12 thoughts on “Against all evidence, GOP donors interpreted the Tea Party as a movement in favor of the agenda of the Wall Street Journal editorial page.”
Meanwhile, the dividing line that used to be the most crucial of them all—class—has increasingly become a division within the parties, not between them. Since 1984, nearly every Democratic presidential-primary race has ended as a contest between a “wine track” candidate who appealed to professionals (Gary Hart, Michael Dukakis, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley, and Barack Obama) and a “beer track” candidate who mobilized the remains of the old industrial working class (Walter Mondale, Dick Gephardt, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton). The Republicans have their equivalent in the battles between “Wall Street” and “Main Street” candidates.
…(S)eldom in the history of fund-raising has so much bought so little, so fleetingly. Between December 2014 and September 2015, Jeb Bush plunged from first place in the Republican field to fifth. Between late September and mid-October, he purchased 60 percent of all political spots aired in New Hampshire. That ad barrage pushed his poll numbers in the state from about 9 percent to about 8 percent….
Bush’s update of Conservatism Classic had made him a hit with the party’s big donors. He had won accolades from Karl Rove (“the deepest thinker on our side”) and Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute (“a top-drawer intellect”). Yet within five weeks of his formal declaration of candidacy on June 15, Bush’s campaign had been brutally rejected by the GOP rank and file.
Dumping all over the Latino vote has to be the single most dumbfuck move out of all of them.
I expect the GOP presidential candidate to backtrack furiously, but this is the eternal problem with the Republican side – they have to sound ever-more ridiculously foam-mouthed to actually win.
Democrats can sound sensible and reasonable. Boring, maybe – but that's easier to remedy than sociopathic xenophobia.
people who are irked when asked to press 1 for English…
Yes, these people actually exist. I used to work at a place that captioned phone calls for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. One of the calls went to the answering machine. The outgoing message was, "Hi, you've reached so-and-so and such-and-such. There's no need to press 1 for English because ENGLISH IS THE ONLY LANGUAGE SPOKEN IN THIS HOUSE!… *beep*"
For those with the patience/time/political nerdiness to read all the way through it, one of Frum's "solutions" for the GOPers is to just keep winning the legis and use the redistricting power to control Congress and limit the votes of immigrants and minorities, and let the presidency fall whereve it may. Call it the "Roadblocks R-Us" solution.
At NYMag, Ed Kilgore's thoughts on the article: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/12/gop-…
Interesting article. Frum still regards himself as a conservative, but he was kind of drummed out after writing that the Republican opposition to Obamacare was not a good idea. That was apostasy.
At some point the class differences suffusing a party of white identity politics will become unmanageable. And who knows what rough beast will slouch towards Bethlehem to be born when that happens?
In the meantime, GOP elites would rather remain in denial or even continue to lose presidential elections if the alternative is a significant change in their core ideology.
Go ahead, GOP, keep your heads in the sand while Hillz rolls over you…
Has the dumpster fire damaged the link?
Crap. Mods, can you fix my screw-up? Here's the link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/…
Here's a quote from it:
Now that the internet is working here again, it has been fixed.
Mille grazie, mi amica.
The article is full of hilarious factoids:
Dumping all over the Latino vote has to be the single most dumbfuck move out of all of them.
I expect the GOP presidential candidate to backtrack furiously, but this is the eternal problem with the Republican side – they have to sound ever-more ridiculously foam-mouthed to actually win.
Democrats can sound sensible and reasonable. Boring, maybe – but that's easier to remedy than sociopathic xenophobia.
people who are irked when asked to press 1 for English…
Yes, these people actually exist. I used to work at a place that captioned phone calls for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. One of the calls went to the answering machine. The outgoing message was, "Hi, you've reached so-and-so and such-and-such. There's no need to press 1 for English because ENGLISH IS THE ONLY LANGUAGE SPOKEN IN THIS HOUSE!… *beep*"
And they say they're trying to win elections.
<img src="http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/751/608/243.gif" />
For those with the patience/time/political nerdiness to read all the way through it, one of Frum's "solutions" for the GOPers is to just keep winning the legis and use the redistricting power to control Congress and limit the votes of immigrants and minorities, and let the presidency fall whereve it may. Call it the "Roadblocks R-Us" solution.
I don't know that he presents it as a real solution, but it may be the one the Republicans are most comfortable with.
At NYMag, Ed Kilgore's thoughts on the article: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/12/gop-…
Interesting article. Frum still regards himself as a conservative, but he was kind of drummed out after writing that the Republican opposition to Obamacare was not a good idea. That was apostasy.
Go ahead, GOP, keep your heads in the sand while Hillz rolls over you…