Politix Update: The Republican Party Is Eating Itself Alive. Blame That Sarah Palin.

Hey Gomer! A Negro is the new face of the GOP.  Who woulda thunk it?

With Election Day exactly one year away, there is an essential truth in American politics that transcends all others: The Republican Party is eating itself alive and shows no sign of coming to its senses.  

This has become such common knowledge that the problem for pundits like myself in describing the party's immolation -- whether in the context of vacuous presidential candidates, farcical presidential debates or an out-of-control presidential primary process -- is to somehow sound new and different.  And wonder all the while why the heck the party is unable to check its self-destructive behavior. 

That question is actually fairly easy to answer: The loyalists cognizant of the party's parlous condition have been banished from its temple of political purity, and what has become paramount to the forces that now control the party is defending the five pillars of the temple -- rank nativism, economic recidivism, nonsensical beliefs, an aversion to governing and pathological fear of change.  This is more important than even winning big elections.

After the drubbing the party received in the 2012 presidential election, a Republican National Committee commission called the Growth and Opportunity Project brought forth a brutally blunt 98-page report concluding that the GOP had become smug, uncaring and so ideologically rigid that it was turning off a majority of American voters with stale policies that had changed little in 30 years and an image that was alienating to women, minorities and the young. 

The call to modernize the party -- to develop "a more welcoming brand of conservatism that invites and inspires new people to visit us," as the report concluded -- was ignored in its entirety.  This included the observation that "No [presidential] debate will be meaningful if it is not challenging, vigorous and fair." 

Indeed, the three debates to date have revealed themselves to be prime-time freak shows to people who are flirting with the idea of voting Republican but might not think a 1,000-mile fence along the border with Mexico is a nifty idea, the centerpiece of former frontrunner Donald Trump's platform, or that comparing Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler is appropriate, a component of new frontrunner Dr. Ben Carson's nihilistic view of history.  (Pity the good doctor, who is finding out that when you lie constantly, the truth has a way of catching up to you.) 

In a homecoming of a sort, the presidential clown car with be stopping over in Milwaukee on Tuesday for the fourth debate and the friendly embrace of sponsors Fox Business Network and Wall Street Journal, whose moderators hopefully won't be asking the kind of questions like those tendered at the last debate that required real answers -- not lies and distortions -- and led to so much whining that the RNC has been booted from the debate process, which is like a surly child telling its parents to go to their room. 

THE TOXIC LEGACY OF SARAH PALIN

John Kasich, in a fit of pique, asked the other day what had happened to the conservative movement. 

 "I've about had it with these people," the moderate Republican presidential wannabe moaned.  "We got one candidate that says we ought to abolish Medicaid and Medicare.  We got one person saying we ought to have a 10 percent flat tax that will drive up the deficit in this country by trillions of dollars, and another  says we ought to take 10 or 11 [million] people and scream at them to get out of our country. That's crazy. That is just crazy."

Kasich's frustration about a political party where up has become down and yes means no is understandable.  And he need look no further than the 2008 nomination of Sarah Palin for vice president to understand when and how the Republican Party left the rails. 

Seven years on -- following two crushing defeats in presidential elections and the likelihood of a third next year -- the destruction that the former half-term governor of Alaska has wrought is immense.  And continues to grow.  In a much-quoted Washington Post op-ed piece, former Obama chief of staff Bill Daley writes that Palin set "a new standard" for the Republican Party that has gifted us Carson and Trump, as well as lesser buffoons:

"Once John McCain put Sarah Palin on the ticket, Republican 'grown-ups,' who presumably knew better, had to bite their tongues.  But after the election, when they were free to speak their minds, they either remained quiet or abetted the dumbing-down of the party.  They stood by as Donald Trump and others noisily pushed claims that Obama was born in Kenya.  And they gladly rode the Tea Party tiger to sweeping victories in 2010 and 2014.

