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I found a lot to disagree with in Thomas Friedman’s column today, but his criticism of the Republican Party’s base rings true.
[T]he Tea Party … is so lacking in any aspiration for American greatness, so dominated by the narrowest visions for our country and so ignorant of the fact that it was not tax cuts that made America great but our unique public-private partnerships across the generations. If sane Republicans do not stand up to this Hezbollah faction in their midst, the Tea Party will take the G.O.P. on a suicide mission.
This strikes me as fair, and it got me thinking about a question a friend of mine asked me the other day: where are the “sane Republicans” willing to “stand up to this Hezbollah faction in their midst”? Where are Bob Dole and John Warner? Why can’t John Danforth and Colin Powell express their disapproval for what their party is doing? Maybe some of Reagan’s old guard, like Ken Duberstein, could speak up?
The party is not without elder statesmen and women. They couldn’t possibly see their party’s antics on Capitol Hill and feel a sense of pride. Maybe it’s time they say so?
A regular reader recently passed along this item from Robert Prather, published a week ago on the center-right Outside the Beltway blog, about his sense of what’s become of the GOP.
I’ve been moving to the left for a few years now, but these idiots are radicalizing me. I’ve never voted for a Democrat in my life (full disclosure: I didn’t vote the last two elections due to moving), but I doubt I’ll ever vote for a Republican again. They’re either stupid or evil, but either way they’re dangerous and bad for the country.
I don’t know much about Prather’s political background, and maybe he’s an anomaly. But shouldn’t there be a legion of Republicans — former office holders, party loyalists, life-long members, all of the above — who are sympathetic to this perspective?
We’re not talking about GOP officials taking a hard line on some random piece of legislation, or nominating some radical for a key public office. We’re talking about congressional Republicans who’ve decided to play a game of chicken with the full faith and credit of the United States — something no American institution has ever done in more than two centuries — and who are fully prepared to trash the constitutional principle next week as part of a hostage strategy gone horribly awry?
Are there no noteworthy Republicans watching this, willing to say, “My party is simply going too far”?
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Michael Carpet on July 27, 2011 11:17 AM:
Steve, Steve, Steve -- the Teahadists just don't care what the old guard thinks, and the GOP in Congress is too terrified of them to listen.
citizen_pain on July 27, 2011 11:19 AM:
Their corporate overlords will not allow them to stand up.
This is disaster capitalism at it's core - they want to destroy the federal government's financial stability so private enterprise and profiteers can once and for all take over the functions the government currently provides.
This has been the goal of the people who control the republican party for over a century.
Michael Carpet on July 27, 2011 11:19 AM:
Er, "them" meaning Teahadists, and "listen" refers to the old guard. Sheesh, need coffee.
Bobby C on July 27, 2011 11:19 AM:
I am afraid the short answer is "No".
ET on July 27, 2011 11:20 AM:
I sort of assumed that those that would pass for "sane" were slowly driven out of the party so that the only ones that were left in the GOP were those deluding themselves about the trend and the Tea Party types.
c u n d gulag on July 27, 2011 11:23 AM:
If they're in office now, or thinking of running for office in the future, they're afraid of being primaried by these lunatics.
And, as for any older Conservative Republicans, well, they failed Conservatism by being insuffiently conservative enough, so they're seen as part of the problem, NOT part of the solution.
Only Reagan - myth and legend, and definitely NOT man, is revered.
But, he's dead, so he can't tell them they're idiots and fools.
Bobfr on July 27, 2011 11:24 AM:
None. Yet.
Bob Johnson on July 27, 2011 11:27 AM:
The GOP has simply become a facotem of cash flow, now a party of politics and power rather than of policy and principal. The "sane" don't speak up because Norquist, Rove, Limbaugh, and others who provide the funding have seized the high ground. To speak out risks personal destruction without any possibility of being heard anyway. Because many in the media are owned by these money-lenders there is scant chance of a viable investigation or persistent reporting on who is behind the words the Republican politicians spout.
John A on July 27, 2011 11:30 AM:
Since when do Republican's (at least in recent years ) ever say “My party is simply going too far”? No one did it when W was setting the country's economy (tax cuts) and values (torture) back. It's clear that they want to slash govt programs or make money off them and in the process destroy the Obama presidency and are going to continue to do so since the Democrats refuse to call them out
DNS on July 27, 2011 11:32 AM:
I call them the Jonestown Republicans.
