With Newt Gingrich's recent venture in to crazy land (not a first foray, to say the least), I have given a lot of thought to the relationship between the kind of oddball right-wing behavior on display and the corporate benefactors of the Republican Party (Think Progress has done a good job unearthing the connection between the Kock Brothers and the Tea Party movement; grass always does better with green fertilizer, I guess). While it is pretty evident there are a whole lot of folks - honest social conservatives opposed to abortion, what they call "the gay agenda", and what they perceive to be a kind of general cultural laxity; libertarian kooks who always seem just an inch or so away from really nuts; the usual suspects of hard-core bigots and publicity hounds - attracted to the odd rise of the right over the past year or so, recent experience should make them wary of celebrating if the Republicans take control of either House of Congress (again, I do not think that's going to happen, but one never knows).
Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress from 1994 to 2006. In those twelve years, with solid conservative leadership, there was never once introduced serious legislation addressing abortion (the partial-birth abortion ban is a kind of stand-alone monument to how far the Republicans will go), public prayer, let alone the kind of fiscal probity that seems at the heart of much of the current rumbling (along with a visceral hatred of the President, of course). To put it another way, corporations and private donors are quite willing to support Republican candidates whose views range from the mildly disturbing to outright insane as long as the end-results are Republican majorities.
As Matt Yglesias noted, the kind of conspiracy-mongering O'Donnell pimped during the Clinton years was mainstream. It should be noted that I do not believe for one moment any serious Republican figure really believed Bill Clinton was a criminal. They allowed the crazy folks, however, to push all sorts of insanity - from the murder of Vince Foster to the rape of a beauty pageant contestant in a limo (this last pushed by George Will) - in order to keep the public distracted from the massive transfer of money from public coffers to corporations, as well as continue the dismantling of the social safety net for individuals in multiple ways.
With the idea that a return to Clinton-era tax rates on the top 1% of earners (still historically low) is somehow a socialist scheme to redistribute income, we are closing in on the heart of Republican tactics. While there is much that is odd and silly and crazy and frustrating about Republican notions of governance (such as they may be), with the threatened sunset of Bush-era tax cuts we are see the real Republican Party emerging from the soup of nuts it funds.
Whenever we consider the oddities of our public discourse, it should always be kept in mind that, in essence (to quote Alan), this is nothing more than shiny toys to distract attention from the real goal of Republican Party - power and money. Period.
Virtual Tin Cup
