WaPo: Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.

[babylonsister]

Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.
By Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, Published: April 27


Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates.

It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. Thanks WAPO

for catching up...........

Only took them, what, 30 years to figure this out? Well, better late than never, right?

[babylonsister]

2. I'll take it! Yea, they're late, but something is assuredly better than nothing. nt

[LiberalFighter]

3. I've been saying that for at least a year.

I've put it on our party's website. I've put in our annual directory. I am using it in the powerpoint I created for tonite's dinner. I've had it as part of my profile below. And I make that statement on numerous occasions.

The difference is that I say:

Government is not the problem
Republicans are the problem!

[CrispyQ]

4. And like Molly Ivins said,

Republicans don't want to govern, they want to rule.

That's their problem.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. Sideshow Bob (Simpsons) said it best:

"........Because you need me, Springfield. Your guilty conscience may move you to vote Democratic, but deep down you long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and RULE YOU LIKE A KING! That's why I did this, to save you from yourselves!"

[Iliyah]

6. Goppers want

total power. No competition on nothing, they want to be the sole ruler. They want to force their ideology on the rest of the American public and venture out into the world. What a sick piece of shit.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

7. WE've known this for YEARS, but I am really glad to see it

in print for the public discourse.

The more eyes on this, the better!!!

(Imagine, if there had been an internet at the end of the Weimar Republic in Germany, when the National Socialists were building their rise to power)

[The Wizard]

26. You are comparing Republicans to Nazis

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you-----------------Never mind.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

27. NO!! Not at ALL!

I was just comparing the progression of events from Weimar Republic in crisis and a nascent fascist/totalitarian violent movement on the rise and grabbing for footholds into the public sympathies to........


......OK, OK.......just please, don't invoke Godwin's Law on me.

[Gman]

48. LOL!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

56. :)

Heeeeeee heee

[Diclotican]

51. BlancheSplanchnik

BlancheSplanchnik

It all depend of how you are looking at it.. If an internet had been able for the masses at the end of the Wiemar Republic in Germany I doubt that would have meant to much - as they had enough information to have a idea of what the NSDAP was long before 1933 when Hitler was elected chancellor or Germany - in a minority government govern by conservatives!! Germany wanted deadly to go back to some form of "normality" after a decade of radical transformation from 1914, to the 1920s and then the chaotic 1930s where the money literary got out of worth by the time you get it out of the bank freeday afternoon..
And not least - when it was a lot of cheating and rig-voting in place to ensure that a conservative party got the power in 1933.. Hitler might not have von at all, if it was not for the fact that many conservatives worked hard to get an conservative elected to the chancellor of Germany.. In 1932 Hitler tried to get elected as the President of Germany, and lost with less than One percent of the votes... And after that NSDAP was almost broke - it was just the worsting economical collapse of Germany that saved NSDAP from going down the tubes... And some help from the KRUPP trust, who gave millions of RM to make NDSDAP solvent again.. And in 1933, (January 30) Hitler was made Chancellor by the conservatives - and Von Hindenburg, the President. A person who by now was old, geriatric and not at least senile, and totally out of tutch with the reality of what happened in Germany. He still believed SA was the tropps from his youth - the army of Wilhelm II and the empire....

Diclotican

[BlancheSplanchnik]

55. Thanks Diclotican!

I only have a very superficial understanding of what was going on at that time.

Thank you for explaining--it was a much more complex story than I knew.

Do you think that The Internet could have helped in some way, at all?

Well, I guess it doesn't matter, just a theoretical question now........can't change history

[Diclotican]

59. BlancheSplanchnik

BlancheSplanchnik

One of my hobbies have been reading about history - it have being something I have been doing since I learned to read and never stopped doing...

The rise of Hitler was a complex one, he started out as a failure - and ended up leading/ruling one of the greatest nations in Europe, and by far also one of the most advanced nations in the early 20th century... They also made a lot of the theoretical groundwork for one of the most dangerous, and mighty weapons of the 20th century, the theory of nuclear fission... But for some reason or another - the theoretical ideas never ended in a german nuclear weapon (thankfully) One reason was Hitlers stubbornness about nuclear fission at all, he clearly stated many times over the later years of the war - that nuclear fission was something they might was able to break - in the future, after world war two was ended, and Germany was the master of the world... Then they might had the resources to split the atom... And one other reason was that Germany doesn't had the resources to make a bomb, not as the war progressed, and the industry heartland of Germany was bombed to small pieces... A 3th reason was the fact that many who could have been used to explore the possibility of a german nuclear weapon, had to flee germany after 1933, because their ancestry was "troublesome" and got a free place in UK, and later on in the US where they was instrumental in making a working nuclear bomb, who exploded first time in New Mexico, later on the Japanese city's of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... Even though the bomb originally was planed for the German Capital Berlin.. But the germans surrounded before the bomb was ready, and therefore was never used over Berlin...

