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Showing Original Post only (View all)Panic Rooms, Birth Certificates and the Birth of GOP Paranoia [View all]
This article by John Boehner gives some insight into the modern Republican party. Pretty interesting.
In the 2010 midterm election, voters from all over the place gave President Obama what he himself called a shellacking. And oh boy, was it ever. You could be a total moron and get elected just by having an R next to your nameand that year, by the way, we did pick up a fair number in that category.
Retaking control of the House of Representatives put me in line to be the next Speaker of the House over the largest freshman Republican class in history: 87 newly elected members of the GOP. Since I was presiding over a large group of people whod never sat in Congress, I felt I owed them a little tutorial on governing. I had to explain how to actually get things done. A lot of that went straight through the ears of most of them, especially the ones who didnt have brains that got in the way. Incrementalism? Compromise? That wasnt their thing. A lot of them wanted to blow up Washington. Thats why they thought they were elected.
Some of them, well, you could tell they werent paying attention because they were just thinking of how to fundraise off of outrage or how they could get on Hannity that night. Ronald Reagan used to say something to the effect that if I get 80 or 90 percent of what I want, thats a win. These guys wanted 100 percent every time. In fact, I dont think that would satisfy them, because they didnt really want legislative victories. They wanted wedge issues and conspiracies and crusades.
A lot of them wanted to blow up Washington. Thats why they thought they were elected.
To them, my talk of trying to get anything done made me a sellout, a dupe of the Democrats, and a traitor. Some of them had me in their sights from day one. They saw me as much of an enemy as the guy in the White House. Me, a guy who had come to the top of the leadership by exposing corruption and pushing conservative ideas. Now I was a liberal collaborator. So that took some getting used to. What I also had not anticipated was the extent to which this new crowd hatedand I mean hatedBarack Obama.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/02/john-boehner-book-memoir-excerpt-478506
Retaking control of the House of Representatives put me in line to be the next Speaker of the House over the largest freshman Republican class in history: 87 newly elected members of the GOP. Since I was presiding over a large group of people whod never sat in Congress, I felt I owed them a little tutorial on governing. I had to explain how to actually get things done. A lot of that went straight through the ears of most of them, especially the ones who didnt have brains that got in the way. Incrementalism? Compromise? That wasnt their thing. A lot of them wanted to blow up Washington. Thats why they thought they were elected.
Some of them, well, you could tell they werent paying attention because they were just thinking of how to fundraise off of outrage or how they could get on Hannity that night. Ronald Reagan used to say something to the effect that if I get 80 or 90 percent of what I want, thats a win. These guys wanted 100 percent every time. In fact, I dont think that would satisfy them, because they didnt really want legislative victories. They wanted wedge issues and conspiracies and crusades.
A lot of them wanted to blow up Washington. Thats why they thought they were elected.
To them, my talk of trying to get anything done made me a sellout, a dupe of the Democrats, and a traitor. Some of them had me in their sights from day one. They saw me as much of an enemy as the guy in the White House. Me, a guy who had come to the top of the leadership by exposing corruption and pushing conservative ideas. Now I was a liberal collaborator. So that took some getting used to. What I also had not anticipated was the extent to which this new crowd hatedand I mean hatedBarack Obama.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/02/john-boehner-book-memoir-excerpt-478506
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Panic Rooms, Birth Certificates and the Birth of GOP Paranoia [View all]
Arkansas Granny
Apr 2021
OP
"We recruited crazier and crazier folk for fifty years and suddenly one day
struggle4progress
Apr 2021
#3
Many brilliant people have been warning us for a long time, Sinclair Lewis was one of them
Escurumbele
Apr 2021
#8
I'm sure that a lot of it is bullshit. That being said, it might provide some insight as to how the
Arkansas Granny
Apr 2021
#14
Thing is, for those of us who grew up in the South, the GOP was always this. Always.
ancianita
Apr 2021
#12
I don't feel 30 years qualifies as so short a time as dipping a toe suggests.
Ford_Prefect
Apr 2021
#25
Bonheur is remarkably silent on the effect of people like the Koch Brothers & Mercers or the CNP.
Ford_Prefect
Apr 2021
#16