORN has been convicted of violating election law. Ignore the fact the entire Democrat part wants to distance itself from these scumbags. It's all about your deranged conspiracy theories about electronic voting machines that aren't even used anymore.