The roots of the Republican Party crack-up
Robert Reich
SF Chroncle
Sunday, January 1, 2012
With the Iowa caucuses just days away, the Republican crack-up threatens the future of the Grand Old Party more profoundly than at any other time since the GOP's eclipse in 1932. That's bad for America.
The crack-up isn't just Romney-the-smooth versus Gingrich-the-bomb-thrower. Not just House Speaker John Boehner, who keeps making agreements he can't keep, versus House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who keeps making trouble he can't control. And not just the GOP establishment versus the Tea Partiers.
The underlying conflict lies deep in the nature and structure of the Republican Party. And its roots are very old.
As political analyst Michael Lind has noted, today's Tea Party is less an ideological movement than the latest incarnation of an angry white minority - predominantly Southern, mainly rural, largely male - that has repeatedly attacked American democracy in order to get its way.
(More here.)
SF Chroncle
Sunday, January 1, 2012
With the Iowa caucuses just days away, the Republican crack-up threatens the future of the Grand Old Party more profoundly than at any other time since the GOP's eclipse in 1932. That's bad for America.
The crack-up isn't just Romney-the-smooth versus Gingrich-the-bomb-thrower. Not just House Speaker John Boehner, who keeps making agreements he can't keep, versus House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who keeps making trouble he can't control. And not just the GOP establishment versus the Tea Partiers.
The underlying conflict lies deep in the nature and structure of the Republican Party. And its roots are very old.
As political analyst Michael Lind has noted, today's Tea Party is less an ideological movement than the latest incarnation of an angry white minority - predominantly Southern, mainly rural, largely male - that has repeatedly attacked American democracy in order to get its way.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
I actually think the "go-along to get-along” GOP needs to go. The GOP that implements new entitlement programs needs to go. The GOP that has cooperated with liberals in spending the US into oblivion needs to go. I am puzzled by Reich’s angry white southern male comments; perhaps he thought Albert Gore Sr. and Robert Byrd were members of the GOP?
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