"Now that tiger is devouring the GOP establishment.  Party elders had hoped new presidential debate rules would give them greater control.  But they are watching helplessly as Trump leads the pack and House Republicans engage in fratricide. 

"It's hard to feel much sympathy. The Republican establishment's 2008 embrace of Palin set an irresponsibly low bar. Coincidence or not, a batch of nonsense-spewing, hard-right candidates quickly followed, often to disastrous effect."

Daley may seem to be belaboring the obvious, but the deeply toxic effect that this narcissistic, power abusing kook and liar has had on the GOP still is not fully appreciated, and only barely so by historians as well as Republicans who mourn the destruction of the GOP Big Tent and the party's descent into eating itself alive. 

Nor is McCain's decision to invite Palin to join the ticket after spending less than two hours with her (his man in charge of vetting veep nominees never even met her face to face) properly understood to be the most irresponsible decision in the history of presidential campaigns. 

It is easy to blame Palin for the state of the party, because at first glance that's a mixed bag. 

Republicans are rich in statehouses and state legislatures (and generally did well in last week's off-off-year elections), firmly in control of the House and pretty much in control of the Senate. But the party is poor where it matters most.  It is no closer to recapturing the White House than in 2012 and now arguably even further from that goal.  As considerable as the party's legislative and congressional successes have been, they have had much to do with gerrymandering and it is the big dance that counts the most.  In that respect, the party's record is awful because voters have elected Democrats in four of the last five presidential elections, not including the one thrown by the Supreme Court, prevailing by a 2-to-1 electoral vote margin (1,446 to 706). 

Palin is not the only reason for the Republican Party's dysfunction, but her toxic lip lock is evident in the hapless 2016 presidential campaign. 

Taking into account the unelectability of frontrunners Carson and Trump, who have accomplished far more in their careers than Palin even if they are similarly unqualified to hold high office, as well as the rest of the overcrowded field, no party has been in a weaker position one year from a presidential election in the modern era.  (And please don't ask me what the modern era is; it just has a nice ring to it.) 

Sure, the field will narrow and there will be considerable sorting out.  But it is the fat cats willing to bet buckets of money on their horse who are keeping so many unqualified people in the race.  Some 55 percent of the party's registered voters tell pollsters they support candidates who have zero experience in public service but still would entrust them with running the government, maintaining America's place in the world . . . oh, and carrying around the nuclear football. 

Translation: A bit more than half of the Republican electorate insists that it doesn’t want a Jeb Bush, John Kasich or Marco Rubio, the only people who could conceivably challenge Hillary Clinton, and if Carson and Trump continue to lead the pack, there will be an irreconcilable split between the party's donor class and the pitchfork brigade as the party takes another big bite out of itself.

 DEFENDING THOSE PILLARS

One of Paul Ryan's first acts as House speaker was to pledge that Republicans would have nothing to do with a long festering issue that must be dealt with -- immigration reform.  Beyond this being yet another instance where Republicans flee their responsibility to govern, it means willfully ignoring a demographic tipping point that has now been reached as moderate-liberal whites and minorities become an insurmountable voting majority.

Immigration reform is perhaps the most divisive issue between the party's base and its more mainstream remnants as personified by the Spanish-speaking Jeb Bush, whose unraveling lifeline to survival is his establishment cred at a time when anti-establishment rage fuels the GOP. Ryan is no dummy, and he knows any vote on immigration will further divide the party and perhaps cripple it irretrievably on the eve of a presidential election year.  Besides which, those pillars in the party's temple of political purity must be defended.

The Republican Party "is increasingly marginalizing itself, and unless changes are made, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future," the Growth and Opportunity report concluded. "When someone rolls their eyes at us, they are not likely to open their ears to us."

And so the devolution of one of the nation's two major political parties is nearly complete, which along with the election of Barack Obama, has to be the most important political story of the modern era.  And the most tragic.

