The GOP Today - Resigned, Near-Dead, But Still Tea Bagging...So, It Isn't all Bad, Right?

In the past month or so, the GOP world seems to this blogger to have settled down, and actually a good bit settled. But "settled" has a special meaning when describing the GOP: the GOP circus has not only lost some of its appearance of clowns on tricycles, but the GOP has largely disappeared from view. The GOP is simply moribund, gone, kaput, worn out...and all those descriptors of a group gone underground from embarassment and with nothing to say that is relevant, helpful or connecting with the public. The GOP congressional faction has seemingly resigned from participating in national government; but even that gesture has been futile with nearly universal mutiny of the ranks from the GOP line urging rejection of Stimulus help. A core of GOP governors, interestingly the poorest states in the union, even tried to resign from the Stimulus Program but their state legislators voted against such idiocy given the especially dire economic condition of the sedition-inclined GOP states. This association of the GOP stronghold with the poorest states is nothing to be proud of, but we can see the GOP trying even to make hay of that mal-linkage at the expense of poor people.

There is truly a perception that the GOP is working against itself despite all its effort to get things together. Charles Homan ("Culture Shock" in the conservative movement, Washington Monthly)aptly describes the spinning, out of control misfirings of the GOP as a mishapen version of former conservative elegance ala William Buckley:

"Operating forever in the shadow of National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., they had spent half a century honing their rhetorical chops on the romantic notion that an argument, framed eloquently and forcefully enough, could change the course of history. Worse, these arguments tended to be advanced in right-wing publications that made little effort to attract a general audience, devolving into an exercise of limited interest to anyone not already locked inside the echo chamber."

I prefer less coddling words: the GOP is lost in a kind of political "mannerism" where they remember the postures but have lost any idea of the meanings and contexts of their awkaward and jerky mimicry of conservativeness. The result is the derangment of Limbaugh, the Innanity of Hannity, the Dreck of Beck, and Michelle Bachmann's stupid utterances accompanied with her really strange, vapid and pat-on-back-expecting-look-at-me-daddy false smiles. The GOP sputterings are not down-to-earth, nurturing oatmeal but dry sawdust and dull nails.

Right now,the only GOP action is a half-hearted call to insurrection, the New Tea Party movement. But as usual with the GOP these days, their knack for stepping ankle deep in nasty stuff and then gladly, gleefully, as if they are doing something terribly witty, shoving said covered foot deep into mouth, saw them lose all seriousness with the GOP talking head labeling of their own movement as "TEA BAG" event!!! OH MY!!! A reaching of new and atmospheric heights of silliness and cultural disconnect. OH MY, twice said!

(On second thought, for a sec, at least the GOP can claim they didn't know what TEA BAGGING means; but really... what occured was a kind of Freudian brain-fart, a confession of having perused rather risque material without a clue to what was going on. One can only imagine what other misinterpretations the GOP is guilty of. Maybe we were treated to an insight on the major problem with the GOP - they see really kinky stuff as normal, and interpret good stuff as the devil's work. This is terribly embarassing for them. It all adds up to a dischordant, disconnect with reality. A stumbling along with incoherent mutterings and occasional references to glassy eye of newt, bad unicorn horn and unpleasant dragon's breath. OH MY, again! And a "help them, Lord." (And help us get out from their insanity, too, while YOU are at it, please, and thank YOU.)

However, this Ship of Fools (GOP) must sail on; maybe they will eventually realize they are dead in the water because they forgot to raise anchor. Until then the GOP rows furiously only pausing their Sysiphian efforts to pat themselves on the back as the GOP vessel sits smiling at rest, dead in the water.