Will MacAvoy on why TEA Party radicals shouldn't even be considered Republicans

[foolsguinea.livejournal.com]

Two videos. They're short.

I find this interesting, because it makes a strong comparison to the Rush Limbaugh dittohead view of the left as a monolithic mudheap of dirty, dirty hippies.

In fact, the Democrat=hippie/Yippie/pothead meme is an awkward equivalence at best. Of course there are Democrats who've inhaled, just as there are Republicans who've done coke, engaged in open relationships, and the like. But the Democrats have never really been the Yippies, even if they eventually wanted their votes.

An American Taliban? Maybe. I don't know about "tribal." I would think something more like "nationalistic" or "racist"--which are, in an anthropological sense, arguably subsets of tribalist thinking, so maybe.

So is MacAvoy (and Sorkin) right? Will this reputation stick to the GOP over the next generation? Well, it's substantially already how Southron conservatives were seen by liberals who knew them, so yeah, I suppose so. Does it hurt them, though, if their radicalism is what's popular?

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Sigh, it's at this point that I feel it's worth bringing up that the GOP only exists as a national party at all for the reason of a minor set of skirmishes conducted in 1861-5. The idea that a political party that arose out of civil war, and which produced guys like Barry "Aw Hell Yeah global nuclear war" Goldwater and Ronald "Nun rapers are the moral equivalent of our founding fathers and Saddam Hussein is not a Terrorist" Reagan is more extremist now than it used to be is a rather sharp nostalgia filter on the old movement. American conservatism has tended to produce chickenhawks who loudly agitate primarily illegal means of conducting a war and shy at actually paying for the means to run a war as that would mean taxes since Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860. Thanks to the Information Age, we just know about all these chuckleheads mouthing off, like Paul Ryan's statement that rape is just another means of conception....

[foolsguinea.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, this isn't that new. Wm. F. Buckley was in favor of Francisco Franco, and even in the 1990's his magazine pushed the idea that the French use of torture in Algeria was good and necessary (though of course it failed).

Wm. McKinley, T. Roosevelt and W. H. Taft moved into overseas imperialism once continental Manifest Destiny hit a wall.

But the fact that many powerful people are and have been violent and follow their evil inclinations doesn't mean there isn't a difference here. It does seem like Reagan was worse about trying to wish away science facts than Nixon, and the present party is worse than Reagan--and the fault is in how the expectations of the people are managed. We are being brought down by populism in the service of stupidity, and craven pols who bow to that. This show attempts to use the weapon of popular opinion against that stupidity. It may fail, but it's a noble effort.
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I fixed the embeds, added a paragraph, and found comments!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It seems like that, but it's not the case. The GOP has always had a strong anti-intellectual streak and a powerful anti-immigrant streak. The whole Know-Nothing movement was enfolded into the GOP as one of its fundamental constituencies in the Lincoln era. American populism has always relied on the idea that stupid people are good. Science and messing with it is certainly harmful (and I might repeat not limited to the post-WWII era, the old USA did things like injecting people with STDs and refusing them treatment as "science"), but then there's deliberately prolonging a war and being as incapable of winning it as the other guys. There's organizing witch-hunts against faux Communists and offering a potential but never used dolchstosslegende for the people fighting and bleeding against the real Communists in Korean hills, attacking the guy who won WWII as a filthy Bolshie Traitor. There is of course the Southern Strategy and the endless GOP obsession with legislating marriage, and even in some cases still fussing about interracial marriage.

