Tea Party secedes: The GOP civil war is over, and so is the GOP

[DonViejo]

The Republicans are two different parties now -- how long will it be before the Tea Party becomes a third party?

BY ELIAS ISQUITH

For nearly 150 years, there was something in America called the Republican Party. It was far from perfect. It often faltered. It made mistakes. But it was predictable; when it was in power, you knew, for the most part, what you were getting.

Cut to now and things look mighty different. The Republican Party today is, as Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein put it, “an insurgent outlier in American politics … ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” But, to borrow the title of Mann and Ornstein’s recent book, it’s even worse than it looks. There’s the Tea Party and then there’s a rump of spineless moderates. The GOP, quite simply, has been split in two.

This division has been evident for some time, but the recent squabbling over the government shutdown has put the internal discord in sharp relief. We’ve become accustomed to Speaker Boehner’s flailing attempts to corral his Tea Party faction; and we’ve seen the sad spectacle of this ostensible leader of his party taking his orders almost exclusively from the most harebrained and hard-line members. What’s genuinely new, and far more consequential, is a recent New York Times report finding that even big business — including Wall Street! — is itself unable to force Tea Party members to fall in line.

The shutdown and the debt ceiling standoff, you see, are bad for business. They create uncertainty, the thing big money hates more than anything else (besides taxes). Yet calls for moderation from what had been the Tea Party’s money men are going unanswered, or are treated with active disdain. Usually a threat to withhold campaign contributions would be enough to scare any politician into better behavior, but members of the Tea Party don’t function like conventional politicians. They’re more millenarian than that. To them, the goal is not to get reelected, but rather to save the nation from impending doom.

full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/11/tea_party_secedes_the_gop_civil_war_is_over_and_so_is_the_gop/

[Chipper Chat]

1. I'm laughing because

3 years ago while watching fox video of "3-cornered hat people" spit on democratic members of Congress and grown men salivating at Michele Bachman's rear Sean Hannity (and others) said:
"these are NOT republicans. They are patriots. Why, many of them are DEMOCRATS! These "grass-root" americans have NOTHING TO DO with the republican party."

[JoePhilly]

2. George Will and most of the media said the

Same thing.

All pretending not to know that the tea party was the crazy far right.

[DetlefK]

3. Ah, yes. Those hordes of Tea Party Democrats attacking Obama...

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

6. For me, it was the lie that the Tea Party was borne out of grassroots activism.

We knew that to be untrue, but the Corporate Media ran with it.

We also knew what the Tea Party represented: vestiges of the Old South, modern day Ku Klux Klan.

We knew that the Tea Party didn't exist to stop the corporatists. That Ron Paul was its founder is a lie as well.

And finally, the fact that the Teabaggers sat on mute while Dumbya and his Criminal Cabal ran this nation's economy into the ground! And yet, claimed to be non-partisan, except for when the black guy has the audacity to sit in the Oval Office! Oh no! We can't have that!

Truth is the Tea Party didn't exist...until this president! Its sole purpose was to serve as a reactionary response to the Negro in the White House. That's it!

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

4. Why don't the Teabaggers just leave the Repigs and join the Klan or some other

white supremacist or Conderacy group? That's what they are anyway.

[Chipper Chat]

5. They're working on it. Just give them a few more months.

As you know, they've already "klanned" Trevon and others.

[IrishAyes]

8. They're just not yet ready to unmask themselves, that's all. Then there's the SPLC to deal with.

[Freddie]

7. FB "friend" I'm always having (civilized) spats with

Recently I said something about "your party" and he came back with "I am not a Republican! Just a conservative." Maybe a trend here? Another "friend" is a Tea Party guy who's posted a few things about how much they hate John McCain.
Fun to watch them spat amongst themselves.

[Wounded Bear]

10. Been going on for years....

I have numerous on-line acquaintences spouting this crap. Usually goes hand in hand with "I don't listen to Limbaugh, Hannity, FOX News, etc." That comes immediately after spouting the requisite talking points.

It's part of the "both sides are at fault" meme. But they save their most vociferous attacks for Dems....always.

[kairos12]

9. Birchers in three-cornered hats, Same beliefs, new costumes

[damonm]

11. BOOM!! Winnah!

Couldn't have said it better. Buckley must be spinning in his grave at how much influence they have after he worked SO hard to get them marginalized.

[apnu]

12. Got it backwards

The Tea Party is a insurgent rebellion against the GOP establishment with the express intention of taking the party over from within.

If they were really about change and populist outrage over the American political system, they would have formed under either the Libertarian or Constitutional parties. These aren't outsiders to the conservative cause