Want to Get a Gander at My Garbage Governor?

Welp, here ya go: Republican Indiana Governor Mitch "The Blade" Daniels was on The Daily Show last night (thanks for the heads-up, Shaker Sarah), and he spoke with Jon "Both Sides Are Stupid and I Am the Perfect Center" Stewart about how the Republican Party's rhetoric is definitely terrible, mostly because it's too honest about how terrible their policies are.

Once again, I'll note that the reason Daniels is so scary is because he has the capacity to sound so reasonable, even though his politics are just as extreme as Rick Perry's. He talks a good game about how he cares about the social safety net and providing access and opportunity to poor folks, but he was the first governor in the nation to sign a bill defunding Planned Parenthood. And he can brag about "growth" in Indiana all he wants, but the fact remains that our infrastructure is crumbling to pieces. He is a snake. And we are in real trouble if he changes his mind about running in 2012.

Anyway, here he is. (My apologies for not providing a transcript: If anyone can locate a transcript of the episode, please drop a link in comments. If there's anyone able and willing to provide a transcript, please let me know in comments.)

So the GOP Had a Debate Last Night

   [AP Photo/John Raoux]

You can read some shit about that here, among ten billion other places.

I'm sure there's an official transcript in existence that I can't be arsed to locate, but here is my totally accurate paraphrase of the debate: Blah blah blah taxes blah blah blah Ronald Reagan blah blah blah gay soldiers are stupid blah blah blah tax cuts blah blah blah bootstraps blah blah blah illegals blah blah blah Social Security is a ponzi scheme blab blah blah terrorism blah blah blah Jesus blah freedom blah taxes blah life blah tax cuts blah Reagan blah business blah Americans blah America blah country blah taxes blah fart. The End.

It's a Good Thing Everything in Indiana Is Perfect, So Our Governor Has Time to Focus on Bullshit

Governor Mitch Daniels, who isn't running for president himself even though he totes could've won yo, is unhappy with the current field of GOP candidates, so he's trying to recruit someone else to run:

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said Monday that he's "tried to recruit three or four people" to run for the Republican presidential nomination and criticized the current field of candidates for failing to present a credible plan to address the budget crisis.

"They should campaign to govern, not just win an election," Daniels told The New York Times. "The candidate I could get instantly excited about is someone who is willing to level with the American people and assume they are prepared to listen to the mathematical facts and agree that whatever other disagreements we have aren't as important."

By way of reminder, this guy thinks it's an improvement that NWI Hoosiers now have to pay double state taxes and triple the commuting costs for the privilege of getting to work in Chicago because there are no jobs in Indiana. So beware Mitch Daniels' prowess with the "mathematical facts."

Daniels, a fiscal conservative who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget for President George W. Bush, said he believes the current field of GOP candidates needs to be "more candid and honest" in addressing issues such as entitlement programs. Daniels specifically criticized the back-and-forth between current frontrunners Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney over Social Security, indicating he doesn't see a real plan for reform in the midst of their bickering.

Perry described Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme," a phrase Romney has said indicates Perry wants to abolish rather than reform the entitlement program.

"If there's a problem with 'Ponzi scheme,' it is that it's too frank, not that it's wrong," Daniels said.

LOL. And that pretty much underlines what Mitch Daniels' real criticism is: He's pissed off that none of the current field of candidates are simultaneously extreme in their views and sophisticated in their communications to get that extremism into the Oval Office.

Which, of course, has been the recipe for Daniels' success: He is a radical conservative ideologue with a talent for making radical conservative ideology sound moderate and reasonable. He bills himself as "My Man Mitch," just a simple, accessible guy who wants to be there for he people, despite the fact that he was Bush's budget director and is a cynical corporate shill who has sold off taxpayer-owned properties from public transport to public parks to the highest bidder, while telling Hoosier voters fairy tales about how privatization is good for them.

