Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The GOP Goal? The End of Democracy

From one of the smartest observers of politics around, the very conservative (in the old fashioned sense) American Enterprise Institute's Norm Ornstein, comes this analysis of the political mess that Republicans have made of our democracy. Today's Republicans aren't actually conservative, they are dangerously radical. They simply do not want government to function.

This sole focus is underlined by Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, who states clearly that the chief goal of the Republicans in Congress is to get Barack Obama out of office. Not one of their goals, but job one. Frankly, I think it's their only goal. Which means they are very happy that the country run off the rails, that the economy collapse, that unemployment get worse instead of better, that everyone is miserable and hating each other, because all of those things further their main goal. I'm reminded of the old southern custom of barn burning. If you don't have it, destroy it. If you don't control it, kill it. If you can't own it, burn it down. We're witnessing a kind of political terrorism. The opposite of practical conservatism.

This narrow, self-defeating, self-destructive obsession is also in action outside of the Congress, in the widespread and deliberate effort by national Republicans to shut millions of people out of the voting process. Young people, old people, working people, non-homeowners, people of color, the poor, the marginalized, all are facing fierce Republican efforts to prevent them from voting.

Column in Washington Post.

A moderate blogger compares the GOP effort to Jim Crow.

Rolling Stone does a full story on the GOP vote suppression strategy.

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