Joe Scarborough Envisions the Coming Decimation of the Republican Party

I do not always agree with his views, but nonetheless, Joe Scarborough - who could likely not be elected in today's GOP - often demonstrates that one can be a conservative without the requirement of being clinically insane. Now, Scarborough has authored a piece that looks at "the morning after" should the GOP extremists and betrayers of America in Congress block a raising of the debt limit. As a Virginian, I applaud the fact that Scarborough targets Eric Cantor, a duplicitous weasel if there ever one, in particular. I truly hope that a default is averted. But if it happens, one can only hoe that it sounds the death knell of the GOP. A after that will be most deserved. Here are highlights from Scarborough's column at Politico which is date August 3, 2011:
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It was a financial storm that even an economics professor could see coming. The debt crisis that had gripped Washington for a month came to a sudden, horrifying climax that left America’s economy looking like a nuclear wasteland. Credit markets suffered life-threatening seizures as the stock market dropped a staggering 25 percent. U.S. Treasuries plummeted as Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s downgraded the United States’ credit rating — instantly adding trillions of dollars in interest costs to the national debt.
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The threat of exploding interest rates on home mortgages, cars, student loans and credit cards caused growing concerns. But it was the gutting of 401(k)’s and pension programs that would soon stir panic.
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President Barack Obama went before TV cameras to try to calm Americans. Despite his shaky on-air performance, the president’s message was convincing and explained why the overwhelming majority of Americans surveyed in an overnight Gallup Poll blamed Republicans for the financial catastrophe that had quickly brought the world’s largest economy to its knees.
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For the next hour, markets continued to drop. By late afternoon, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ took the extraordinary step of closing their markets. . . . . But the damage was already done. In a day’s time, America’s credit rating had collapsed, the dollar had fallen into disrepute and the life savings of millions of Americans had been wiped out.
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Inside the office of the speaker of the House, Jamie Dimon and Jeff Immelt joined Geithner and Bernanke to explain in the bluntest terms possible the stakes that lay before John Boehner’s Republican caucus. Bernanke summarized their positions. “Mr. Speaker, this Congress can either pass a long-term deal tonight to bring sanity back to the markets or can expect to face unimaginable economic consequences in the morning.” The Fed chairman stood up to leave but left Boehner with a final jab. “There is no Plan B. Not after Congress’s performance today.”
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Boehner entered the grim caucus room and went straight to the podium, telling members that the events of the day had made irrelevant any ideological argument. He was finished in a few minutes and then turned the mic over to Cantor, who told conservatives that the only option left to them was to live to fight another day. Only Michele Bachmann and a handful of freshman members delivered impassioned pleas to keep waging their war on Obama. But those short speeches were written more as fodder for future press releases than to persuade fellow Republicans.
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The meeting was quickly adjourned with the understanding that Boehner would immediately call a vote to stop the hemorrhaging of world markets by extending the debt ceiling. In so doing, Boehner and his conservative caucus would be giving the president what he had been asking for all along.
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The $4 trillion deal that the speaker had once hoped for was now nothing more than an opportunity lost. His party could have had a historic deal to reduce the national debt. His caucus could have made a real difference. Instead, their intransigence crippled America’s economy and clinched the reelection of Barack Obama.
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I hope that Scarborough's vision proves true and is in fact what overtakes the GOP if the party continues to place playing politics ahead of the welfare of the nation and rank and file citizens.