- Home
- News Grid
- Local News
- Green Hawk
- Politics
- School Zone
- Youth Camps
- Nonprofits
- Missing Pets
- Multimedia
- Arts
- Movies
- Outdoors
- Sports
- News Releases
- Columnists
- Blogs
- Opinions
- Classifieds
- Advertise
- Donate
- Partners
Joe Conason: The GOP’s Toxic Tea Party
When Newt Gingrich warned Republicans that they were making a grave “mistake” by driving out moderates and enforcing the angry orthodoxy of the far right, the sober tone of his remarks was stunning.
This is a politician who is no stranger to the wilder shores of extremism, a populist and a purist who rose to great power against the GOP establishment, and a demagogue whose lexicon lacerated the “Democrat Party” as decadent, elitist, unpatriotic and immoral.
In his day, Gingrich channeled the same phobias and fury as the Tea Party activists whose growing influence in Republican ranks seems to have shaken him so badly. Why is Gingrich scared now?
Despite his habitual ranting against the Eastern elites, the former House speaker is a professional historian and an intellectual with wide-ranging interests — making him a figure of potential suspicion to radio talkers without much formal education and the raving mobs that follow them.
Much as he exploited the prejudices of the religious right and fantasies of the conspiracy crowd, Gingrich has always affected a more sophisticated and urbane attitude. He may be troubled to realize that he suddenly ranks far lower than Sarah Palin, who can barely muster a coherent political thought, or Glenn Beck, who enthralls his audience with weird, weepy rants.
Leaving aside any lingering presidential ambitions, Gingrich understandably feels that brand of leadership will have a very limited appeal for most Americans — and that the more voters see of it, the less they will like it.
Is it fair to stigmatize the tea-baggers and their leaders as a movement of the fringe? In New York’s 23rd congressional district, Douglas Hoffman, the right-wing carpetbagger who drove out moderate local Republican Dede Scozzafava, apprenticed himself to Beck, obsequiously flattering the Fox News host as his “mentor.”
Hoffman signed a pledge to uphold the “912 principles and values” endorsed by Beck — a juvenile tract that demands honesty, thrift, humility and charity even as it complains that government forces citizens to “share” when they don’t want to. (As far as Beck is concerned, all Democrats are “Marxist” and almost all Republicans are “Marxist lite.”)
No doubt Hoffman is eagerly studying the collected writings of the late Cleon Skousen, the Beck-endorsed prophet whose speeches used to stir up meetings of the John Birch Society, mostly against Republicans of the Rockefeller and Kissinger variety. He has plenty of time for reading now, after losing the special election to Democrat Bill Owens.
If the revival of Birchite mania troubles Gingrich, then the Palin phenomenon, now breaking loose with the publication of her memoir, must be equally disturbing. The former Alaska governor has a long, Beck-like history of affiliation with bizarre causes and characters, including an Alaskan secessionist party and a Kenyan witch-hunting evangelist who conducted an exorcism rite in her Wasilla church. She will ignore or minimize those episodes in Going Rogue, but putting extra lipstick on this pit bull may not help.
Most Americans don’t know much yet about the idiosyncratic ideology of the Tea Party crowd, beyond their conviction that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya (and that his birth announcement in the Hawaii newspapers is therefore part of a plot that dates back to the Kennedy era). But what they have seen so far, they don’t seem to like: The more that Beck, Palin and kindred spirits appear to represent the Republican brand, the less appeal that brand possesses.
From the perspective of Gingrich and other veteran Republicans, there is deep irony in these untoward developments. Many of the Tea Party types actually hate Republican politicians, unless, like Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater, they are already dead. They hate Democrats, too, of course — and lots of other people — but their invective against Republicans is suffused with special outrage.
If they have their way, every Republican who doesn’t adhere to the Beck canon will be driven out at the end of a pitchfork, just like poor Scozzafava.
Fifteen years ago, when Gingrich rode to power on the resentments of the religious right, the gun lobby and the economic royalists, he celebrated their extremism as the political style of “normal Americans.” Today when he hears the violent rhetoric, the hateful threats and the fanatical intolerance, he knows they are talking about him, too.
— Joe Conason writes for the New York Observer. Click here for more information, or click here to contact him.
Comments
Noozhawk's comments are moderated, but by posting here you accept your responsibility to follow our rules.
- No abusive, defamatory or libelous attacks. In plain English: No personal attacks.
- No vulgar or discriminatory language.
- If you do not follow these rules, don't be surprised if your comment is removed.
- Please use the Report Abuse button on offensive comments.