Danp on July 27, 2011 11:35 AM:
Are there no noteworthy Republicans watching this, willing to say, “My party is simply going too far”?
Yes - lots of them: McCain, Boehner, McConnell, Brooks, Frum, Krauthammer,Gingrich, etc. But then they all hedge their bets by retracting their comments. Nobody wants to hear Mick Jagger sing opera, and no one wants to hear these guys sound "liberal." Politics (especially on the Right side of the fence) is business.
jackson on July 27, 2011 11:38 AM:
The Tea Poopers and not...well.
As such, they crave a "system," a way to "be" in the world.
The current "conservative" philosophy serves that purpose quite well: it's irrational, mean-spirited, violent, racist, xenophobic, tribalistic, etc.
They have done a great deal of harm to the country and to their fellow countrymen.
What can be done? I don't know.
Nelson steelberg on July 27, 2011 11:40 AM:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-cant-default-on-our-commitments/2011/07/17/gIQA95IYKI_story.html
Howard Baker and Nancy Kassebaum Baker spoke up. Not sure Nancy Kassebaum could get elected in Kansa today.
Al B Tross on July 27, 2011 11:41 AM:
One might think that, but it is not in the genetic make-up of the Conservative mind to speak out against the mob.
In his 30-year study of Authoritarian Personality, Dr. Bob Altemeyer ( http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ )repeated the Milgram experiment, having an authority figure condone the administration of a painful electrical shock by one individual to another.
When surveyed, psychologists agreed that only the most sadistic persons, less than 1%, could do so.
Turns out 65% of any respondents, regardless of income or education, would do as they were told, and administer a shock strong enough to cause pain.
Not all conservatives are Authoritarian, but you can bet that most Authoritarians, are conservative. Research proves they lack the ability for self-reflection, and display a disproportional level of cognitive dissonance.
It is not their nature to question the status quo, for they can only perceive themselves as the status quo.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
PeakVT on July 27, 2011 11:44 AM:
If sane Republicans do not stand up to this Likud faction in their midst, the Tea Party will take the G.O.P. on a suicide mission.
Accurified. Hezbollah isn't a long-standing political party tearing down a state from the inside.
DRF on July 27, 2011 11:46 AM:
There are plenty of Republicans who have called out the Tea Party extremists, but they are either retired from politics or are members of the media, rather than politicians.
No Republican elected official is willing to challenge the Tea Party excesses for fear of having to face a primary challenge. Look what happend to Bennett in Utah in 2010 and what's happening to Hatch there now. The "sane" portion of the party is absolutely terrified.
Other Republicans who depend for their living on conservative funding or who hope to be given jobs in a future Republican Administration, remain silent for fear of damaging their careers.
If there is any doubt that fear of the Tea Party wing is driving the party, just look at how Republican Presidential candidates generally considered "moderate", such as Pawlenty and Romney, have reversed course on so many issues--climate change/cap and trade, health care reform, immigration reform, etc.
Kon Kilo on July 27, 2011 11:48 AM:
Having attempted to end the New Deal for decades by starving the beast, why would the GOP back down now that they can smell blood in the water?
The only wonder to me is how the punditocracy has developed collective amnesia on the subject.
Ronald on July 27, 2011 11:49 AM:
The "Old Guard" that we hope is still sane sowed the seeds and carefully cultivated the crop of traitors who have taken control of the party. Admitting wrong is non-existent in the Republican psyche. It will never happen. They'll never stand up to them. Republicans are generally scared to challenge the "leadership" and those they see as pulling the purse strings. Cowards.
The Republicans hate Americans and wan t to destroy Democracy as we know it.
docdave on July 27, 2011 11:51 AM:
Where are the noteworthy Republicans? They're out there, like former Governor Whitman of NJ-but no matter how firmly the GOP's remaining grownups speak their minds, the juveniles of the TP movement shout louder.
Memekiller on July 27, 2011 11:52 AM:
I'm guilty of breaking one of my cardinal rules. 1) Any plan that requires reasoning by the GOP, or banks on the GOP suddenly getting shaken to their senses is doomed to fail.
We have stories of pols waiting for the stock market to tank for us to wake everybody up. They're waiting for Wall Street to come scare the crap out of them. We're waiting for the "adult" Republicans to talk some sense into them. We're waiting for a default, and the plummet in popularity to wake them up.
