See where that got them.
A few weeks ago there was a Nation piece on Rand Paul and how, now that he's won the Kentucky GOP nomination, he's having to cave on a lot of his principled stances on religion, abortion, gay rights, etc. to be palatable to the paleo-con right that dominates the state party.
I think this will happen in most of the other cases as well--and the perceived push to the right will likely only help Obama and the Dems in the next election. Neither TP nor GOP have any productive ideas for how to end the current economic shakeup and giving them the reins is one of the easiest ways to prove that.
I was listening to Doug's 9/9 show this morning and it sounds like the state and local effects of this are only beginning. When they hit, we'll be in the midst of the next election cycle and the TP folks have absolutely no idea how to deal with actual governance issues. Once they are in positions where they actually have to do this work, I imagine much of their ideology will melt away--or their constituents will suddenly realize that it might be better to have someone who knows WTF they are doing rather than putting someone who hates government into government.
It would be nice to imagine that there would be some response from the left in this atmosphere, but since there's no left to speak of (as Carrol's always pointing out), I don't hold out hope for that. In any case, the TP and GOP are really small potatoes compared to that general problem. US citizens have been so thoroughly inculcated into the ideology of neoliberalism, they seem to accept austerity measures with no debate. The only weapon they have are liberal platitudes--no sense of class structure or struggle, history or even context.
I don't fear a turn to the right so much as I am stunned by the complete lack of any political force from the left. Maybe on balance these lead to the same thing, but having a few TPers win some midterm elections would not be a big deal if there was something in the broader context to balance it.
There is not. That is the problem.
s
On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 13:58, SA <s11131978 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/15/2010 2:44 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Isn't that just a new name for right-wing Republicans?
>>
>
> When a right-wing Republican is knocked out in a primary by a grassroots
> movement because he's not right-wing enough, that's a shift to the right.
> When it happens in a quarter of all Senate races it shifts every aspect of
> politics to the right.
>
> SA
>
>
>
>
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