- Share what you know, ask about what you don't. Give us your eyewitness accounts, observations, background and history. Tell us what else you want to know about the story.
- Stay on the topic, PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK, and forgive people their spelling errors.
Noozhawk's intent is not to limit the discussion of our stories but to elevate it. Thank you for your respectful participation. Click here for our complete Terms of Use.
Comments are moderated, and will not appear until they've been approved.
» on 11.06.09 @ 05:34 AM
Former House Speaker NEWT GINGRICH is going through a political make-over, but aviding accountabilities for prior “crimes against humanity”!
Not least = Starting with the highly touted “Contract With America”, Rpublians AND Democrats n Congrss bega “raidig” [rea: STEALING!] from the once plush Medi-Care and SOcal Security Trust Funds, to keep the Federal budge in balance” while paying for prefrred new prgrams!
AT EVERY TURN = PROMISES were made to repay the stolen funds!
Bank robber WILLIE SUTTON NEVER DID THIS and NEITHER have the former Members of Congress - FROM BOTH MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES - over 30 years’ span - THREE DECADES!
Both parties are in denial! Both have amnesia on this!
Neither party has been held accountable.
WHEN SHALL JUSTICE BE FINALLY SERVED, at long last?
* * * *
One footnote = Access to the President of the U.S. is CHEAPER than access to Utah’s current new Governor.
Acsess to The President [a Democrat] = $30,400 [per Michele Malkin’s recent syndicated column - “The Daily News” of Cedar City, UT - published Monday - Nov. 2d]!
Access to Utah’s new Governr [a Republican] = $50,000 [per Paul Rolly’s political column in “The Salt Lake Tribune” of Salt Lake City - weeks BEFORE “The Annual Governor’s [fund-raising] GALA” on Oct. 30th]!
Utah’s Governor and MOST of the elected Utah Legilature OPPOSE a citizen’s initiative for the 2010 ballot for an “Independent Ethics in Government Commission”!
That initiative has support from more than 85%[!] of the local public - state-wide!
» on 11.06.09 @ 07:27 AM
I would like nothing more than to see the GOP continue to move farther to the right and have leaders such as Limbaugh,Beck,Palin and Hannity. Then maybe the GOP will split into two parties and make themselves irrelevant for decades!!!
The teabaggers are so misguided it is funny. They should be protesting in front of Wall Stret firms, banks and insurance companies and asking for their money back.
» on 11.06.09 @ 03:19 PM
The Grand Old Party has been in disarray for a long time.
When you mostly look backward, to a jollied-over, semi-fictional golden era of the
long-dead Ronald Reagan, rather than forward to the new opportunities America can seize, you’re in trouble.
When you try to Moral Majority a political party, then elect a bunch of mealy-mouth
hypocrites with feet of clay, roving eyes, grabby hands, and open adultery, to represent that evangelical movement, you’re in trouble.
When you sit by silent, as the economy derails, and the neo-con “good” wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan come a cropper, you’re in trouble.
When you’re trying to retain the White House, and the best choices the party of Abe
Lincoln, TR, Reagan and Ike can come up with are Huckabee, Romney, McCain or
Palin, you’re in trouble.
When a frothy looney-tune like Glenn Beck has higher public identification and trust
than any individual Republican leader of Congress, you’re in trouble.
William Buckley, Jr. warned us about that shortly before his death. Will & Brooks are
saying it too. Buckley’s son supported Obama. So did Ike’s grandkids, Nixon’s kids,
one of Reagan’s, and Ford’s. When that happens, you’re in trouble.
If the gut-core of the “new” Republican Party are the dazed and confused Tea Party
screamers, then the trouble they’re in is a whole lot bigger than any plus or minus
that a Newt Gingrich brings to the table.
» on 11.06.09 @ 10:34 PM
Liberal is foolish and soft-weak cowardly-Muslims love liberals
More Local News »
Salud Carbajal and Bill Cirone: Healthy Kids Program Gets Great Results
Providing health insurance is a benefit not only to needy children, but to their families, care facilities and the community
Michael Rattray: Preservation vs. Retreat at Goleta Beach Park
A permanent solution is critical to maintaining the value of the community treasure
Joe Conason: Right Wing Gone Wild
Elizabeth Cheney, Glenn Beck et al take accusations of treason to the extreme
David Harsanyi: Actually, Process Does Matter
Sometimes process is vital to protecting the American people
Tony Strickland: State Health-Care Bill an Ill Fit for Californians
Voters should have the power to protect themselves from state and federal health-care mandates
Weather: Partly Cloudy 67.0º
Search Noozhawk »
