The Republican Party Is Out of Control

In follow up to the theme of the last post, a column in the Washington Post asks the question of how America got to the point of one of its major political parties threatening to destroy not only America's economy, but to also throw the entire globe into a possible economic depression.  The column looks at the extreme ideology of the new GOP base but only indirectly lays the blame properly at the feet of the Christofascists, white supremacists, and obscenely greed such as the Koch brothers who hide their real identities under the Tea Party label (85% of the Tea Party consists of "conservative" Christians = Christofascists).  What's most frightening is that the GOP's extremism will be hard to cure since we are not talking about dealing with rational individuals.  Here are excerpts:

In trying to explain how Washington got into its current mess, some have focused on ideology. Pundits and politicians note that the country has become more polarized, as have the political parties, particularly the GOP. That diagnosis is accurate, but another distinctive cause of today’s crisis might have even more long-lasting effects: the collapse of authority, especially within the Republican Party, which means threats and crises might be the new normal for American politics.

Speaker John Boehner, by contrast, is following rather than leading. In the 1990s, the crisis proved easier to resolve because Gingrich had the power to speak for his side. Boehner, by contrast, worries that, were he to make a deal, he would lose his job. And he is right to be worried: Tea party members repeatedly warn Boehner not to cut a deal on Obamacare, the budget or immigration.

The tea party is a grass-roots movement of people deeply dissatisfied with the United States’ social, cultural and economic evolution over several decades.

They see themselves as insurgents within the GOP, not loyal members. The breakdown of party discipline coupled with the rise of an extreme ideology are the twin forces propelling the current crisis. 

This explains why the Republican Party has seemed so unresponsive to its traditional power bases, such as big business. Part of the problem is that businesses have been slow to recognize just how extreme the tea party is.  (They remain stuck in an older narrative, in which their great fear is Democrats with ties to unions.)

The GOP used to be a party that believed in hierarchy. . . .  today, the Republicans are dominated by the tea party, which has no organized structure, no platform, no hierarchy and no leader.

At some point — probably after electoral defeat — Republicans might come to their senses.  . . . The design of the American political system allows many opportunities for gridlock and paralysis, and these will only multiply unless there is a dramatic change.

Unfortunately, I am not counting on the GOP base to easily change.  The issues that are fueling the Tea Party - reaction against modernity,  reaction against racial demographic change, reaction against the larger population's rejection of a fear and hate based version of Christianity, and reaction against the decline of white privilege - are only going to intensify.  The solution?  We may have to wait for many of the Tea Party members (who tend to be older) die off or decline to a smaller and smaller percentage of the population.  The question then becomes, how much damage and destruction these people can cause in the interim.