I just don't know how you can daily assess what's going on in politics and Washington D.C. like Steve Benen does and not get horribly depressed, despondent and blow your brains out. I don't have the fortitude.
Thank goodness that Steve does, however. His blog at The Washington Monthly is consistently insightful, not to mention infuriating.
It's just a damn shame that Republicans - most specifically elected Republicans - don't care about reality or anyone but the wealthy.
If only GOP lawmakers were more like GOP voters
I imagine everyone has seen the bumper sticker that says, “Lord, protect us from your followers.” I have an idea for a related sticker that reads, “Republicans, protect us from your elected officials.”
In the existing political landscape, the real problem is not with GOP voters; it’s with GOP policymakers. This isn’t to let the party’s supporters off the hook entirely — they’re the ones who supported and elected the officeholders — but it’s hard to overstate how much more constructive the political process would be if Republican lawmakers in any way reflected the priorities of their own supporters.
Last week, a national poll found that Republican voters broadly support the Democratic jobs agenda — a payroll tax cut, jobs for teachers/first responders, infrastructure investments, and increased taxes on millionaires and billionaires — in some cases by wide margins. This week, Tim Noah noticed this observation can be applied even further.
I’m liking rank-and-file Republicans better and better. Earlier this month
we learned that they favor Obama’s plan to tax the rich. Now we learn that a 55
percent majority of them think Wall Street bankers and brokers are “dishonest,”
69 percent think they’re “overpaid,” and 72 percent think they’re “greedy.”
Fewer than half (47 percent) have an unfavorable view of the Occupy Wall Street
protests. Thirty-three percent either favor them or have no opinion, and 20
percent haven’t heard of them. Also, a majority favor getting rid of the
Electoral College and replacing it with a popular vote. After the 2000 election
only 41 percent did. Now 53 percent do. How cool is that?
Every one of these positions puts the GOP rank-and-file at odds with
their congressional leadership and field of presidential candidates.
I don’t want to exaggerate this too much. The fact remains that the Republican Party is dominated by conservative voters, especially those who participate in primaries and caucuses. I’m not suggesting for a moment that the party’s rank-and-file members are moving to the left.
But the recent poll results are also hard to miss — many if not most GOP voters are perfectly comfortable with plenty of progressive ideas, including tax increases on millionaires and billionaires. It’s starting to look like the party’s rank and file is made up of mainstream conservatives who want their party to help move the country forward.
And yet, when we look to Republican officials in Washington, how many GOP members of Congress are willing to endorse any of these popular measures? Zero. Literally, not even one Republican lawmaker has offered even tacit support for ideas that most GOP voters actually like. In the Senate, a united Republican caucus won’t even allow a vote — won’t even allow a debate — on popular job-creation ideas during a jobs crisis.
If the actions of GOP lawmakers in any way resembled the wishes of GOP voters, our political system wouldn’t be nearly as dysfunctional as it is now.
Congratulations, congressional Republicans. You’re far more extreme than your own supporters.
Shit, even Pat "Gay People Cause Hurricanes" Robertson thinks the Republicans are going too far.
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