Tea Party’s horrifying cousin: Here comes “constitutional conservatism”

[DonViejo]

The sad club of dupes known as the Tea Party is not the real problem. This scary ideological undercurrent might be

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

The emerging conventional wisdom that the Tea Party is being vanquished by the GOP establishment, based solely on the fact they are beating primary challengers, is exceedingly myopic. If you believe that, you have a very superficial view of what constitutes “winning.” These primaries are forcing the allegedly mainstream candidates to move far to the right and the performance of the past few years proves that when this happens the Party stays far right as a result of this threat. Primaries can be very effective tools if used properly — and if they are backed up by money and influence, which the far right certainly is, they are formidable instruments of discipline.

Ed Kilgore did an excellent survey of these so-called victories for the voices of reason at Talking Points Memo earlier this week:

Yesterday’s winner Pat Roberts, who already sported lifetime ratings of 86 percent from both the American Conservative Union and Americans for Prosperity, went far out of his way to propitiate the ideological gods of movement conservatism as he fought for reelection. He voted against an appropriations measure that included a project he had long sought for his alma mater, Kansas State University, and opposed a UN Treaty banning discrimination against people with disabilities over the objections of his revered Kansas Senate predecessors Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum.

We’ve seen the same dynamic with “establishment” winners Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and “moderate outsider” David Perdue of Georgia — and above all Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, whose voting record tilted hard right in anticipation of his primary fight with Matt Bevin. There’s been a virtual cavalcade in the primaries of entire fields tilting against debt limit increases, comprehensive immigration reform (or even limited legalization of undocumented workers), any positive government role in economic policy, and of course, any accommodations for legalized abortion or same-sex marriage.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/08/11/tea_partys_horrifying_cousin_here_comes_%E2%80%9Cconstitutional_conservatism%E2%80%9D/

[Bettie]

1. Joni Earnst is a scary person

She's just nasty and evil. I cannot imagine why anyone would vote for her.

[littlemissmartypants]

2. Tom Tillis is pure evil, imo. He MUST be defeated!

They are still just money and power addicted ALEC devotees. It's just that simple. They will start eating each others offspring in time. Even the last rat in a sinking ship will cannibalize itself.

[Jim Lane]

3. I wish the Green Party, Working Families Party, and other left-wing minor parties would learn this.

Key takeaway from the OP: "These primaries are forcing the allegedly mainstream candidates to move far to the right and the performance of the past few years proves that when this happens the Party stays far right as a result of this threat."

Apparently, taking advantage of the tools that the system offers you enables you to be more effective than if you stomp off in a fit of self-righteousness. Who knew.

[polichick]

4. Yes, the left needs to play hardball with establishment Dems...

not walk away and not fall in line.

Running ads against Blue Dogs during the healthcare fight was a great idea - too bad those ads stopped when the WH pitched a fit. (Just one example.)

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. Just a new way to go backwards using the Constitution as justification.

In the 70s they called it "strict constructionism". Now they call it "original intent of the Founders". They don't think the Constitution should be amended, and don't understand that case law strikes down and supersedes statute law. This has been true since 1803 when Marbury v. Madison was decided. The Constitution and law has to change with society, as new protected classes of people arise, and new rights arise. Case law changes the law just as surely as a Constitutional amendment does.

Law lags ten or twenty years behind the society in codifying what rights people have. These people just want to go back to only people voting who are white real-estate owning males.

I was in law school in the 1980s and I never heard of gay marriage because nobody thought of gay people yet as a protected class that would have a right to a civil union equal in rights and privileges to marriage.