And he wants the next Republican president to do the same. Unfortunately, the only current candidate who can string a sensible sentence together is Jon Huntsman, who is virtually a liberal compared to the rest of the lot.

Daniels did not disclose the prospective candidates he has urged to get in the race, but said he had been frustrated watching the performance of the current presidential hopefuls.

I'm not sure what the endgame is here, but Daniels is either strategizing to get someone elected who will give him a comfy sinecure in DC once he vacates the Indiana Statehouse, or, more terrifyingly, he's laying the groundwork for a last-minute bid, after all the other candidates have dirtied themselves rolling in the mud for six months. "Well, shucks, I wasn't going to run, but I just didn't see anyone who had the same skills I have."

Daniels is no dummy. He saw Perry get a huge boost after entering a little late, because there are no outstanding candidates, and he surely knows that biding his time means entering a marathon when all the other runners are hitting the stadium for a last lap. The GOP Establishment and conservative media love him; they'll make sure he gets a ton of ink (and money) to make up for "lost" time if he enters late, after everyone else has exhausted every ounce of momentum getting nationally known.

If he really is "reconsidering" running, I've got one word for you: No.

Obama to Unveil Deficit-Reduction Plan Today

And, aside from the fact that its a deficit-reduction plan (Question Austerity!) at a time when the economic focus is desperately needed elsewhere (jobsjobsjobs), it's relatively good news:

President Obama will announce a proposal on Monday to tame the nation's rocketing federal debt, calling for $1.5 trillion in new revenue as part of a plan to find more than $3 trillion in budget savings over a decade, senior administration officials said.

The proposal draws a sharp contrast with Republicans and amounts more to an opening play in the fall debate over the economy than another attempt to find common ground with the opposing party.

Combined with his call this month for $450 billion in new stimulus, the proposal represents a more populist approach to confronting the nation's economic travails than the compromises he advocated earlier this summer.

Obama will propose new taxes on the wealthy, a special new tax for millionaires, and eliminating or scaling back a variety of loopholes and deductions, officials say. About half of the tax savings would come from the expiration next year of the George W. Bush administration tax cuts for the wealthy.

But the president won't call for any changes in Social Security, officials say, and is seeking less-aggressive changes to Medicare and Medicaid than previously considered. He will propose $320 billion in health-care savings but will not include raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, officials said.

Any reduction in Medicare benefits would not begin until 2017, they said. Other cuts in domestic spending would bring the total spending savings to $580 billion. About $1 trillion in savings is also expected from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama will pledge to veto any cut in entitlements that does not also include increases in tax revenue.

It's an indication how much of the conversation has been conceded to Republican framing since Obama took office that making changes of any kind to entitlement programs which limit benefits is now described as a failure "to find common ground with the opposing party" and "a more populist approach." Yiiiiiiiiikes.

Anyway, because Obama is reportedly going to actually suggest in his proposal that the wealthiest USians, among whom the vast majority of the nation's wealth is concentrated, start paying their fair share in tax revenue, naturally the Republicans are already accusing him of "class warfare."

I love how asking rich people to pay slightly higher taxes is class warfare, but letting 46.2 million people slide into poverty is not. Grow up, Republicans. Jesus.

Quote of the Day

"[H]ealth care was one of those areas where even conservatives used to be willing to accept government intervention in the name of compassion, given the clear evidence that covering the uninsured would not, in fact, cost very much money. ... Now, however, compassion is out of fashion—indeed, lack of compassion has become a matter of principle, at least among the GOP's base. And what this means is that modern conservatism is actually a deeply radical movement, one that is hostile to the kind of society we've had for the past three generations—that is, a society that, acting through the government, tries to mitigate some of the 'common hazards of life' through such programs as Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare and Medicaid."—Paul Krugman.

A key part of the Republican Establishment's cultivation of hatred has been the subversion of empathy. Othering is the foundation of hate-based scapegoating, and Othering can only happen in a void of empathy. Compassion is not merely out of fashion; its existence is an impediment to modern conservative politics.

