David Frum: Didn’t the GOP Learn from the Last Shutdown?

[babylonsister]

http://www.frumforum.com/didnt-the-gop-learn-from-the-last-shutdown

Didn’t the GOP Learn from the Last Shutdown?
April 7th, 2011 at 11:57 am
David Frum


As the GOP and President Obama go eyeball to eyeball over a government shutdown, I keep thinking of a story from one of Louisa May Alcott’s novels, the story of the children who put beans up their noses.

Story:

Mother has to run an errand. She tells the children to behave themselves while she is out – and above all, not to put beans up their noses.

To this point, the idea of putting a bean up the nose had never occurred to any of the children. Yet as soon as mother closed the garden gate behind her, the idea began to acquire an irresistible attractiveness. Beans? Up the nose? Genius!

And of course the mother returned to find her children snorting and choking.

From the experience of 1995-1996, you’d think there was one thing Republicans would know: don’t shut down the government. But like the beans, the more the Republicans think about how they should not do it, the more alluringly the idea beckons…

[phantom power]

1. I'm not sure I buy into 1995 analogies. Politically, our country is less sane now than then.

[emulatorloo]

3. Democrats and a good share of Independents are Sane. Republicans have gone insane.

There are more Dems and Sane Independents than there are insane Republicans.

Dems are going to have to get their "messaging" sharp and focused, they seem to be doing that.

A lot is going to depend on how the media decides to go. Are they willing to continue pretending that Teabag views are "mainstream?" If so it is going to be an uphill battle getting the truth out, but it can be done.

[FSogol]

4. +1 n/t

[cilla4progress]

5. Why the insanity?

Yeah, do you suppose there is some deep, Freudian reason for the insanity now, as you say, among the Republicans? Is it purely because we have an African-American (not biracial, "half-black", but true "African-American") man in the White House? I know Clinton drove them mad, in part because he was so popular. Republicans are like the idiot bullies in middle and high school - as depicted recently quite accurately on the TV show "Glee" (the football star who is a closeted gay young man). They have a visceral urge to destroy what they don't understand, but somehow sense is superior to them...

[elleng]

10. They ARE bullies, largely sociopaths too.

[butterfly77]

6. Exactly...

[PATRICK]

2. Learned to change the stage decor

and scripts. It hurts though that most of the mouths are batsh*t crazier than last time. There is no GOP top contender/leader to even go down for the count. They could replace Boehner with a shrug if necessary from both directions instead of one. The Dems as usual have helped diffuse the issue in both ways- siding with ridiculous austerity added to the past insufficient stimulus.

We are in too deep for the mere symbolism of a general shutdown. We were headed for a surplus that time. This time it is a meltdown on the horizon that makes this Foggy Bottom dysfunction merely one step in the disaster politics of the GOP.

They may have learned from Clinton's victory as well although they are extremely incompetent beyond their obscene material props.

What worries me is that the Dem "leadership" is playing for a one track repeat advantage from old battles while actually assisting the flailing insanity of the GOP to create Big Lie big enough to fake the trick. The party leaders as a whole seem to love passivity, surrender, hapless non-representational duality leading to gridlock, leading to the bended knee to corporate interest. Politics is merely hoping the ill informed populace gives them the edge despite unfettered RW propaganda and their agenda.

[cilla4progress]

8. Agreed!

It's all about getting the 10% slice of independents, for the win in 2012. But who are the 10%? Not necessarily true centrists. Some are probably extreme righties who wish to defy categorization. Likewise, I assume a segment are more left leaning, and view
themselves as voting based on policies and positions, rather than party affiliation. I suppose they run the gamut...but I do believe this is the driver for EVERY move the Obama administration makes right now. Not criticizing it...I want him re-elected as well.

[PATRICK]

11. Whatever shows up

on DNC computers it seems to add up to a chunk of disaffected GOPers, and swing centrists who pride themselves in following the MSM lead. I don't think disaffected leftists count because they are considered too sane to enable the GOP.

Crazy haters on the other hand never vote for anything good unless they learn they have been personally betrayed and always give the benefit to GOP talking points. The Dems affirm this and actually enable it.

Looking for the Eisenhower majority without the war hero aura I suppose. IF they should assemble party representation based on that displaced fifty's model it would be catastrophic in today's complex of post Cold War crises. I think both parties may be playing for a centrist super party(the GOP mainly by money backed total illusions)and two minor parties, one leftist(likely FDR Dem style) and one Conservative(Lord knows what), but the god of money and general misery over all.

I personally had hoped for Dems going for the easy populist win over an insane and discredited(in concrete indefensible terms) inferior GOP by championing more progressive measures against the corporate grain. Then the split would have been one super populist progressive party, one RW and one truculent Eisenhower style party, with democracy the victor and a chance to meet crises with our best.

The rational is always over optimistic when up against totally dysfunctional contemporary politics.

[stubtoe]

7. I know, it's like, didn't we see this same movie 15 years ago?

We already know how it ends...

[treestar]

I'm beginning to think they don't want to win

They want to indulge in their insanity, which is easier from an outside perspective.

[elleng]

9. Please don't eat the daisies!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6MNq3poDt8

[Keith Bee]

12. Crucial difference between then and now

In the mid-90s, our "news" media weren't as right-wing and elephant-sucking as they are now.