Every so often, Republicans start to believe their own bullshit and forget they’re the party of inherited wealth. Not morality or religion.
The Republican Party’s core constituency, which is comprised of rich people and their industries, just confronted that problem by pulling the rug out from under their Tea Party allies in the House.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnnell (R-Kentucky) is backing down from the standoff with Dems over the federal debt limit. This apparent betrayal is reminiscent of the way the GOP core once pulled the rug out from under its Pro-Life allies during the second term of George W. Bush.
It’s as if McConnnell just told right-wing nut Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.): “Cause a federal default? Are you insane? Do you know what kind of backlash that would trigger?”
That’s really what it’s all about. The super-wealthy have money, not numbers. So, they have to use their money to forge alliances with some unlikely bedfellows to put enough of the electoral pie together to craft a victory.
That means getting in bed with the moral majority even though Republican ranks are rife with powerful men who treat their wives like employees and closeted homosexuals who are outwardly bashing those who openly live an alternative lifestyle.
It means talking the small government talk the Tea Party likes to hear, even when their corporate revenues depend on big government largesse; and it means talking the anti-illegal immigrant talk even as their own industries recruit unskilled labor in Mexico. And it once meant embracing the anti-abortion antics of Operation Rescue even as GOP leaders were making sure their own kids had access to both contraceptives and legalized abortion.
That’s why Geedub took a pass on nominating a pro-life judge in his second term instead of ensuring that Roe v Wade be would be overturned by appointing one.
The moral of the story is that, ultimately, it’s a lot more fun to threaten to burn the house down than it is to be standing in the rain afterward like a fool. The amazing thing is that so many fringe Republicans drank the Kool-Aid, saw what they wanted to see, and started believing their own rhetoric.
These wedge issues exist soelly to divide working voters. They’re not meant to be resolved. That’s why they’re called wedge issues.
