http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/republicans-private-terror-why-they-despise-modern-american-state-and-embrace?akid=12910.294211.9vDZct&rd=1&src=newsletter1033541&t=14
The Iran letter said more about the GOP than Tom Cotton and company ever intended. Here's their demented logic.
21st century Republicans are also following in the footsteps of their
late 20th century brethren, who, for example, didn’t just oppose and
defame Bill Clinton — they impeached him. So while it’s undoubtedly true
that some Republicans despise Obama, their behavior as a party seems
driven by something other than purely personal motives. Difficult as it
may be for many Americans to realize, politics is really about something
more than personalities. It’s about, er, politics, and the recent
behavior of Republicans must be seen in that light to be fully
understood. Their latest escapades merely extend the logic of the
party’s evolution since the early 1960s. They may hate Barack Obama, but
what they really hate is the modern American state.
extending over at least the Obama presidency but with roots as far back,
perhaps, as the Clinton impeachment. It involves the readiness of
Republicans to violate long-standing norms of institutional conduct in
order to advance a highly divisive, intensely partisan agenda.
Impeachment and the threat of impeachment; the use of primaries to
defeat Republican incumbents judged to be insufficiently
“conservative”; a willingness to default on the debt or shutdown the
government; the indiscriminate use of the filibuster to require
super-majorities in the Senate on virtually every issue— this pattern of
increasingly radical behavior may certainly be associated, in any given
case, with the anger or pique of particular politicians. But its
deepest source is in the political attitudes of an increasingly radical party.
Also relevant is the entrepreneurial environment GOP politicians inhabit
nowadays. The proliferation of media outlets, PACs, and “policy”
centers on the right has changed the calculus for many of its
office-holders. They know an alternate career path is out there, one
potentially more lucrative and less burdensome than government
employment. A conservative politician who is fast on his or her feet,
looks good in a suit, and adheres closely enough to right-wing dogma can
trade public service for the private sector and make out like a bandit.
The pioneer here, of course, is Sarah Palin, who ditched the
governorship of Alaska for media celebrity after her ride on the
Straight Talk Express in 2008. Her example is surely not lost on the
likes of Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton. As such people grow more and more
detached from actual governing, the norms that enable and define
successful governance matter less and less to them.
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