That makes for colossally grim prospects for the survival of a democracy with any semblance of a functional social contract.

Which, of course, is not a bug of modern conservatism but a feature.

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Change the Election Laws

In case there were still any doubt that Republicans actually hate democracy, they are now rewriting state election laws in ways that will favor their election chances, by making it more difficult for people who tend to vote Democrat to vote at all:

Looking to capitalize on their historic gains last year, Republican lawmakers in several states are rewriting their election laws in ways that could make it more difficult for Democrats to win.

They have curbed early voting, rolled back voting rights for ex-felons and passed stricter voter ID laws. Taken together, the measures could have a significant and negative effect on President Obama's reelection efforts if they keep young people and minorities away from the polls.

"It all hits at the groups that had higher turnout and higher registration in 2008," said Judith Browne-Dianis, a civil rights lawyer who co-directs the Advancement Project, which has been tracking the new regulations.

Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering the latest, and perhaps most potent, legislation, a measure that would divvy up electoral votes by congressional district rather than use the winner-takes-all approach. The change would almost ensure a net gain of 20 to 24 GOP electoral votes in the 2012 presidential election.

The only good thing to say about this is, to quote D-Day: "If the Pennsylvania GOP gambit leads to a real discussion about why the Electoral College ought to be abolished, they'll have done the nation a service." Too true.

Of course, serious discussions about things that strengthen (or weaken) our democracy are thin on the ground these days.

Don't Worry, Everyone!

The earth is still in rotation around the sun and John Boehner is still an epic dipshit.

Oh, Rick Perry. Don't Ever Change.

There is a lot of good stuff (where "good stuff" means terrifyingly stupid stuff) in this interview with Rick Perry at Time, but this is definitely my favorite:

Now that you've been in the race for while, do you feel pressure to temper some of your rhetoric, like calling the Obama administration socialist?

No, I still believe they are socialist. Their policies prove that almost daily. Look, when all the answers emanate from Washington D.C., one size fits all, whether it's education policy or whether it's healthcare policy, that is, on its face, socialism.

1. Rick Perry has no idea what socialism means. 2. If only!

[H/T to Steve Benen.]

Grand Old Promises

There are two quotes getting a lot of play in the political news this week. The first is "Let him die," which is the option supported by audience members at the Tea Party Debate in Wolf Blitzer's hypothetical about an injured young man without health insurance. The second is a quote attributed to Sarah Reidy, national director of scheduling for Republican Jon Huntsman's presidential campaign, who wrote at Facebook:

For years I have tried to prove that the GOP isn't the Party of elitist, stereotypical people that lack compassion. When did creativity and growth become secondary to hate? Hearing the debate crowds go crazy over things like executions and the uninsured dying makes me sick and sad for my Party that I devote my time and efforts.

Interviewed by The Ticket, Reidy added that she is not alone in her complaint among Republicans: "It's a general frustration I hear among friends across the party," she said.

Whoooooooooooooops!

The Republican Establishment—the people who flatter themselves by claiming to be the intellectual wing of a party that depends on the exploitation of an intractable streak of anti-intellectualism among its key demographic, the people sophisticated enough to not personally be offended by gays and people of color and feminists, but unethical enough to exploit such bigotries nonetheless—have lost control of their base. After decades of fear-mongering, scapegoating, and wedge issue politicking, they're left with a seething conglomeration of intolerant bullies whose stubborn refusal to evolve ideologically is matched in astonishing obduracy only by their unjustifiable hatred.

And now the very architects of that carefully courted and cultivated hatred have the unmitigated temerity to express sadness and frustration at its expression! Snort.