It ain't happening people. Not only are Republicans NOT going to sign on to any plan that... well, any plan, the catastrophic results will take a lot longer than a week to show any evidence of movement on the part of the right.
Those of us who witnessed the government shutdown in the 90s will recall that the GOP held firm until representatives were getting angry phone calls from their own mothers telling them to stop. The lesson learned? They didn't hold firm enough, long enough. People forget that the GOP then tried AGAIN by killing disaster aid of all things - only this time they wouldn't cave. Their approval plummeted, angry mothers called... lesson learned? They caved too soon. They didn't hold firm long enough, or push hard enough.
No white horses are coming. Even if they do, the GOP won't listen. Not only will we dafault, we'll default for a while.
Ohioan on July 27, 2011 11:53 AM:
Noteworthy Repulicans like Chuck Hagel, Lincoln Chafee, Arlen Spector etc? Sure, the teabaggers will listen to those losers.
Noteworthy commentators like Bruce Bartlett, David Frum? Can you say excommunicated?
zandru on July 27, 2011 12:00 PM:
Two Extreme Outcomes
I see two possibilities, with possible shades between:
1. This breaks the back of the GOP. Americans see them revealed in their greedy, shortsighted, ignorant, hateful glory. Most Americans disapprove.
2. This puts the nail in the coffin of the Democratic Party and the Obama Administration, as it yields to all demands, even those not expressed, by cutting social programs, gutting Social Security and Medicare, giving another big 5% or greater tax cut to the wealthiest of us, and sacrificing workers' rights to unionize.
The smart money, tragically, is on 2. Even the most radical of the reactionary right are saying that we won't default, because sensible people in Washington won't let it happen.
Those are the Democrats, my friends.
Bobfr on July 27, 2011 12:01 PM:
You know it's getting really, really bad when these folk come together on any issue:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/07/27/280361/what-would-jesus-cut/
Yes.We.Can. ... DO.More.Together!
square1 on July 27, 2011 12:04 PM:
This is part of why the Democratic Party is moving further to the right. A lot of "moderate" Republicans have fled the insanity of their party for the Democratic Party but now expect Democrats to accommodate their corporatist ideology.
Sadly, the political calculus of the White House has been to appeal to these dissatisfied Republicans and ignore the liberals of the party. On paper, this seems to make sense. After all, where are the liberals going to go? And, also, each "moderate Republican" vote that you siphon off is really two votes: one for the Democrats and one lost by the GOP.
However, this political calculus runs into the small problem that policy matters.
If you implement a bunch of shitty Republican economic policies (e.g. attacking Medicare and Social Security, cutting spending in a recession, ignoring Wall Street financial fraud and systemic risk, permitting environmental crises by failing to adequately regulate various industries) then you are going to get shitty results: high unemployment, oil spills in the gulf, unchecked climate change, and seniors eating catfood.
Guess what? These fickle Republicans who you are trying to woo will never accept responsibility for the policy failures that they lobbied for. So, they will not stick by you when disaster strikes.
Tom Friedman is the poster-boy for the fool's-gold Republican voter. All President Obama does is support the kind of bipartisan bullshit that Friedman endlessly blathers on about. But when the chips are down, does Friedman get Obama's back? Hell, no. Friedman is calling for a third party. Even though it is impossible to imagine a presidential candidate in any third party supported by Tom Friedman who wouldn't be largely identical to President Obama.
ChicagoRob on July 27, 2011 12:13 PM:
Can't speak for anybody but myself, a left-leaning, progressive. But at a certain point, after enough decades pass, a deep weariness sets in. I wonder whether our country -- at multiple, interlocking levels -- has just run its course. You look at the state of the financial industry, the tax code, our globe-spanning military empire, the dumbed-down educational system, the boot-licking media (I could go on) -- and it's like looking at a cable car whose cable has snapped and is heading for San Fransisco Bay. You wonder: is it going to change anything for me to step in front of the cable car and try to stop it? Maybe the gray heads in the Republican Party feel the same way.
T2 on July 27, 2011 12:28 PM:
Dump the TeaParty?? Take a quick look at who the top tier GOP presidential candidates are -
Bachmann, Perry, Palin - Tea Party candidates
Romney - will flip-flop to full Tea Partyism if need be to get nomination
No the TeaParty isn't on the verge of being dismantled....they are on the verge of seizing the Presidency. Better chew on that for a minute.
Letitia on July 27, 2011 12:30 PM:
Why don't the sane republicans stand up to the tea party?
