Sponsored Content




Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!



Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups

NoVaMoMe 2024: 06/08/2024
Arlington, VA
Details to follow


Texas MoMe 2024: 10/18/2024-10/19/2024 Corsicana,TX
Contact Ben Had for info





















« Supreme Court Decision Day | Main | Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Poops on the World Cup, or,
World Cup Thread: German Defeats US 1-0; Portugal Defeats Ghana 2-1; US Advances to Next Round »
June 26, 2014

Erick Erickson: Cut the Strings of All the GOP's Puppets

"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."


-- Eric Hoffer, The Temper of Our Time

Erick Erickson positively steams in this RedState article:

The problem for those who call themselves Republicans is that it is harder and harder to say exactly what a Republican is these days. The great lesson from Mississippi is that Republican means, more or less, that if elected the party will reward its major donors, who are just different than the Democrats' major donors. Policy differences are about different donors, not an actual agenda to shift the country in a different direction.

The Republicans have become the party of lobbyists, most of whom were on twitter celebrating their purchase.

...


[T]his becomes a longer term problem for the Republican Party. Its core activists hate its leadership more and more. But its leadership are dependent more and more on large check writers to keep their power. Those large check writers are further and further removed from the interests of both the base of the party and Main Street. So to keep power, the GOP focuses more and more on a smaller and smaller band of puppeteers to keep their marionettes upright. At some point there will be more people with knives out to cut the strings than there will be puppeteers with checkbooks. And at some point those people with knives become more intent on cutting the strings than taking the place of the marionettes.

...

The establishment plays for keeps. Their income is dependent on doing so.

Conservatism passed the "becomes a business" of Hoffer's formulation some time ago -- probably in the 1990s -- and is now firmly in the "degenerates into a racket" phase.

Erickson is quite right: The Establishment's interest in government is not chiefly ideological, just as a plumber's interest in pipes is not chiefly ideological. The plumber's interest in piping is chiefly about income, and so too the interest of the Establishment in government.

The difference between the two parties is the difference between Android and Apple phones. They're both selling the same product -- More Government Solutions! -- they just have different branding. They just target different segments of the market with somewhat different aspirational pitches -- Apple targets people who think owning Apple products makes them better and more complete people, and Android targets people who think Apple people are silly.

The exact mechanisms of the software and logic differs, but they both deliver the same service. Either way, you're getting a phone, a camera, a videoplayer, and a map.

Apparently the parties have decided the great ideological struggle of our time is whether the new social services building shall be called the John Murtha Social Wellness Center or the Thad Cochran Freedom & Independence Pavilion.

This is inevitable. And the solution is as inevitable as well. The professional political class must be displaced in favor of an amateur political class, which -- for its first several years, at least -- will in fact be more interested in revolution than racket.

As I've written several times, amateurs have their own weaknesses. But this process of renewal -- the replacement of old, complacent, self-interested spirits with fresh ones -- is vital.

Without it, a movement dies.

When I was younger, I always thought political conventions were silly, with people wearing silly hats and mingling with falling balloons. The people at the Democratic National Convention looked exactly like the people at the Republican National Convention. And they all made the same silly boasts about the same silly states. ("The great state of Missouri, the Show-Me state, casts its ballots for...")

They just seemed to be zealous sports fans of the silliest, nastiest, dirtiest, and dumbest, and boringest sport imaginable.

And so it was, largely. The Reagan Revolution substantially changed that -- after Reagan, the two parties were no longer arguing about which of the two wings of the Dominant Social Class would get the management jobs of the same Expanding Welfare State -- but only for a time.

Because what begins as a revolution becomes a business and ultimately degenerates into a racket.

This process will continue until the end of time. But we need a revolution, now. We can keep our eyes wide open about it, knowing that our revolution will, as it must, ultimately become a racket. By staying vigilant about that, perhaps we can delay that sad metamorphosis for a few years.

But we do need a revolution, now. Thad Cochran ran on Higher Government Spending, and the Establishment cheered him every inch of the way.

They're not in this for the principle, but for the paycheck.

They must go.


digg this
posted by Ace at 12:06 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
weft cut-loop[/i][/b] [/s]: "[]i[Some statins cause both short term and long te ..."

torabora : "Pro-choice Democrat marylin lands gives anti-abort ..."

Ciampino - Was I going upstair when called?s or downstairs: "426 Posted by: Braenyard at March 28, 2024 01:09 ..."

Braenyard: "I'm overtime, y'all have a good evening. ..."

RickZ: "[i]Didn't think Kennedy would pick someone that nu ..."

mikeski: "[i]Pete Buttgiggity to sport a smug look on his fa ..."

mikeski: "[i]The original Siamese Twins, the Bunker twins, w ..."

Ciampino - Tabasco to the fartclam: "515 And some national fake day, a Tranny Day of W ..."

Puddleglum, cheer up for the worst is yet to come: "[i]509 Ramadan lights will be on display in centra ..."

raimondo: " Pro-choice Democrat marylin lands gives anti-abor ..."

Braenyard: "Didn't think Kennedy would pick someone that nuts. ..."

Ciampino - Another communist?: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. VP pick Nicole Shanahan help ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64