Just because something seems one way does not mean it actually is that way. The GOP, simply put, is a political party that was always a refuge of violent cranks and moral cowards, and has been so since its origin out of the old Whig Party. American politics itself, for that matter, long relied on the law of hang thy neighbor. There is a good argument, in fact, that American society was semi-savage well into the 20th Century for just this reason.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

That show is even preachier than I thought it would be. I'm impressed they managed to reach that level.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I guess we can always watch The Simpson's for less preachy.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Or south park

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Yes, Aaron Sorkin is insufferable.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

For reference: http://www.salon.com/2012/07/19/aaron_sorkin_versus_frivolity/

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't go as far as to call the tea party the Taliban, as for the hippie thing, it's probably awkward because the hippy movement has become ancient history by now.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's worth noting here that a Talib in Arabic is a University Student. If anything the Taliban are the College Students From the Malebolge. The Muslim world's GOP equivalent is the Ba'ath Party.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

That first clip is great because of the history lesson comparing today's Republican Party with someone just as radical on the left. A lot of the viewers I'd bet never even heard of some of those names mentioned). It's beautifully articulated.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

To me, that robs it of its value. Unless you studied the period or were alive then, you have no idea who these people are. The entire scene was robbed of its comparative value because he was comparing modern situations to people I've never heard of. Godwin's law is a good thing, but there's a reason it exists -- everybody knows who Hitler was.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Really? I'm a wee bit surprised a law student and a political junkie would have never ever heard of Abbie Hoffman. But to be fair, I shouldn't be baffled because I never heard of Saul Alinsky until extreme righties on Livejournal Fox News were citing his work.

All that aside, I disagree, I think it was apparent even by the context and his analogy; and he did use the word hippies and yippies. And *if* a lot of the audience didn't get those references, maybe it was a good educational moment. Drama that motivates someone to learn more is the best kind of TV I think.

But YMMV.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

From an explanatory standpoint, the meaning of the scene was obscured by unnecessarily dated references. From a dramatic standpoint, it reinforced the view I had of all the characters - needlessly hidebound people fighting wars from forty years ago.

The thing about the Taliban just reaffirmed that the entire show is Sorkin's mary-sue fantasy world. I tried watching the first episode, and his writing couldn't save the terrible concept.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I like the Little Shop of Horrors analogy.

[foolsguinea.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was cute.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Yes and yes, and in the long run, it does hurt them.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I actually watched my first episode of this program last week. It was the one where MacAvoy is trying to get the Republican debate, and he has all the interns or whatever dress up in sweatshirts with the candidate names.

Here's the problem with the show in a nutshell, and a longer-scale viewing more or less confirmed what I had gotten from the show in the clips that have been shared over and over - MacAvoy is what Sorkin wishes the Republican Party was, while the character of Republicans and conservatives Sorkin puts out there show little resemblance to real world Republicans and conservatives, allowing MacAvoy to be the Republican William Morrow against a tide of perceived lunacy. It's a liberal fever dream put on television because The West Wing did so well. It's the left wing version of An American Carol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_American_Carol), positioned as a serious drama as opposed to a comedic satire.

That the Bob Bennett clip doesn't mention the bailout once says a ton about missing the forest for the trees regarding finding room "to the right" of an otherwise reliably conservative Senator. The Tea Party clip is a ridiculous caricature ripped straight from the Daily Kos (http://www.amazon.com/American-Taliban-Power-Jihadists-Radical/dp/1936227029) and better describes anarchist-libertarians rather than the Tea Party movement itself.

Does it hurt them, though, if their radicalism is what's popular?

The assumption is that the rightward shift of the Republican Party following the rise of the Tea Party is one of radicalism and not realignment. I'm not a Tea Party supporter because I believe populism is a cancer, but I'm constantly finding myself drawn to Peggy Noonan's salient take on the matter (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703440604575496221482123504.html):

I see two central reasons for the tea party's rise. The first is the yardstick, and the second is the clock. First, the yardstick. Imagine that over at the 36-inch end you've got pure liberal thinking—more and larger government programs, a bigger government that costs more in the many ways that cost can be calculated. Over at the other end you've got conservative thinking—a government that is growing smaller and less demanding and is less expensive. You assume that when the two major parties are negotiating bills in Washington, they sort of lay down the yardstick and begin negotiations at the 18-inch line. Each party pulls in the direction it wants, and the dominant party moves the government a few inches in their direction.