Politix Update is an irregular compendium written by veteran journalist Shaun Mullen, for whom the 2016 presidential campaign is his (gasp!) 12th since 1968.  Click HERE  for an index of previous Politix Updates.

IMAGES FROM DONKEYHOTEY/FLICKR.  USED WITH PERMISSION.

George Barris ( November 20, 1925 ~ November 5, 2015)

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Politix Update: Poppy Bush Tells It Like It Is, But Many Years Too Late To Matter

And so we have yet another political memoir (or mem-wow, as a former colleague called the genre) by an elder statesman who tells it like it is, but didn't have the guts to murmur a peep when that might have mattered. 

"After years of holding back," as The New York Times puts it, former President George H.W. Bush has finally broken his silence about the key architects of the undermining of his neophyte son's presidency, which did such irreparable damage to America and its standing in the world.

The elder Bush acknowledges in Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush that he never spoke up privately, let alone publicly, nor uttered a discouraging word to his son, George W. Bush, that Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "served the president badly," as he tells author Jon Meacham.  He uses the term "iron-ass" to describe both men, who he says repeatedly undercut the president in the service of their own agendas.

Let's assume for a moment that Bush père had spoken up.  Or that the many Republicans who accurately viewed Sarah Palin as a kook and cipher spoke up when John McCain selected her as his 2008 running mate, or at least after McCain's humiliating defeat.  Would the course of history have been altered? 

Possibly. 

Would the Republican Party have pulled back from its mad march into the suicidal right-wing nuttiness personified by Palin?

Possibly.

And most relevant in a contemporary context, would the legacy of Bush frère not be so toxic and the dynasty that Poppy Bush built and nurtured not be coming to what appears to be an ignominious end with Jeb Bush's flailing bid to become the standard bearer of a Republican Party that no longer welcomes moderation because people like his father, who could have made a difference by speaking up, did not? 

Probably.

The first George Bush, now 91 and weakened from  Parkinson’s disease, has seen his reputation again rise as George W's has remained in the pits and Jeb's long goodbye of a campaign whimpers into irrelevance.

Yet the admiring new biography by Meacham, to be published next week, does not address What Ifs despite the elder Bush's assessments of Cheney as an empire builder and Rumsfeld as so arrogant that he refused to sanction the views of others.  These "others" were the lonely voices who risked being labeled unpatriotic by counseling against the folly of invading Iraq and using torture in violation of U.S. and international law.  Let alone expressing reservations about a gravity-defying economic policy that pampered Wall Street and the rich and plunged the U.S. into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

The elder Bush's criticisms of his son are muted. 

He soft pedals the 2002 State of the Union address, when young George described an "axis of evil” that included Iraq, Iran and North Korea, telling Meacham that "You go back to the 'axis of evil' and these things and I think that might be historically proved to be not benefiting anything. . . . I do worry about some of the rhetoric that was out there -- some of it his, maybe, and some of it the people around him.  Hot rhetoric is pretty easy to get headlines, but it doesn’t necessarily solve the diplomatic problem."

There is a wistful undercurrent to Destiny and Power, according to people privy to pre-publication copies.

"I feel like an asterisk," Bush told Meacham during an interview session at the family's retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine.  "I am lost between the glory of Reagan -- monuments everywhere, trumpets, the great hero --  and the trials and tribulations of my sons."

 "What," he asked on another occasion, "if they just find an empty deck of cards?"

THE TABOO IS SHATTERED

Any mention by the Republican presidential candidates of the stain the George W. Bush presidency left on American and the GOP had been off limits until Donald Trump noted late last month that Bush happened to be president at the time of  9/11, implying that he ignored warnings of the attacks. Which he did. 

This prompted an angry rejoinder from Jeb Bush, who sought to shift blame to Bill Clinton, who was not president at the time, and his assertion that "my brother kept us safe."  Jeb Bush's success in a crowded Republican field was going to be determined, to a great extent, by not allowing his brother's legacy to define him, but that is exactly what happened during the several days of verbal fisticuffs that followed. 

