The GOP Meets The Golem
There is an ancient Hebrew legend of the Golem, an immensely
strong creature created from soil or clay and animated by sacred or magic
words. The Golem is created to protect
the community from menacing or even murderous outsiders. The ancient Greeks had a similar myth, of
Talos, a giant man of bronze who guarded Europa in Crete by circling the island
three times a day, and throwing boulders at pirates and other invaders. In more modern times, the story of life from
inanimate material is echoed in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and in countless
3-D robot tales. The hitch, inevitably, is that the Golem has no soul and
becomes unhinged. He grows even mightier, menaces the community he was made to
protect, and must be de-animated.
This is the Week of the Golem for the GOP
establishment. From every angle, the
wailing of the anguished Main Stream Right Wing Media (MSRWM?) has poured out
upon the land, causing grown men and women to quietly sob and parents to hustle
their children indoors. In just the
Washington Post, stalwarts Charles Krauthammer (who also vents his spleen on
Fox) former Bush aide Mark Gerson, GOP operative Ed Rogers, “soft” Right
columnist Kathleen Parker, Rummy and
Bush speechwriter Marc Theissen and even the bottom-feeding blogger Jennifer
Rubin have sent up the alarms about scary, scary men with dark plans for the
future of the nation.
And, who are these demons of the deep? Besides Mr. Obama, of course? Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) and even Marco
Rubio. These four have become the
enemy, dangerous to the safety of the Republican state of ship.
So, why all the fear and loathing? Two big issues: spying and legislative
tactics. In fairness, there is a
legitimate policy dispute between the neo-cons and security state people
(Theissen, Krauthammer, Rubin, Christie) and the isolationist/libertarians,
like Rand Paul. In the past, that
would have been worked out in caucus, with a few lone wolves (like Rand’s father, Ron)
left to leave the herd. For decades, the
GOP had a potent political message; the Democrats were soft on our enemies and
dangerously naïve, Republicans were manly realists. Vote for us and we will protect you. Two years ago, when the Patriot Act came up
for reauthorization, it passed with almost unanimous Republican support and a
healthy dollop of ecstatic praise mixed with fear mongering. The GOP loved the Bush
legacy program. But this year, when (Republican!)
Congressman Justin Amash introduced an amendment that would have killed Section
215 (which gives legal underpinning to the NSA’s metadata program) 94
Republicans supported him. Including 50
who just two years had before voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act in full. So
much for the potent political message.
In Theissen’s withering view, those 50 all became “John Kerry
Republicans.” They were for something
before they were against it.
But spying was the sideshow.
What really got the GOP’s establishment up in arms was Obamacare, or,
more specifically, the latest ruse to end that terrible scourge upon the
nation. Senators Cruz, Paul, Lee and Rubio are backing an ultra-clever
House plan to defund Obamacare—by refusing to pass any budget whatsoever until
Mr. Obama agrees to kill his own baby.
That’s correct. The GOP, having
lost in the Supreme Court, and having run squarely against Obamacare and still
failing to win either the Presidency or the Senate, is now going to shut down
the government, next month, unless they get their way. No one gets a dime; not our soldiers in the
field, not any arm of government, not Granny waiting for her check, until
Barack Hussein Obama comes crawling and begging, with the severed head of ACA
under his arm.
That scares the heck out of the MSRWM and GOP party pols
everywhere. Not necessarily because they wouldn’t applaud
a positive result, but because they sense it will be a disaster, a Clinton vs.
Newt replay. As Ms. Parker says, “Either
Cruz and Paul have sincerely deluded themselves about the political
consequences of a shutdown or, plausibly, they don’t really think they can
cause a shutdown and would never have to suffer the consequences. Meanwhile,
they score political points with the base by blaming the GOP “sellouts” when
the establishment adults keep the trains running on time.”
And practically, for the few who can think outside the next news
cycle, there has to be a deeper fear.
The newbies, the tea-infused bomb-throwers not only have no respect for
the institution, but also keep inventing new weapons. For now, those new tools are symbolic, like
this Friday’s absurdist and clearly unconstitutional House vote requiring the
Executive Branch to get explicit permission from both the House and the Senate
for any new regulations, or the obligatory 40th vote to repeal
Obamacare (it’s becoming like regular Church attendance, something one does
weekly to proclaim one’s faith.) Sooner
or later, however, the rogue pack of elephants is going to trample on something
important, and the opposition will be taking notes. I guarantee that no future Republican
President will like kowtowing to an obstreperous chamber run by the Democratic
Party. They all fancy themselves Dick
Cheney, and only believe in checks and balances when they aren’t being checked
or balanced.
You reap what you sow. If the Krauthammers and the Parkers
and the Gersons and Theissens and all the electeds from McConnell and Boehner
on down were really being honest with themselves, they would know this was a partially
a self-inflicted wound.
It was not so long ago when the very same conservative
commentators and professional politicians were absolutely thrilled with the
passion and the energy of the newly emergent radical right. And, in the beginning, it worked. The 2010 Election was a smashing success, and
much of Mr. Obama’s agenda is in tatters.
But, things got out of hand while the champagne was being uncorked. Even when respected office-holders were
turned out in the primaries, even when the language directed at Mr. Obama
turned not merely vitriolic but unbecomingly personal, the MSRWM and the party
pols stood by and enjoyed the ride, and the spoils. They praised, and succored, and enabled. And ultimately, they empowered.
And now, they don’t know what to do. The entire Republican
brand is at risk. Ed Rogers might have said it best; “Our inability to be constructive opposition is not the
president’s fault.”
A friend who is a brain specialist used a phrase that I
thought was a perfect metaphor for this,
“learned helplessness.” In
psychology, learned helplessness is a state in which an individual who has been
forced to bear stimuli that are unpleasant or painful becomes unable or
unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters with those stimuli, even if he could
avoid them, presumably because he has
learned that the situation is outside his control.
Learned helplessness isn’t going to cut it, nor is sending cranky old John McCain out for
another episode of “Maverick vs. the Wacko Birds.” The insurgents don’t respect traditions, the
process, or their leadership.
The Golem is loose, and it may take more than a few magic words
to stop it.
MM