But if you look at the past half century or so you have to think: How come even when Republicans are in charge, even when they're dominant, government has always gotten larger and more expensive? It's always grown! It's as if something inexorable in our political reality—with those who think in liberal terms dominating the establishment, the media, the academy—has always tilted the starting point in negotiations away from 18 inches, and always toward liberalism, toward the 36-inch point.

Democrats on the Hill or in the White House try to pull it up to 30, Republicans try to pull it back to 25. A deal is struck at 28. Washington Republicans call it victory: "Hey, it coulda been 29!" But regular conservative-minded or Republican voters see yet another loss. They could live with 18. They'd like eight. Instead it's 28.

...

What they want is representatives who'll begin the negotiations at 18 inches and tug the final bill toward five inches. And they believe tea party candidates will do that.

If you don't understand the Tea Party as a reaction to the consistent leftward movement on most issues over the last generation - and perhaps the last few, depending on where you want to start the clock - you don't understand the Tea Party at all, and arguably don't understand the American political climate.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So this consistent leftward move, you're using it to argue that Reagan, HW Bush, and W Bush were all leftists, too? Is anyone to the left of Genghis Khan a Leftist by this standard? If Genghis Khan's too liberal, what about Zhang Xianzhong?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Reagan not so much, but GWB and GWHB were certainly not conservatives by any realistic sense of the word. It can be argued that Clinton's the most conservative president we've had in 20 years.

Besides, we're talking about a leftward move. If it's a scale from 1-100, and we were at a 30, and ended up at 40, that's a leftward move even if it's on the right side of the scale.

[existentme.livejournal.com]

"That the Bob Bennett clip doesn't mention the bailout once"

At 1:17? Or am I not understanding what you meant by the quoted bit?

As to Noonan's salient take, as far as I am concerned, it reached its apogee at the second paragraph and would have been more honestly terminated at the end of the [modified] "It's always grown! It's as if [it's] something inexorable in our political reality [! full stop]" observation, because that is the reality. I truly do not believe, even if the both houses of the Congress, the Entire Executive Branch and 6 out of the 9 SC justices were whatever passes for Republican, that the growth of government would be exactly just as inexorable.

This can't be proven, of course, but it is what I believe for the simple reason that this is what government does for itself: gives itself more of itself. If it were not for agencies expanding under this hypothetical dreamland, than the expansion would nonetheless occur via outsourcing of various (likely military security state) programs to the private sector.

Just because ~the government~ outsources some expenditure to ~the private sector~ does not mean such expenditure and man hours and office space and product can be deducted from ~the size of government~. Frankly, because I haven't much to lose in it, I'd love to actually see just such a scenario, and watch exactly what I've said come entirely true.

Which is why all government, left, right, whatever, is all the same: ever-expanding theft of one type or another.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

At 1:17? Or am I not understanding what you meant by the quoted bit?

Specifically the Bob Bennett part at the beginning - you can't talk about why Bob Bennett got ousted without pointing out TARP, period. That it gets a tossaway mention in a litany of complaints about the group utterly misses the point.

Which is why all government, left, right, whatever, is all the same: ever-expanding theft of one type or another.

While I agree that this is likely a reality, fortunate or not, the Tea Party is a direct reaction to this, and is an attempt to at least try and ratchet things backward. That's truly the basis of it, rooted in the bailouts and the stimulus in terms of popular expansion. Not the laundry list that Sorkin offers.

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

“Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban, And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person’s entire processes." - Texas Republican Congressman Jeff Sessions

[allisnow.livejournal.com]

Thank God Aaron Sorkin is around to explain to me that I'm a tribalistic xenophobic pathological intolerant non-Republican.

*yawn*

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, the GOP has no problem with a government able to control the womb and to kill criminals, as well as expanding that government's military and internal coercive power, so it's transparent that whatever the GOP wants, a small government is not one of those things. At least the 19th Century GOP understood a true small government has an army 10,000 strong.