But with the news of the explosive contents of Destiny and Power, the taboo has been shattered, and with it the frail public unity of the Bush clan.

George W. himself joined Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in pushing back against George H.W., and it should be noted that there as long been a lack of cordiality between the elder Bush and Cheney, who was his secretary of defense.  (Bush also seems to imply in Destiny and Power that Cheney's wife and daughter are to blame for his metamorphosis from not a particularly nice guy to a really not nice guy, a questionable variation on the old His Wife Made Him Do It theme.) 

"I am proud to have served with Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld," George W. declared. "Dick Cheney did a superb job as vice president and I was fortunate to have him by my side throughout my presidency. Don Rumsfeld ably led the Pentagon and was an effective secretary of defense." 

Meacham told CNN this morning that George W. was surprised by his father's criticism.

"He said, Dad never said any of this to me either during the presidency or after," Meacham said. "He said he would never have said, 'Hey, you've got to rein in Cheney, he's ruining the administration', and anyway, I disagree with him. These are my policies."

The Bush clan is "fearless about history," Meacham replied when asked why they would choose to publish the biography while both are still living. The elder Bush was also apparently dismissive of the narrative that his younger son, Jeb, was meant to run for the presidency and follow in his father's footsteps, not George.

"George H.W. Bush said, 'Oh, all that talk of Jeb was the one, that’s bullshit,' " Meacham recounted.

Out on the stump, Jeb loves to tell the story that he's "a guy who met his first president on the day he was born, and his second on the day he was brought home from the hospital."  But maybe not so much anymore.  Jeb, of course, is uncomfortably caught in the middle as he is buffeted by historic forces beyond his control and is again compelled to talk about his brother -- while trying to not talk about his brother's unnecessary wars and catastrophic economic policies, let alone that their father portrays his brother as something of a hapless pawn -- as his campaign to make history by becoming the third Bush president circles the toilet bowl.

"My brother is a big boy," Jeb said. "His administration was shaped by his thinking, his reaction to the attack on 9/11. I think my dad, like a lot of people that love George, want to try to create a different narrative, perhaps, just because that’s natural to do. . . . We have to get beyond, I think, this feeling that somehow 1991 is the same as 2001."

That is a valid point, but it brings us back to the importance of truth telling in public life.  It is, of course, commendable and sometimes imperative, but not when the truth telling comes much too late to conceivably make a difference, let alone alter the course of history.  

George H.W. Bush is a war hero, something George W. would never aspire to be.  The elder Bush may be forgiven his fawning treatment of a son of whom he cannot speak ill except indirectly by blaming his monomaniacal advisers.  While Destiny and Power is being described as a breath of fresh air and the elder Bush may have mellowed with time, he was and remains a coward.

Politix Update is an irregular compendium written by veteran journalist Shaun Mullen, for whom the 2016 presidential campaign is his (gasp!) 12th since 1968.  Click HERE  for an index of previous Politix Updates.

IMAGE FROM DONKEYHOTEY/FLICKR.  USED WITH PERMISSION.

A Stunning 20-Year Prison Diary Etched Into Ostrich Eggs

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PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF RICCO/MARESCA

How Dylan Brought It All Back Home

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Patricia Canning Todd (July 22, 1922 ~ September 5, 2015)

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Politix Update: GOP Tries To Shoot The Messenger But Hits Itself In Debate Flap

IN BOULDER THEY WERE; BOLDER THEY WERE NOT

In yet another manifestation of the Republican Party being trapped in an alternate universe of its own making as its chances of taking back the White House in 2016 diminish because of the black hole it has worked tirelessly to become, the party leadership and its feckless roster of candidates have now gone postal over presidential debates.  The problem, of course, is entirely of their own making.

Debates by their very nature tend to be messy and transitory affairs and not necessarily an accurate portrayal of the state of a political party. The boob tube's harsh glare can be unforgiving, as Republican candidates were again reminded after the CNBC-hosted debacle last week in Boulder, Colorado.

