Requiescat In Psychosis, Thea Cohors

Much has been said about the recent elections, but one thing has been the most apparent: Extremism is NOT going to fly in OUR democracy.

In 2010, after two years of increasingly strident hatred and rhetoric, a number of GOP freshmen representatives arrived on Capitol Hill. They managed to keep all significant legislation to address the (at the time) bad economic conditions from happening. From the very start of the Obama administration the goal of the GOP was to make sure he was a one-term President.

They did this with over-the-top rhetoric: The Birther movement. Obama is a Muslim. Obama is a terrorist. Obama is a socialist (Considering no single thing the Obama administration has done has in any way privatized businesses or threatened private property ownership, not only is the charge that he's a socialist so far off the mark, it borders on libel). Obama is going to steal our guns!

They did this with obstructionist tactics that went so far as to have the credit agencies which determine default risks LOWER the credit rating of the United States for the first time in our history (From AAA to AA+, then to AA then to AA-). This was because these Congressional Freshmen came to Washington to "change things".

Well, they did. And it detrimentally impacted everyone needing or seeking credit, among other things. At no point did any legislation come out of Washington that actually helped the common people of the country, except to extend the tax cuts initiated almost a decade ago. (Cutting taxes and waging two multi-trillion dollar, unfunded wars... Way to plan a budget and be fiscally responsible GOP!)

After two MORE years of this strident rhetoric, congressional stagnation and slow economic recovery (mostly because the middle class weren't saddled again with higher taxes), we arrived at the 2012 elections. Things are getting better (no thanks to Congress). And the GOP nominated a plastic, elitist prick who leaked his true nature when he thought he was among friends and who proved it in an AFTER the election sour grapes tirade when he had absolutely nothing to gain from it.

In the end, Grover Norquist's great "starve the beast" campaign to destroy the unity of the United States (while simultaneously accelerating the accumulation of wealth among the wealthy - which was the real agenda) failed because the majority of voters didn't like the attendant extremism of those who supported the idea. It's a flawed concept, of course, but because you could only sell that kind of infantile logic to the infantile minded who have no real clue about how the world works, and because the infantile-minded are the minority, the majority spoke and said, basically, "ENOUGH!"

Extremism shot down the tea party, and it will likely take the entire GOP with it. As I mentioned before, had the Red States, in 2010 when the census was done, not gerrymandered themselves a major majority (thanks computers!) in their states, the House of Representatives would have gained far more Democrats than they did. As it looks now, there will be 201 democrats and 234 Republicans (at last count the democrats had gained 9 and the Republicans had lost 7. There were 2 vacant seats, presumably won by Democrats.)

But to support the assertion that it was the tea party that caused this mass exodus of GOP support, I offer the following facts:

1. Millions of white, middle class voters (the core of the GOP) would rather not vote than vote in favor of the GOP's presidential candidate who embraced, shamelessly catered to and stood by tea party candidates.

2. Allen West, a Florida freshman tea party advocate running as a Republican, was narrowly defeated in a GOP gerrymandered district by .58% of the vote. He so repulsed the voters of his district that he couldn't get elected when his party had a supermajority (over 66%) of GOP voters in it. His over-the-top anti-liberal rants became the fodder for his Democrat challenger to unseat him. The margin of victory seems narrow, but when one considers the districts are gerrymandered to give a distinct advantage to the GOP, it says a lot about the rejection of this individual.

3. Both of the "rape" tea party candidates, Todd "legitimate rape" Akin and Richard "rape is God's will" Mourdock, were expected to win in their districts. Both districts lie in the heart of Red State territory. Both districts were gerrymandered to heavily favor GOP candidates. Both ran on the GOP ticket. Both lost.

Now, I'm not saying the tea party is GONE. Like a zombie, it remains in a half-life of political existence only because of the gerrymandering that went on and, as I mentioned, infantile-brained voters who tend to congregate in rural regions (gerrymandered, of course) from where most of these 2012 tea party winners came. But even if they have aspirations to actually be relevant, they have already shot themselves in the foot. The ideology is DEAD, even if many of the candidates who espoused that ideology were reelected. They are political pariahs in the United States on a national level. Their ideology may play well to the local yokels, but it won't fly in the halls of Congress anymore.

To prove this assertion, I offer Mr. Romney. He wasn't a bad choice for the GOP. He represented all of their ideals. He was wealthy, photogenic, had a record of moderation and a record of exploitation (which meant he could be spun to appeal to moderates and extremists). If this was 1980, he would have won against an Obama-like candidate. But as I mentioned, Romney catered too much to the tea party. Too many tea party advocates said too many hateful, ignorant things and the result was a complete rejection of the things they had said. Well, perhaps not COMPLETE, but in a democracy, you only need more than 50% to win and when winning means you have control, well, losing means you don't get to say what will happen unless the other side is willing to compromise.

Considering how the tea party acted in Congress from 2010 to 2012, I'm thinking they'd rather open a vein and bleed to death on the floors of the House and Senate than "compromise".

I'll be THRILLED to supply them with sterile, brand-new straight razors. Their kind of misanthropy should be encouraged to die off. And the majority of American voters agreed - if not literally then certainly figuratively. These radicals need to make an exit from the political stage. We live in a progressive society where regressive politics won't fly. And in a democracy, if you focus on purifying ranks of those who don't believe in your ideology, you eventually have no say in what or how things are done.

For the tea party, I say good riddance. The headline for this blog is Requiescat In Psychosis, Thea Cohors. If you haven't figured that out, it means "Rest in psychosis, tea party". Political marginalization couldn't happen to a meaner bunch of radicals. It remains to be seen if they spark another civil war because they can't handle democracy in the first place.