Well, even if internet had existed in the 1920s and 1930s I doubt it would have mattered to much - as we know from US the last decade it doesn't work when some cheat and steal their way to victory... Even if the opponent had won the election, and everyone got to bed sure about that the best man had won - and surprise, next day the worst candidate won the election... Thankfully he was not able to start world war 3, but dam he came close sometimes... He managed to piss off both Europe, and China in a couple of months - and from there it was just going downhill for 8 straight years... And Germany by 1933 had plenty of times to get to know the thugs of SA, and the thugs at the other NSDAP organizations that by 1933 in fact was a state inside the State, and have all type of sympathetic groups, people who wanted NSDAP to succeed, and off course wanted to get power after NSDAP's victory... The "internet" of the age. the telegraph had proven what the nazis-ts was, long before they get into power in 1933... And even with all the evidences of what a regime Hitler could end up as - Many truthful believed that Hitler at least would make the country stable, and make the country in some form of normalize.. But it is also important to know, Hitler never won a outright election in Germany.. Even when he had the support of the State, and could use all the state resources to make everyone listen to what he had to say, by radio, by air by train, by telegraph and so one - just 37.9 percent of germans ever voted NSDAP in any election.. And after 1934, no general election was ever held in Germany - and was not meant to be either as Hitler used that tool, just to Trump out support for one or another "election"... And after 1938, where Austria was "voted" into the arm of Greater Germany no election was needed.. The war was around the corner and in 1939 the war started in earnest..

Diclotican

[xtraxritical]

8. Why did WA PO wake up?

As Blanche. says most everyone has "known this for years". Why is WA PO finally waking up and not sugar coating and bending the truth so as not to offend? I hope this conversation goes mainstream. I hope everyone will VOTE A STRAIGHT DEMOCRATIC BALLOT.

[JHB]

15. Because the Establishment Republicans now see the foaming RWers as baggage...

...and are trying to lay the foundations for (attempting to) stuffing them back in their cage.

[DCBob]

9. The GOPers have truely gone off the deep end.

Its a relief that finally someone in mainstream media said it... outloud.

[southernyankeebelle]

10. Finally figuring it out that they want a king and a kingdom to rule.

[saras]

11. Typical WaPo misstatement. Right-wingers are the problem, no matter which party they are in.

[CrispyQ]

12. So true!

[SunSeeker]

13. Why is saying the obvious taking so long?

I just ran across this op and was about to post it when I saw you beat me to it. I loves me my DU. Thanks, babylonsister.

What struck me as I read this is that I think I have yet to read an op ed like this written by the actual editors of a major paper. The authors here, Thomas Mann, is Senior Fellow at the Brookings Inst. and Ornstein is with American Enterprise Inst.(!). This is not WaPo's opinion, although I have to give them props for running it. This, despite the fact that "the problem" has been obvious for years, as obvious as a naked emporer. Why is the obvious taking so long to dawn on our MSM? Gee, could it be they are owned by "the problem"?

[JHB]

17. It' an "only Nixon could go to China" thing

For the Washington insider set that the WaPo caters to, now that a couple of conservative think-tankers who are part of ther crowd have publicly raised the issue of possible extremism of the RWers, it's now OK to talk about it.

And now that Rmoney has just about clinched the nomination, they have to talk about it in order to dismiss the extremists as being inconsequential.

[Major Hogwash]

44. That's a great point.

They have finally woken up and realized that they all went to school in their pajamas.

[Newsjock]

14. Note the authors' pedigrees

Thomas E. Mann is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Coming from within the belly of the beast, this makes it hugh and series.

Edit: Mad props to SunSeeker, who posted the same observation at the same time as I.

[coalition_unwilling]

16. My reaction when I read it was to think that it came from the Department

Last edited Sat Apr 28, 2012, 05:51 PM - Edit history (1)

of the Obvious.

There's an epistemological crisis in this country right now, a yawning chasm that no amount of words will bridge. The authors acknowledge it when they write "The GOP has become . . . unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science."

So an op-ed piece in the WaPo that states the obvious offers no way out of the box. If you're a crazy RWer who believes the earth is only 6,000 years old and that radiocarbon dating is a Satanic plot to deceive man, no amount of education will change your mind.

[JHB]

19. It's from the Department of Injecting a Topic For Very Serious People To Ponder

Now that "the story's out there", Washington punditry can talk about it without being "shrill" or "prematurely accurate".