The air of comity, if not outright we're-all-in-this-togetherness during the first Democratic debate on October 13 was an accurate snapshot of a party that is fairly comfortable with itself, holds the upper hand nationally, and shows no signs of letting go.  The focus of the debate was on the economy, and the candidates did just that, often in spirited style, in advocating economic points of view that while differing individually were focused on closing a widening income gap to bring relief to the middle class as well as making Wall Street more accountable.  All five candidates had an opportunity to look good, and for the most part they did. 

Then there was the stench of animosity and rampant lying that stank up the last Republican debate, as it had the first two, which also was an accurate snapshot, in this case of a party that has lost its way.  The most recent GOP debate also was supposed to focus on the economy, but most of the prime-time minutes were wasted on non sequiturs, bashing the CNBC moderators and the "liberal" media in general.  Rather than focus on the economic needs of Americans, the candidates whined and whined some more.  All 10 candidates had an opportunity to look good, but none truly did.  The glib Marco Rubio was declared the winner because he "won" a fight over dirty linen with Jeb Bush. 

Yes, the media does screw up sometimes, but it reports on realities inconvenient to politicians who routinely lie and distort.  Like Ted Cruz, who led the Shoot the Messenger frenzy.

"The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media," Cruz helpfully noted in a non-response to a question on the just-inked budget deal in Washington. "How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?" 

Okay, Ted, let's talk about substantive issues.

Like how about where you and your wannabe competitors are on growth, wages, and economic security?  There wasn't a peep about that during the debate.  Like where are you guys on regulating Wall Street?  Ditto.  What did happen was a mind-numbing discussion of fantasy sports websites, which included the news that Bush's fantasy football team is undefeated in league play even if his campaign is 0-3 in debates.  There also was a shopworn call for cutting taxes, complaints that the government does too much to redistribute wealth to low- and middle-income Americans, and of course too little to help the rich, the same old-same old outdated and reality-denying bullcrap that the party has embraced since Ronald Reagan was president. 

Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee has gone so far off the rails that he makes experience-free frontrunners Donald Trump and Ben Carson sound reasonable.  Huckabee's contribution to the Booger in Boulder was to say he would cut health-care costs by curing Alzheimer's, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. 

Let's be clear the Republican line that the CNBC moderators were at fault is specious.  CNBC is a Wall Street-friendly, right-leaning network.  For the most part, their moderators asked tough but fair questions and pushed candidates to explain themselves when they gave substance-free answers, which they often did.  The problem was that the moderators couldn't manage the candidates, who like a sandbox full of unruly youngsters, kept ignoring pleas from the grown-ups to behave, while some had even complained before the debate began about the quality of their green rooms.

All of the whining led to a ridiculous attempt at damage control by the Republican National Committee.

On Friday afternoon, RNC chairman Reince Priebus announced a divorce with NBC, the sister network of CNBC, for "asking leading questions" during the debate.  Ohmygosh.  Cutting ties with NBC News, and by extension Telemundo, which were partnering for a February 26 Republican debate, will backfire since nobody will be happy except the sand throwers.  The move is another self-inflicted blow by the RNC, which under Priebus has been trying to make nice with the Hispanic voters many of its candidates keep alienating -- another symptom of a party that is at war with itself. 

"This is nothing but a TV show wrapped in commercials, with the political candidates as the talent. Who is that serving?" harrumphed Doug Watts, communications director for the Carson campaign, of the debates, of which a masochistic 12 in all are scheduled, to the Democrats' more reasonable six.  The debates have been ratings bonanzas, but a slo-mo disaster for the GOP, and it is likely the remaining debate schedule will be scaled back.

