And first off the government doesn't create jobs. Let's get this notion out of our heads that the government creates jobs. Not in the history of mankind has the government ever created a job.
even though he, like, had a government job himself? And his job now is to get Republicans as many government jobs as possible? Well, his first big move at the RNC is to shut down their new think tank for new ideas! Greg Sargent reports from his new digs:
The Republican National Committee, under new chairman Michael Steele, has quietly killed an ambitious plan to create the Center for Republican Renewal, a big in-house RNC think tank intended to develop new policies and ideas in order to take the party in a new direction, a Republican official who was directly informed of the decision by RNC staff tells me.
The Center's goal was to help the GOP reclaim the mantle of the "party of ideas," as RNC officials glowingly announced in December, and the decision to scrap it has some Republicans, including allies of former RNC chair Mike Duncan, its creator, wondering how precisely the RNC intends to generate the new ideas necessary to change course and renew itself.
Well, here's the thing: The GOP never was the "Party of Ideas." At least not since the 1870s or so. That was just a branding thing, as a whole constellation of recent developments has shown.
TPM is reporting on a new memo from Republican National Committee chief Mike Duncan, saying that the GOP has lost its reputation as a "party of ideas," and needs to do some serious work to change that. Only two problems-one for them, one for us:
(1) (For them): It never was the party of ideas in the first place.
(2) (For us): It didn't matter in the past, so why should it matter now?
Put simply, the GOP has basically had TWO ideas since 1932: (1) Kill the New Deal and anything related to it. (2) Promote Republicans as heroic saviors and attack Democrats as depraved traitors who hate America and are trying to destroy it. (See, for example, Glenn Greenwald's book, Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Myths of Republican Politics, and/or my diary "Patriotism Smackdown: Barack Obama Vs. Hitler's Ghost? (Hegemony Is The Enemy Special Report--Pt5)".) All the other ideas Republicans have had since then have simply been tactical or strategic weaponry to advance those two basic ideas, split the Democratic base, shift blame, or otherwise gain political advantage, regardless of any real-world policy consequences. In short, Republican ideas revolve around the long-term struggle for political power, based on controlling political and quasi-political institutions, and thus controlling the political discourse.
The GOP's utter lack of ideas--indeed their utter contempt for them has been visible everywhere you look of late. Their attacks on the stimulus have been utterly nonsensical. Steele's ludicrous claim that government has never created a job is not an outlier here. It reflects the underlying logic of the DeMint/Heritage Foundation all-tax-cut "stimulus" plan, about which Ezra Klein wrote:
The amendment was beaten back, but all but five Republicans voted for it. It reminds me of something John Cole wrote earlier today. "I really don't understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane," he said.
Precisely. Certain types of insane people spout ideas by bucketful. But they don't have ideas. The ideas have them. Ideas about aliens spying on their every move, for example, which, once you start to think about it dispassionately, is not any more crazy than saying that government never created a job in the history of the world, when you yourself once had such a job.
Indeed, the way in which Republicans/conservatives think about tax cuts as the quasi-magical solution to everything, with no downside whatsoever, is typical of several different sorts of mental disorder.
(A) Democrats are reality-based when it comes to policies, and totally out to lunch when it comes to winning elections, and politicking in general.
(B) But Republicans are totally out to lunch when it comes to policies, and as reality-based as it gets when it comes to winning elections, and politicking in general.
The Democrats' success in the last two electoral cycles would seem to negate the second half of "A", and I'm hoping to be proven wrong sometime soon, but given how badly the GOP screwed things up it's hard to see how Democratic leadership can claim any sort of extraordinary credit for their success in these elections. More to the point right now, they've been strikingly inept at capitalizing on the transparent howling-at-the-moon insanity of the GOP. The GOP is holding a totally garbage hand, the Dems are holding four aces, and the GOP has still been controlling the play.
That's because, no matter how discredited their ideas may be, they still work as weapons so long as the Democrats are afraid of them.
That's the only idea that the so-called "party of ideas" has left. And the Democrats? Can they think their way past that one?
As an anti-spam measure, there is a 24-hour waiting period after registering before new users can comment. blog advertising is good for you
blog advertising is good for you
