The current meltdown reminds us that 2010 was a massive fluke that we must avenge
In the summer of 2012, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi pushed a plan that would extend the Bush tax breaks for all income under $1,000,000.
She did this for one reason: To prove the House GOP would never vote for a tax increase ever, despite never-ending pretense of caring about the deficit.
Cut to the winter 2012, Speaker John Boehner pushes a variation of Pelosi’s plan along with cuts to Social Security and some tax increases on the middle class.
Guess what? He couldn’t get his caucus to vote on it. Why? Because despite pretending to care about the deficit, the GOP’s only priority is to never raise taxes a dime on anyone, especially the rich.
This high-profile flop is best example of how the GOP’s attempt to regroup and rebrand after losing the 2012 election is nothing like 2008, when the right had all cylinders firing preparing to blame the president for the deficit and economy he inherited.
In 2012, nearly every element of the right wing machine in America is bumbling, deteriorating and in some cases actually at war with itself.
The Tea Party has revealed itself as consumed with fringe issues and Mitt Romney — whose only admirable quality as a candidate was the ruthlessness with which he pursued the presidency for a decade — is now using his son to tell us he never wanted to be president. The Michigan GOP’s “inflamed duck” session will go down in history as being singularly offensive to workers, women and democracy.
But the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre set the standard for movement that is at odds with reality when he responded to the Newtown tragedy with his patented move of using the outrage against him to scare gun owners into buying more guns. The selling guns part is working. But his effectiveness at killing a rational gun debate seems to fading. Even GOP-message guru Frank Luntz is trying to get him to change course.
The GOP’s real problem, of course, is that it caters to a base that is too white, male and old for any product that doesn’t require you to go to a doctor if it lasts more than 4 hours.
Take their response to CNN’s Piers Morgan calling for action to reduce gun violence. More than 65,000 people have now signed a petition to deport Piers Morgan to England. To most of America this says the GOP has moved past just deporting people who don’t look like them. Now they want to deport anyone who doesn’t agree with them either.
Which leads us back to 2010. We know now that the GOP was able to win this incredibly consequential election because of dark money and because young voters stayed at home.
The discussion we need to be having is how do we make sure that doesn’t happen again in 2014. Because despite the GOP’s brand problems it has plenty of billionaires willing to waste money to keep the House GOP’s religious devotion to protecting their tax breaks.
Let’s not let a great meltdown go to waste.
[CC Image credit: Gage Skidmore | Flickr]
