Well, all the new Republicans that rode into Washington on the backs of tea-party types have wasted no time at all thumbing their noses at the folks they were so happy to court during their campaign.
Remember all that rhetoric about how bad lobbyists were? Turns out that as soon as these new Republicans were sworn in, they jumped right on the “lobby money†bandwagon, sucking up as much of that poison and corruption as they could as fast as they could. Some details here.
Remember that whole “Pledge to America†grandstanding? Turns out that the tea-party types are pretty upset with the new Republicans for selling them out as soon as they got elected. Here is a link to the anger from tea party loyalists. Seems that in particular, it was the (seemingly false) commitment to “act immediately to reducing spending†sticks in the craw of those who thought they were electing conservatives.
Remember the rhetoric about the whole “we the people†stuff? Remember how the tea-party types thought they were electing folks who would represent the interests of the people over the interests of corruption and greed in Washington? They got a rude awakening, as they realize the people they’ve elected may just be the very best lapdogs for those interests opposed to We The People.
Click here for an article describing how the new Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee said recently that in his opinion, “Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.” And those silly tea partyers thought these people they elected believed it was the other way around…
It might sound from my tone that I’m down on tea partyers. In many ways I’m actually extremely sympathetic to their cause. At the heart of what they say they stand for, I’m in strong agreement with them. I want fiscal responsibility in Washington. I want a government that represents We The People rather than the right wing corporatist movement fueled by the rise of neoliberalism in our country. I could almost be a tea-partyer.
Almost.
In general, this whole notion that the tea party had that it was somehow representing the interests of We The People over the interests of the forces of the corruption and corporatism in our nation was sadly misled by some of the worst offenders of the interests of We The People, and some of those former tea partyers are starting to see that. Forces of corruption and greed were extremely happy to see some more friendly allies arrive in Washington this month, and have promptly dumped wheelbarrows full of cash in their laps to help in the effort to undue those things they hate the most – such as efforts to more tightly regulate Wall Street to reduce the risk of the sort of catastrophe that led to the trillion dollars of bank bailouts that Congress and the President leaped to provide back in 2007. (Let’s see, who had most of the power when that abomination of tax-dollar appropriation was enacted?) Here’s an article that goes into detail about those wheelbarrows of cash being dumped in the laps of these “new Republicansâ€, and how it’s grating many in the tea party who supported them.
While I feel bad for friends who were so mercilessly duped in this last election. I do hope it will help redirect folks who truly believe in those core conservative principles. Maybe as we start to gear up for the next election, many of those folks who were duped by the right wing will look a little more deeply at the candidates and the issues next time around.
It comes to this: Conservatives in this country need to reject this new-republicanism. How many times must we be duped and dumped on before we realize that there’s nothing conservative about the right wing, and yet this extreme right wing has taken over the Republican party over the last 30 years.
We need to go through a cleansing, and reject the likes of Boehner, hypocrites who talk all day about how bad things like universal healthcare are, yet can’t wait to sign up for their own government healthcare program – the one that I pay for as a taxpayer. If the Republican Party continues to put forward extremists and hypocrites, it’s time to sit vote for someone else until they put forward the real conservatives again.
Next time around, I’ll be looking carefully at the tea party groups. Maybe they’ve learned a hard lesson here, and maybe the real conservatives will come from their ranks next time. Unfortunately, this last time around, they were the ones who supported some of the most extreme hypocrites now lapping up corruption, greed, and lobbyists.