[Gman]

49. EXCELLENT point

I read the whole thing and that didn't register. That's what this is all about. This probably foreshadows Mitt moving to the center now.

[the_chinuk]

18. Any rebuttal by any GOPper wouldn't strike me as sincere anyway. So it's a wash. n/t

[Doctor_J]

20. Their extreme dysfunction gets them more votes

so I don't expect it to change.

Things will not begin to turn around until we the people take some extremely serious measures against Fox, CRNC, CNN, and the 1200 radio stations that work for the RNC

[jaysunb]

23. +1 n/t

[MADem]

21. I made up my mind to rec this baby based on the subject line alone!

The text was the icing on the cake!

[FightForChange]

22. They've finally gone too far

Obviously the GOP have pushed so far to the right that the media can no longer even take them seriously (minus Fox News). The Post is right that we can't get anything done with these radical ideologies everywhere. I'm really appreciative that somebody has opened this topic up, even though it is really late.

[stopbush]

24. And this from two CONSERVATIVE scholars at AEI.

Ornstein and Mann are co-directors of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project and long-time resident scholars at AEI.

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and responsibility, vigilant and effective defense and foreign policies, political accountability, and open debate".

[alp227]

29. Mann is also in Brookings (left of center)

http://www.brookings.edu/experts/mannt.aspx

[DFW]

60. Are you kidding? Norm is "conservative?"

I've known Norm Ornstein for well over ten years, and conservative is hardly the word I'd use to describe him.
He is the token sane person at AEI, and it is no accident that he is by far the most quoted and sought after
guy there. He doesn't hesitate to criticize Democrats where they screw up, but then neither do any of us.
That's what separates us from the Republicans.

[TahitiNut]

25. Mann and Ornstein get the KSOTO Award for this week.

* KSOTO = Keen Sense Of The Obvious

It's unusual (to say the least) that ANYONE associated with AEI could stumble across a flaw on the far right, let alone the anti-democratic, anti-American, and anti-rational (i.e. insane) fascist extremism that infests the right wing.

[Oldtimeralso]

43. I Knew That Award as the NSS Award

No Shit Sherlock.

[ladjf]

28. My question is what kind of circumstances existed in the past that caused so many people

to develop the type of philosophy that we see in the Republicans actions and policies?
It seems to be some form of mass psychopathic ideations.

[coalition_unwilling]

39. That question (of cause) is a good one. Do you have any

hypothesis? When House Republicans can advance legislation that kicks 280,000 children off the free school lunch program and there isn't a mass defection from the Republican Party, you know something has really gone very, very wrong.

[ladjf]

40. I have a few things in mind but no scientific basis for any of them.

Whatever is basically wrong has probably been developing for at least hundreds of years.

America has been a melting pot of all sorts of people from all over the World. They came for many different reasons.

It seems that the first American settlers were largely fleeing from oppressive political and religious systems. The wordings in the Constitution and in the letters and papers of the early founders clearly should what they they were concerned about, i.e. freedom of speech, religion and a number of other things along those lines.

However, the very negative things they had fled from seem to have taken over. The religious right is trying to turn us into a theocracy. The media has been commandeered by the wealthy and the political system is very close to being totally bought and paid for by powerful
people and organizations.

Public education, public health and humanistic legislation has been terribly wounded by policies that seem to have no concern for pain, no education, financial hardship and many other quality of life issues.

I'm just rambling through a few of the many things that have happened but I've offered to
theory as to why such negative thinking has gotten into the minds of too many Americans.

Underlying is all seems to be a fundamental and terrible greed. "I want mine and I don't care how I get it. And I don't want to see one penny of Government money being spent of the sick,elderly, public health care.

If I'm correct that greed and ignorance is driving the movement toward Republicanism, then
all out disaster is going to happen in the Country. We will be brought down to an almost
barbaric level of existence. Land will be bought up by domestic and foreign interests for whatever exploitive motives they might have in mind.

Those are a few of my unorganized thoughts. No solutions that I can think of.

[FlaGranny]

46. I believe there are always

enough people in every society, about 20% on either side, who, with enough effort and the right conditions, can move a country one way or another. In most cases, the middle of the road part of the population holds either side at bay. Things have been off balance in the US toward the right for some time. The religious right (our very own Taliban) cooked up their plans about 45 years ago and are the latest culprits . They took advantage of the Republican party and the the leaders of the party took advantage of them. The strange bedfellows may be getting ready to part ways. One can only hope. I'm not very fond of "old republican" values, but they are 100% more acceptable than these new radical types.

