The Rude Pundit: A Tyranny by the Minority, Part 1: We Are Living Through an Attempted Coup

[meegbear]

The Rude Pundit has been thinking for the last day or so about the extensive use of surveillance by the Obama administration, but not for the usual reasons.

First, kudos to the House GOP. See, the left was fracturing a bit when it came to things like the collection of metadata and more by the NSA. That story continues, and the divisions still exist between those who don't think the government should be tracking everyone online, on phones, all the time, and those who see it as a necessary evil in a time where our enemies exist in the shadows. However, the House GOP's complete and utter disregard for the well-being of the nation and their callous placement of ideology over common sense, compassion...well, pretty much over everything has unified the left once again behind the Democrats and President Obama. So a big thumbs up on strategy, you stupid motherfuckers.

The other thing the Rude Pundit has been thinking is how the NSA surveillance has an analogous purpose to the tactics of the GOP. See, a great deal (or all, depending on who you ask) of the NSA's universal anal probe has been perfectly legal. However, just because something is legal doesn't mean it's right. To take this further, just because it's legal does not, by any definition, mean it's not evil. You can bend laws right to the point of snapping, but as long as it doesn't crack, you're fine, man.

What the GOP has done, first through the ludicrous overuse of the filibuster and now through the shutdown and the threat of breaking the debt ceiling if they do not get a law overturned, is to use perfectly legal means to achieve their goals. It is, however, a contortion of the Constitution and the rules of Congress that'd make a circus performer say, "How the fuck did you get your head all the way up your own ass?" The ultimate goal of the effort is to undo the will of the people of the United States by forcing the President to accept the GOP agenda.

So let's just call this what it is: it's an attempted coup.

The Tea Party, having cowed the leadership of the Republican Party, are attempting to stage a creeping coup by using the Constitution against the nation. It's so breathtakingly ballsy it's almost admirable. Fuck, it's even something the GOP laid out in a plan, the Williamsburg Accord. We just didn't pay attention. The nation is currently being wrecked by a tyranny of the minority, and, unfortunately, it's up to the cowards leading the Republican Party to stop it.

And that, dear liberals, dear Americans, is why it's not just economic anxiety that hangs over us like a guillotine blade. It's existential nausea that we may finally reap the seeds of our doom that we planted a generation ago.

More on that tomorrow.

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

[LongTomH]

1. The phrase "Williamsburg Accord" needs to become part of our vocabulary.....

.......just like "the Powell Memorandum."

[adirondacker]

7. First time I read or heard about it. Pretty creepy stuff. nt

[dgibby]

2. Rude hits it out of the park again.

Attempted coup is exactly what this is, and it started back in the Regan administration.

[haikugal]

3. Some of this

can be brought into context with this fine article

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2013/10/2/142750/172/Front_Page/Republican_Linked_Religious_Right_Leader_Calls_For_quot_Military_Takeover_quot_

it talks about how the religious right fits in.

Thanks for this...love Rude.

[hootinholler]

4. Cowed the leadership under threat of a well funded primary challenge

The thing I can't figure is how the Koch Bros are making money off of this.

[Hayabusa]

6. If it succeeds, there'll be lessened regs

and they'll reap the money back that way?

[gopiscrap]

5. yup the teabillies should be charged with treason!

[Uncle Joe]

8. I imagine the "pragmatic ones;" more willing to default on the debt

are those with mega-bucks to be used shorting the dollar.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/09/house-gops-legislative-strike.html

Republicans have thrashed this way and that throughout the year. Republicans have fallen out, often sharply, over which hostages to ransom, with the most conservative ones favoring a government shutdown threat and the more pragmatic wing, oddly, endorsing a debt default threat. They have also struggled to define the terms of their ransom. The Williamsburg Accord initially envisioned forcing Obama to sign spending cuts, or some form of the Paul Ryan budget. During the summer, Republicans flirted with making Obama lock in lower marginal tax rates. Recently, Republicans settled on pressuring him to kill his health-care law. But the general contours of the legislative strike, and the plan of obtaining policy victories without offering any policy concessions, has enjoyed general agreement within the party.

Thanks for the thread, meegbear.

[Coyotl]

9. Dear GOP, "How the fuck did you get your head all the way up your own ass?"