The Tea Party, despite its bullshit origin story about grassroots activism, is a corporate-funded conservative creation explicitly designed to maximize political power by exploiting violent prejudice. The Tea Party Terrorists are just the latest, and most overtly branded, iteration of the ever-expanding Southern Strategy: For longer than I have been alive, the Republican Party has deliberately, cynically, and unapologetically fanned the flames of that hatred, which served as the fuel for the base's single-minded crusade to protect their privilege and thus the rationale for voting Republican—the party who promised to "protect tradition."

"Tradition" is the kind of word that appeals to people for whom the world is changing more rapidly than they can comfortably adjust, who are too busy to or socially discouraged from reading or thinking about things too much, who have heard some things about how feminists are responsible for the breakdown in the family and gays want to redefine marriage and immigrants are taking all the good jobs. "Tradition" is a word that plays well with people who can't be bothered to examine anything too closely, or were never taught how to properly think, how to analyze and assess information in a way that teases out the truth.

And it's an even better word for speaking to the unabashed bigots of the base, obliquely reassuring them that they're right to hate women and gays and brown people, those three separate monolithic groups of faceless enemies, and implicitly promising them they'll be protected from the onslaught of the radical hordes. America's great tradition of conferring undeserved privilege on you won't fail. Not on our watch.

That has been the sacred covenant between the Republican Party and its straight, white, patriarchal, Christian supremacist base for a generation: Vote for us, and we'll protect you.

And so they voted. And, in the process, they gave away their standard of living, their children's education, their jobs, their civil liberties, their national security, their environment, and their economy—all in exchange for the gossamer promise of a return to a time that never happened in a country that never really existed.

The Republican Party has traded again and again on the conjured idea of an American golden era, circa 1945 to 1960, after boys who were ripped from the arms of their virginal sweethearts and sent to another continent to fight a great war against tyranny and despair, had returned home as men, as heroes, and set to work, every last one of them, making babies with doting wives and grabbing the American Dream with both hands in the dawn of suburbia. Scientists in white lab coats and square, black-framed glasses toiled away to make American astronauts the first on the moon, and to fill all the pretty new homes behind perfect white picket fences with fancy, new-fangled household gadgets to make life easier and more fun. Teenagers hung out at sock hops and neon-lit diners, girls longing for lavaliers and boys wondering how to get laid. Elvis' pelvis was considered a scandal, and Marilyn Monroe a bombshell. Dad had a pension and the promise of a gold watch at the end of a long career with a single firm, and Mom had a Frigidaire. And everyone was happy.

Vote for us—and we'll give you that.

It's an empty promise built on an illusion, carefully constructed to conceal that America's so-called golden age was imperfect like any other, and perhaps even more so than most. Half a million of those boys who went off to war never came home—and some of them weren't boys at all, but men, who left wives and children with desperate struggles in the place where their husbands and fathers had been. Some who had come home were never the same, their bodies or minds damaged beyond real repair. Women who had been called to duty in factories were forcibly driven back into domesticity, segregation was a legal fact, every gay had a closet of hir very own, mental illness was treated with lobotomies, McCarthy was on his Communist witch hunt, and we fought an all-but-forgotten war in Korea for three years and lost over 35,000 soldiers. There were back-alley abortions, and the KKK, and Elvis and Marilyn both died of drug overdoses.

The Republican promise has always had the very same flaw as their policies: It is contingent on pretending that the complexity and complications of human existence, and the flaws of humankind, don't exist.

The Republicans have held out this chimera to their base—this Leave It to Beaver bullshit—as if the typical family once was, and should be again, a model of white Christian perfection that never fought, never struggled, never suffered. And never had to be subjected to interactions with people of color, or gays, or any women besides Mom and maybe a nice lady to help sons take out books on the Boy Scouts from the local library. They have held it out as if it has actually been, and as if it could be again.

And they did so even knowing that the fantasy of this nonexistent perfect America is the very thing that created the beloved "traditions" of racism, sexism, and homophobia in the first place. It has been the dangling enticement of a happy family, supported by a single secure and well-paid job, in which no one is wracked with disillusionment, dispossession, or a lack of opportunity—an invitation to join for which most Americans are never given the chance to RSVP—which created the resentment and scapegoating that are the foundations of social conservative traditionalism.