The divorce was followed by an emergency meeting Sunday night in suburban Washington to give Watts and advisers to most of the other campaigns another opportunity to whine while further while trying to leverage more control over upcoming debates. The campaigns drew up a list of demands, including opening and closing statements of at least 30 seconds; "parity and integrity" on questions, no so-called lightning rounds, approval of any graphics that are aired, and the right to cut out the RNC and negotiate directly with the networks, yet another sign of a party at war with itself.

The networks are likely to be at least somewhat accommodating because the debates are so well watched and they can charge premium ad rates.  That certainly will be the case when GOP sock puppet Fox News hosts the next debate on November 10 in Milwaukee. 

Finally, lets note that Hillary Clinton endured 11 hours of grilling the other day before the Benghazi Select Committee while this bunch of babies couldn't even endure two hours of questions that were, by comparison, responding for the most part with answers notable for their utter vapidity.   

THE WAVE HAS BROKEN 

I have been writing for years that a demographic wave is headed for the American electoral shore and the Republican Party will drown if it doesn't adapt.  Well, the wave has broken and the party hasn't adapted.

Anyone waking from a long coma who watched the debates should have been struck by how progressive the Democrats seemed and how antediluvian the Republicans were by comparison, and that its failure -- no, make that determined refusal -- to welcome blacks, Hispanics and other minorities spells national electoral doom in 2016 and in the foreseeable future. 

Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg validates this view in America Ascendant, a new book arguing that Democrats shouldn't be afraid to advocate for "very bold policy changes" because of its emergent cultural diversity. 

"A rural, white, married, evangelical, religious" Republican Party, Greenberg writes, is waging a "furious counter-revolution" to blunt the rise of a more diverse, liberal populace, but is actually working to further marginalize itself.  "The Republican Party essentially exists -- particularly in the last decade-- to deny that new American majority the ability to govern based on its values."

This effort has alienated the party from many Americans, according to Greenberg, who says a GOP "implosion" is already underway. 

A "shattering loss" for Republicans in 2016, comparable to Democrats 1984 loss which eventually gave rise to Bill Clinton's successful 1992 moderation, Greenberg argues, could lead the GOP's "embrace of immigration and the country’s diversity."

Now that would be a welcome development, but one that the Repubican Party's white nativist pitchfork brigade is not likely to take lying down.  This in my view would inevitably lead to the emergence of a hard right-wing third party that would further marginalize the GOP.

SHED NOT A TEAR

Andrew O'Hehir in Salon:

"Watching Jeb Bush beached amid the flotsam and offal of [the] gruesome Republican debate on CNBC, looking less like a deer in the headlights than like some rubbery deep-sea creature out of its element, severely decompressed and struggling to breathe, I almost had an emotion. I'm not claiming that the GOP frontrunner who never was merits our pity or compassion, and I don’t want to default to clichéd utterances about how Jeb! seems like a decent guy despite his disagreeable positions and sinister backers. He doesn't, actually. Bush’s record as a capable administrator within the crocodile-infested swamp of Florida politics has been greatly exaggerated. If he were such a good guy, maybe he'd have walked away from his family dynasty and the political party it has perverted and done something useful with his life."

I found myself struggling with not dissimilar emotions at the depths of the George W. Bush presidency.  I wanted to feel bad for the guy even as he dragged the country down because of a What Did I Do? cluelessness that always seemed to be lurking just below the surface.  Jeb! comes off the same way. 

This, I suspect, is a well-practiced boy Bush trait.  I can picture Babs kissing their little boo-boos and drying their tiny tears when they were in knickerbockers.  And I'll be damned if I'll summon even an atom of sympathy for the end of the Bush Dynasty, which may mercifully be at an end.

Politix Update is an irregular compendium written by veteran journalist Shaun Mullen, for whom the 2016 presidential campaign is his (gasp!) 12th since 1968.  Click HERE  for an index of previous Politix Updates.

IMAGE FROM DONKEYHOTEY/FLICKR.  USED WITH PERMISSION.

Internet

Anyone of a certain age who doesn't understand that the Internet is a Trojan horse