The Republican Party usually (except during primary season) presents a front impervious to criticism, supporting each other’s positions, doubling down on each others lies, greasing each others palms, and covering-up for each others crimes. A Republican Congressional Staffer has walked away from a thirty year career, and is now telling the truth. Here is part of what Mike Lofgren has to say about the Republican party.
…But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.
To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.
It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill. A couple of months ago, I retired; but I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages.
The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel – how prudent is that? – in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.
Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. This fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the Bob Dole era in terms of its orientation. For instance, Ezra Klein wrote of his puzzlement over the fact that while House Republicans essentially won the debt ceiling fight, enough of them were sufficiently dissatisfied that they might still scuttle the deal. Of course they might – the attitude of many freshman Republicans to national default was "bring it on!"
It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Truth-Out>
Let me remind you, these are mot the words of some wild-eyed, extreme-left conspiracy theorist. They are the words of a long term professional Republican staffer, whose conscience would not allow him to to continue to assist in the Republican Party’s assault on America. He deserves our thanks for coming clean. I have long believed that nobody is beyond redemption. This supports that belief.
Now I just took a piece from the middle of Lofgren’s article. I strongly urge you to click through and read the entire thing. It is well worth the read.
Now, to those who insist there is no difference between the two parties, listen to this Republican. He knows better.
23 Responses to “A Republican Staffer Tells the Truth!”
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Ok the difference is they are wearing two different kinds of asshats. But both are wholly owned subsidiaries of something not human that is legally human. Both go after the money some do a crazy man dance with their pep pee hanging in the wind and others stay in their 2000 dollar suit but you know as well as I that nuts or not bot parties are dancing for cash. And no I personally do not give a shit about Obama coming to dance in the streets of Detroit today–because we have no money for him, and all he is going to do is blah blah blah about what some other president did.
Mark, while both parties have problems, claiming equivalence is false.
Show me where…what has the Democrat party done that their corporate masters did not want done…and now a Democrat president has again gutted pollution laws for industry. Same shit different stink.
Appointed Sotomayor and Kagan.
The Tea-publicans are totally amoral and preach what they do not practice themselves. They are fighting to destroy Pres. Obam and in the long run are destroying us and our nation.
The true Dems at least are trying to fight for the little people.
Agree. We need to challenge the DINOs in the primary.
BRAVO, TomCat! This confirms, beyond the shadow of ANY doubt, that the increasingly reactionary modern Republican Party and their very vocal teabagger faction are CRAZIES who are far too extreme for the good of the country. These outright ANOMOLIES must be permanently removed from our body politic as soon as possible!
We’ve both said that for a long time, Jack.
Makes me sick—- I have known the republican party is not what it was– not the party my dad was part of– but how far gone makes me sick
I agree. The GOP we knew in our younger days no longer exists.
Well, all I know is, that whatever venue the Republicans hold their convention, next year. That will be the biggest group of loons, nuts and lunatics ever congregated in one building and that’s just the one’s on the stage. No asylum in the world could hold that many mentally ill people at one time.
LMAO!! Hey, there’s a job’s program – build more insane asylums for all the Repubs!
Actually, Lisa, I was hoping they would hold their convention in the Pyramid, that abandoned NBA arena in Memphis, TN. A “new age” shaman I know claims that pyramids sharpen dull knives. I rest my case………………..!
What’s funny is that you guys have predicted today’s cartoon by sheer coincidence.
That was long but well worth the read – and he’s dead on on his points. Thanks for posting that.
YVW, Lisa. He surely is.
It’s so good to see yet another person calling the Fourth Reich a cult. It is exactly that. They operate as if fellow Republican and Bush family friend Sun Myung Moon is in charge.
Dave, here’s a minor point of disagreement. The Fourth is past and lasted for eight years. If they gain control again, it will be the Fifth.
OK, am embarrassing confession — I used to be a card-carrying Republican, but this was back in the ’70’s when Jimmy Carter couldn’t find his ass in a paper bag, inflation was at 18% a year, and we had the Arab oil embargo which resulted in horrendous gas lines. Yes, I voted for Reagan and don’t regret it — he really did pull the country out of stagflation and put millions back to work (his other hijinks I won’t address here). The point is, the Republican Party USED TO stand for limited government, low taxation, and believed in America as a meritocracy. Now, it’s unrecognizable and has been hijacked by the lunatic right, which is VERY reminiscent of the fascists regimes of Europe just prior to WW II.
Anyway, thanks for finding this little gem. I’m going to forward it to my Dad, who despite everything, continues to support the GOP (out of sheer habit I think, as he’s 86).
There’s no shame in that Ann. Back then, Republicans were more moderate.
Interesting article. But there is only one group in our polity crazier then Republican Tea Partiers. And that is business-as-usual Democrats. It is they agreed to accept tax cuts for the ultra wealthy, these one-way trade deals, the wars and all the rest of it.
Some are, Chris. The Democratic party badly needs to be cleaned up, but for now, Republicans are more dangerous to America.
Lofgren’s article is a very long but excellent, full of really good information that you’ll get nowhere else.
It is interesting to note how far the GOP has strayed from its anti-slavery roots. Now it wants to enslave the average American, economic slavery by union busting, catering to big business, obliterating social programmes, destroying education, and dare I say, seemingly shove their version of Christianity down everybody’s throats.
There are three quotes I particularly liked —
“. . . the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, . . .”
“. . . legislating has now become war minus the shooting, . . .” (Just look at the antics of hostage taking around the debt ceiling!)
and from John P Judis “. . . the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. . . . “
Lofgren’s last three points are spot on in my mind.
I read a news story yesterday that said that some polls show that if Americans were to vote now, the Republicans would be swept into power (over 40% of those polled). I tried to find it again and provide a link but couldn’t.
This final quote from the article:
“. . . the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.
A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters’ confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that “they are all crooks,” and that “government is no good,” further leading them to think, “a plague on both your houses” and “the parties are like two kids in a school yard.” This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s – a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn (“Government is the problem,” declared Ronald Reagan in 1980). “[emphasis is mine – LS]
The GOP shows such distain for the American people. They are manipulating the American people and the facts to their own ends in such ways that it can be hard to see what is true. But make no mistake, according to Lofgren, this is a deliberate attempt to hood-wink and manipulate the American people, “low-information voters”
I fervently hope that this article gets out to the average American so that they can see what is happening right under their noses before it is too late.
Sorry about the rant TomCat but that is what happens when you read something too many times — your blood boils.