"BOOTSTRAPS!" shouted the Republican Leadership, as they deregulated consumer protections and dismantled workers' rights. "BOOTSTRAPS!" shouted the GOP's Corporate Masters, as they relocated the bootstrap factory to China. The barrel-chested barons of a new Gilded Age stood astride the bodies of those who had been condemned to less fortunate fates, singing the praises of Social Darwinism and bellowing about the superfluity of a social safety net, declaring without a trace of irony, "The government never gave me anything!" as they deposited their million-dollar checks from their latest no-bid Defense Department contract then headed off to Tiffany's to get The Little Woman a bauble with their fat tax returns. "BOOTSTRAPS!"

And when working hard failed to deliver on its enticing promises, and the only thing the Invisible Hand gave its working class believers was the finger, the promise-makers deflected accountability to the targets of that attentively nurtured hate. If it weren't for progressives... If it weren't for feminists and gays and illegals... If it weren't for that dark-skinned president...

People who bought into the narratives of self-determination, of rugged individualism, of bootstraps, the uniquely American myths of achievement and goodness in Manifest Destiny and Social Darwinist and Prosperity Gospel morality tales, who believed that shit, were left with nothing but impotent anger—and, having been encouraged to make no social contract, to depend on no one but oneself, to hoard all the rewards of the success that bootstrapping was supposed to yield and share naught, they were then left with no one to blame but themselves when it all went wrong.

Which, obviously, wasn't going to do.

Fortunately, even though wealth and opportunity and security failed to trickle down, blame did not. And the promise-makers who quickly said, "Don't look at us!" were happy to provide to their disaffected base a road map to where their ire should be directed.

Now the Republicans are stuck with the result—their revolting (in every sense of the word) base, who still believe, and must, lest they face their complicity in having been left with naught but their biases, that the responsible party for their struggles, their disaffection, their undefined but keenly-felt fury, is those people, not the Grand Old Party who promised them something better in exchange for their votes.

The political leadership taught their base too well whom to blame for what ails them, and thus cannot now move them from their fixed gaze and finger-pointing, even as it isn't helping the party anymore—and stands likely to hurt the party for the foreseeable future. They sowed the seeds of prejudice for decades, and now they reap nothing but the only crop such seeds can yield.

It would be amusing, if only the rest of us weren't stuck with the result, too.

And even as the conservative elites whinge grimly about the rabble whose greatest fear is liberals overrunning the perfect, lily-white, patriarchal Christian nation that only exists in their fever-dreams and RAISING THEIR TAXES, they're trying to rehabilitate George W. Bush, the Platonic Ideal of the Modern Conservative, the Golden Boy of the current incarnation of the Republican Party—a corporate shill with the demeanor of a country bumpkin, who could hold together the unholy alliance between Big Money and Big Religion, standing at the altar and giving the blessing to the grim marriage between the gullible bigots who pledged to march in lockstep with anyone who promised to protect the children from illegals and feminazis and kissing boys, and the business interests who sought to get rich off those rubes before sending their jobs overseas.

Even as they lament the radicalization of their increasingly extreme base, they foment it at every opportunity. Because it's the only way they know how to win.

Which is still the Most Important Thing.

Despite their affected mystification, the Republican leadership knows precisely whence came the Tea Party Terrorists. And they're going to keep exploiting that extreme and volatile rage as long as they can, even though a principled party would denounce this three-ring circus of unfettered bigotry before it's too late. If it isn't already.

"It's just so frustrating," the philosophical sages of the Republican Party muse, shaking their heads gravely and publicly wringing their hands, before shuffling off to wash them of any responsibility.

[Some text originally appeared in "Rank (and File) Bigotry," published April 2009.]