[Gman]

53. The extremists in the GOP

Are capitalizing on a resentment among whites. That feeling is that they work hard, do their best, follow all the rules and get no help. These whites are extremely resentful that people who are also minorities, seemingly get everything they work so hard for for free via assistance of some kind. When Sean Hannity talks about the poor having DVD players (which you can buy for only $30 now) he is echoing that kind of truth. Like it or not, this is the feeling among white GOP voters and it's very cynically being stoked. This is just one example.

[kentuck]

30. I think that would make a good Democratic Party ad...

Showing two people from AEI (a well-known conservative think tank) saying that Republicans are the problem. "ideologically extreme".

[Daniel537]

31. Blame the people that vote for them.

The Republicans haven't exactly been hiding their agenda, yet a large number of Americans still go for them. Very sad.

[steve2470]

32. Just wait for the vicious attacks by the RW blogosphere/media on their...

personal histories as well as their credentials. The reasoning and evidence will be totally ignored.

[eyewall]

33. This is reminiscent of David Stockman,

Reagan's cabinet level director of the Office of Management and Budget. In an Op-ed piece published in the NY Times in July 2010, "Four Deformations of the Apocalypse", Stockman explains how republican policies have set us on a course for financial disaster and potentially the end of the American way of life.

This message was picked up by the Wall Street Journal in August 2010, The 4 page article in the Market Watch section of the WSJ ran with an incredible headline declaring, Reagan insider: 'GOP destroyed U.S. economy'.

So this is not the first time the message has come from the republican camp. The problem seems to be that the GOP either doesn't get the message, or they don't care.

Original NY Times op-ed: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html?pagewanted=all

Wall Street Journal: http://articles.marketwatch.com/2010-08-10/commentary/30767246_1_gop-ideals-david-stockman-economy

[ashling]

34. out of reach

“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.

[Festivito]

35. For media's sake, this beats the media claiming it's the media.

For over a hundred years our media has had too much control.

[Mr. Sparkle]

36. Lets hope this is all over the Sunday Shows tommorrow.

There are some great points in the article, that seem to have been blinded to the general media.

[patrice]

37. Republicans are the mid-wives of SEDITIOUS FOREIGN corporate "persons". nt

[marshall gaines]

38. No!!!

Lets just say that the republican party has been the PROBLEM since Ronald Alzheimer Reagan.

[Richardo]

41. Boo-yah

[davidthegnome]

42. I respectfully disagree

I think corruption and greed is the problem... and that we do not have enough measures to safe guard against it. It's all but encouraged now, especially since the Citizens United ruling. Our elected officials, both democrat and republican... run on the money machine. A spinning wheel - and they are indeed well balanced runners, like a clever mouse finding it's way through a maze. Unfortunately, nearly all of what they say is scripted, permitted by their corporate owners. All that most of them lack is a price tag they should legally have to wear.

In a choice of the lesser of evils, I'll choose the democrats, but not eagerly and not without a great deal of holding my nose. What is most lacked today in our party leadership is what is most needed... passion and integrity. The same is true on the right.

[colorado_ufo]

45. 'Bout time.

Perhaps the reality of the obvious just hit them between the eyes. What, indeed, would happen if these extremists did capture all the power, unabated? This country would become a distorted, diluted, imitation of its former self, an America in name only. And if the media fail to stand forth at this crucial time, they would truly be complicit in this great country's decline and fall.

Perhaps even the press has a conscience.

[ms liberty]

47. KR&B for later. n/t

[drm604]

50. So things have gone to far for even Brookings and AEI.

That says a lot doesn't it?

They specifically mention Fox News as part of the problem! So will Fox now attack Brookings and AEI?

[allan01]

52. re:WaPo: Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.

funny, how many are on ssi , social security etc ,and want these cuts. as a friend says ,"what has the republican party done for you today".?

[stupidicus]

54. you know what they say -- "better late than never."

I'm gonna sign up to read the article in its entirety, so I'm curious to know if they supplied what they think the reasons for their race to the rightwingnut cliff in recent years is all about.

I've long thought and argued that it's all about stuffing their bank accounts with as much money as possible before things like health care and climate change make avoiding "socialistic" solutions to them impossible, and they recieve a disproportionate amount of the bill.

There's also the growing demographic tsunami in this country that threatens their hold on political power, so in a way, their desperation and accompanying obscene policy proposals are merely their way of getting their seat on the ark, like in the movie 2012.

The only challenge they give a shit about, is keeping as much money in the accounts of their monied masters as possible before events overtake them, and undercuts the political power they currently wield that both grows and preserves that pile of dough.

[Splinter Cell]

57. Well DUH!

[pscot]

58. K&R

[johnnyrocket]

61. Excellent op-ed

"insurgent outlier in American politics" says it all.