"Way back there in March 2003, Chris Bryant asked a brave question. He said to Rebekah, "Have you ever paid the police for information?" And she, not considering the impact of her reply, said, "Yes, we have paid the police in the past." Now this was dynamite. You're not supposed to admit to paying bribes to police officers. OK, that was March.
In December 2003, the Murdoch press exposed Chris Bryant. They accused him of what is in their ghastly moral framework a crime, which was that he was gay. And they published a photograph of him wearing a skimpy pair of underpants. They did that to humiliate that man, that politician, that elected politician, to punish him for daring to ask a difficult question and provoking a difficult answer."
--Nick Davies 7/21 talking to Amy Goodman.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/21/murdoch_empire_pummelled_by_phone_hacking
Do we not think the phone hacking, the surveillance, has been going on here? I've been wondering for sometime what kind of blackmail has been going on. I hate to think I'm a conspiracy theorist because I'm really not. I'm usually the biggest skeptic. I really hope I'm wrong.
Lamont Cranston on July 27, 2011 12:36 PM:
Where are the "Profiles in Courage?" John Kennedy would have a very slim book if it covered this period. Why don't some of the 70 or 80 year olds risk losing reelection by doing the right thing? It looks like they're trying to turn us into a third world country.
Sean Scallon on July 27, 2011 12:36 PM:
"is so lacking in any aspiration for American greatness,"
Oh, you and the neocons will be on the same team in no time. You're more alike than you want to admit.
DisgustedWithItAll on July 27, 2011 12:41 PM:
I've been saying for weeks: the only strategy now is to cheer on the Tea-tards and hope they crush everything trying to get through Congress FORCING Obama to take the 14th (if he has the stones).
The original Reid plan might have been barely acceptable, especially since it reserves the option to expire the Bush tax cuts later, but you know they're going to negotiate it rightward and there's no room on the right of that plan that makes it palatable.
Captcha: Process jcanuti
jjcomet on July 27, 2011 1:03 PM:
Steve, it's hard to believe you're even asking this question. The fact is, there are no "sane Republicans" by any standards that include giving a damn about anyone except themselves. And it really baffles me that you'd look among members of the Reagan Administration to find them. Today's current political discourse on the right was, if not originated, supercharged and embraced as the mainstream view of the GOP during the Reagan years. If Dole, Warner, Danforth, Powell, and their ilk ever had any integrity they never would have served in the Reagan administration or supported its agenda. I'd wager you'd have to go back at least as far as Ike to find a prominent Republican who put country above party, and that generation of Repubs are all dead by now.
xando foote on July 27, 2011 1:07 PM:
Someone mentioned Howard Baker as an elder statesman. I think that Sen. Lugar is similarly inclined but finds it necessary to compromise on certain issues so as to avoid a serious primary challenge.
The TP'ers represent only ~20% of all voters. Their prominence within the GOP, though, has allowed them to hijack a once proud and dignified political party. The current show of ignorance and recalcitrance with regard to the debt crisis may be enough to convince some rational members of the GOP to begin speaking up.
boatboy_srq on July 27, 2011 1:16 PM:
@Lamont Cranston:
If you look carefully at Tea Party rhetoric (well, if you can do that and keep down your lunch), you'll see that the model they idolize is the developing economy. THIS is what drives them, and what they want to create in the US.
The fact that the US has (and has had for some time) a developed economy escapes them entirely, for two reasons. First, the baggage attendant on a developed economy they perceive as hindrance rather than beneficial accessory; and second, the wealth-accumulating opportunities inherent in a developing economy are their individual drivers, rather than the collective wealth-aggregating opportunities a developed economy provides. For them, the ideal is to be able to amass as much as they can (individually), and anything that would benefit the society as a whole (themselves included) is unnecessary and hence wasteful. Their model isn't modern Germany, but Nigeria. That this represents the Third World very effectively either hasn't occurred to them or merely supports their perception of of oppression.
In that light, all the rhetoric about Obama and the omnipresent overpowering state machine make perfect sense: this is the political reality for most of the developing world.
... and Captcha identifies what the TPers uses to see the world around them: "duciffee eyeball."
Trollop on July 27, 2011 1:49 PM:
I really like that suicide part!
flubber on July 27, 2011 1:51 PM:
"Hezbollah faction"?
Zionism on the brain.
