Guardian UK: America's 'Taliban 20' Republicans have the same roots as our Brexit spartans

[marmar]

America’s ‘Taliban 20’ Republicans have the same roots as our Brexit spartans
Will Hutton

The deranged politics driving the US Freedom Caucus and Tory anti-Europeans can only lead to one outcome: a death spiral for both
Sun 8 Jan 2023 03.30 EST


It is a commonplace that today’s Conservative party has become an ungovernable rabble – a group of factional sects unfit to govern, with too many in the party and among its media supporters careless of effective government as a matter of principle. What else can be said of a party that has delivered three prime ministers and home secretaries, four chancellors and health secretaries and five education secretaries in one calendar year? What is less explored is the deeper ideological source of this phenomenon.

An important clue came last week with the spectacle of newly elected Republicans in the House of Representatives taking 15 votes over five days to elect candidate Kevin McCarthy as House speaker, the second most important role in the US constitution after the president. No speaker and the House cannot function – no swearing in of members, committee chairs or passing of laws. Business was frozen as McCarthy made an incredible series of concessions on House procedures and his power as speaker to the “Freedom Caucus” of ultra rightwingers to win their votes. He is now their cipher: US government is in the pocket of a minority faction who do not believe in the very principle of government.

These are not just the political shenanigans that are now customary in Washington; instead, they reveal the ideological madness that has also descended on the right in the UK. Thus, Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s radical libertarianism, which informed the disastrous tax-cutting mini-budget was borrowed directly from the US libertarian right and now reinforces the Truss camp’s crazed belief they have a legacy to protect. Same story for climate change denial, fighting culture wars as a proxy battle against the liberal left and stretching anti-immigrant legislation beyond the limits of legality. The actions of the Freedom Caucus, or “the Taliban 20”, have the same roots, ideological and organisational, as those of the Brexit “spartan” MPs who forced the hardest of hard EU exits on Britain by brooking no deal except on their scorched earth terms.

“Losers’ consent”, the doctrine under which, if you lose a free election, you accept the verdict of the voters, is rightly said to be a precondition for democracy. So is a broader willingness to accept other basic principles; democracy is not a process to give an ideological minority a clean sweep of everything through sheer bullying. There has to be compromise and acceptance that democratic politics is a constant argument; opponents are citizens, too, with valid interests and arguments. They have to be out-argued rather than treated as disposable scum.

The American Republican Taliban don’t care. Members of the Freedom Caucus may talk and look like other politicians, but the self-belief that they are absolutely correct – helped by the US’s industrial-scale rightwing media – has made them deranged. Government is a “swamp”; welfare undermines self-reliance, however acute individual need; tax is an infringement of personal liberty; might is right in interpersonal as in international affairs (so be suspicious of Zelenskiy and lean into Putin); global warming is a socialist conspiracy; abortion and gay marriage offend the Bible. .................(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/08/americas-taliban-20-republicans-have-the-same-roots-as-our-brexit-spartans

[SalviaBlue]

1. Recommended!

Thanks for posting.

[mopinko]

2. 1 reason i dont want to leave twitter is news from across the pond.

they r most def being put through the same wringer over there. i knew that when i saw mask protests in dublin. i was embarrassed for my ppl.
and let’s not forget the mercers, uk citizens.

like here, i think ppl are starting to see the light, tho. there seems to be a move for a referendum on a united ireland. brexit made it a choice btn a united ireland as a part of the eu, or more decades of nonsense. and the irish are tired of the sectarian nonsense.

i wish there was more coverage over here of the nurses strikes, and the nhs battles.
it’s the worst fears of folks here of universal, govt healthcare. i always hated the framing of m4a, instead of fulfill the aca. medicare is better than no ins, but it’s crappy insurance. and it’s crappy because the rw has chipped away at it, and refused to expand it in the face of expensive improvements in healthcare, from jump street.
what the rw has done to education is what they would do to healthcare if they got their grubby mitts on it. everyone but the doctors in that system get starvation wages and all but slave working conditions. there seems to be a ton of sympathy for the strikers.

[Wounded Bear]

3. K & R...nt

[2naSalit]

4. K&R

The Y'all Qaeda of the House.

[mathematic]

5. The position of both major UK parties is brexit and the people vote that way

Furthermore, the American Right is not libertarian. They don't believe in small government. They believe in "big government but not so big we have to share power with our ideological opponents". Sometimes that means states rights. Sometimes that means the national government closes our borders so hard it builds a literal wall hundreds of miles long on our border.

The American Right does not support Putin because "might is right". They support Putin because Putin is a white man running a reactionary authoritarian state supporting "traditional" values.

Basically, this piece can be summarized thusly: out of touch British man tries to explain US politics to British normies. This guy learned something about US politics 20 years ago and is repeating it, thinking it's true. Citing William F. Buckley as an ideological influence for today's conservative just goes to show you this man's thinking is decades past due. Buckley was famously opposed to the John Birch Society and today's conservatives are the ideological decedents of Birchers. And Leo Strauss? Wow, what's his 2005 DU handle? This guy knows GWB hasn't been president for 15 years right?

Just because they write with a British accent doesn't mean they know what they're talking about.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

6. Gangsters Of Putin merged with the U.S. Taliban, directed by Fascist Oligarch eXtremists.