JS on July 27, 2011 2:55 PM:
I can speak a bit of what's become of the GOP, as I labeled myself a 'Rockefeller Republican' through the 80s and 90s. (My first Presidential vote was for John Anderson - Reagan was too war mongery for my taste the first time around.)
Hated, hated Clinton in the 90's. Didn't really support impeaching him over a BJ, but couldn't understand why Mrs. Clinton stood by him.
But as the Republican party moved to the right, I could sense that the middle class was losing out. Between the "tax cuts and deregulation" wing and the "Christianist" wing taking hold, I gave up on politics somewhere around 10, 12 years ago. (I'd have to look up to see if I voted in 2000 - I remember being fascinated by the Constitutional Crisis, but don't remember being passionate about the outcome.)
I re-engaged the night of the Iowa caucuses.. watched the speech and said "Where the h-ll did this guy come from??" (He was my Senator. I knew he was my Senator of course, but if anything I would have tossed Mike Ditka a smartass vote in '04 if he made the run.)
So suddenly I identify as a Democrat, even make my first donation to a campaign. Shudder just a bit when I realize that I'm now allies with Ted Kennedy and Rev. Jesse Jackson. (Mind-blowing at the time, swear to God.) So I kind of came to the election of 2008 like Andrew Sullivan, other than I'm American-born, straight, and I don't now look for any half-assed reason to defend the conservative party line.
I don't object to the social safety net, if only we can fund it - Keyensian stimulus is needed, but also a path to keep deficits under control. One area of criticism I have with Obama's approach is that he appears determined to keep the Bush cuts for the middle class - I don't see how we fund the government we want without that revenue. But a long term plan to control deficits is absolutely a progressive issue IMO - the chief problem being medical inflation.
How you get these costs under control without the other side crying "Rationing!"? That's why you need the higher taxes until the other side is willing to make a deal on sensible entitlement reform - the kind that improves the cost effectiveness of the programs instead of "solving" the problem by cutting benefits.
If there's a deal to be struck, the elected official I most trust is Sen. Bernie Sanders. You know, the actual Socialist. That's how far right I think the Overton window has moved. I frankly can't understand why there hasn't been a shift of voters to the left. Fear from the bad economy, epistemic closure, Fox "News" Channel and the 500 "blame both sides equally in all disputes" members of The Village, I guess.
It appears that former Republicans are reclassifying themselves as Independents, but not really willing to vote for the other side. There's money to be made if someone can figure out how to push these voters over to where I am now.
Out & About in The Castro on July 27, 2011 3:39 PM:
Sorry, Steve, but the Republicans have become a party of Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, and the last Republican statesman was buried alongside her late husband a couple of weeks ago in Grand Rapids, MI. And no doubt, Gerald and Betty Ford would be catigated and derides as political pariahs and RINOs today, were only they of this generation and not the one prior.
Brownell on July 27, 2011 10:05 PM:
The short answer to Where are the sane Republicans? is that they call themselves independents. "Independents" now outnumber both Republicans and Democrats, and my estimate is that two-thirds of them are really Republicans. I am more and more recalling a historical comparison - the origins of the Republican Party. There were other complications, but the comparison that resonates today is that in the 1850's, the Democratic Party was split between the pro-slavery South, the anti-slavery West and the anti-slavery Northeast. The Southern Democrats could not prevail against the anti-slavery factions (plus the other regions did not share the South's agrarian economics), so the Democratic Party was torn. The 1856 choice of James Buchanan as the Democratic Party presidential nominee - a total sellout to the South - embittered the Democrats' other regional factions, not mended in the following four years by the fact that Buchanan as President made George W. Bush look good. Meanwhile, the infant Republican Party, mostly Western-based, busily collected remnants of the moribund Whig Party and made inroads among Northern and Western Democrats. The 1860 result: Abraham Lincoln was elected the first Republican President.
Doesn't the Tea Party effect on the current Republican Party seem similar? A radical faction of the party alienates traditional members. Moreover the Democratic Party has a longstanding liberal-conservative fissure. I think there is fertile ground here for a new centrist party - really centrist - formed from Blue Dog Democrats and alienated Republicans. Such a coalition could beat the Republican Party hands down. We could be watching the demise of the Republican Party - and a serious challenge to liberal Democrats.
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Patricia Hartdy on August 01, 2011 1:01 PM:
Steve thank you I agree with you. the tea party is bad for america. I was considering voting republican in the next election. Now I will never vote republican again thanks to the tea party. Will the old sensible republicans Please stand up.