Kathleen Parker may underestimate the devotion of many Republicans to being "The Stupid Party," but at least she's speaking out

Rumor has it that one of these men is the solution to the problem of the dumbing down of the Republican Party. Can you guess which?

"It takes courage to swim against the tide of know-nothingness that has become de rigueur among the anti-elite, anti-intellectual Republican base. Call it the Palinization of the GOP, in which the least informed earns the loudest applause. . . . [T]he Republican base requires that candidates tack away from science toward the theistic position -- only God controls climate. More to the point, Rush Limbaugh says that climate change is a hoax and so it must be. . . . It takes courage to swim against the tide of know-nothingness that has become de rigueur among the anti-elite, anti-intellectual Republican base. Call it the Palinization of the GOP, in which the least informed earns the loudest applause."

-- Kathleen Parker, in her Washington Post column
"The Palinization of the GOP"

by Ken

We'll never know how the course of history might have been changed if Barack Obama, first as presidential candidate and then as president, had had the will and nerve to try to alert the country to the conspiracy of ignorance, insanity, and economic predation that is now the only voice with which now-synonymous Republicans and right-wingers speak. If the unmitigated catastrophe of seven-plus years of far-right-wing governance didn't offer the teaching moment of a generation, if not a lifetime. Everywhere you turned you stared at stark evidence of the disastrous effects of the raging war of the Greedy and Selfish on the 99 percent -- many of whom, it must be said in fairness, had enlisted as credulous shock troops for the rampaging plutocratic elites.

Probably it wouldn't have made as much difference as our fondest hopes might imagine, since the only force the president seems to swear allegiance to is, ta-da, his plutocratic-elite patrons. Still, there might at least have been active resistance to the Crackpot-and-Thug Right's rampage. Now we're dependent on people learning the hard way -- as growing numbers of them have, notably, in Wisconsin and Ohio -- just how pernicious the rule of the plutocratics is.

One important reason that Obama rather than Young Johnny McCranky is president is that, faced with the disastrous image of Tiny George Bush in the White House, a significant number of faithful Republican conservatives broke from the ranks, declaring that there were after all limits to how much right-wing insanity and thuggery they could stand by and watch. Okay, they may not have expressed it in exactly those words, but certainly that was the substance of their revolt.

I think everyone remembers the courageous apostasies of David Frum. I give credit too to columnist Kathleen Parker, which is why, for example, I referred to her recently as an "only moderately whacked-out right-wing columnist" -- in connection with her sensible indictment of the carryings-on of the GOP presidential hopefuls ("Perry, Cain and a parade of painful moments"). Now I have to give her credit for taking a more general public stand against what she calls "The Palinization of the GOP."

Referring to the subhead of a recent Paul Begala Newsweek" piece ("The Stupid Party") -- "Republicans used to admire intelligence. But now they're dumbing themselves down" -- Kathleen notes:

Democrats couldn't agree more. And quietly, many Republicans share the sentiment. They just can't seem to stop themselves.

Kathleen, of course, belongs to the now-enfeebled Bill Buckley Subwing of the modern-day right wing.

the conservative brain trust once led by William F. Buckley has been supplanted by talk radio hosts who love to quote Buckley (and boast of his friendship) but who do not share the man's pedigree or his nimble mind.

Moreover, where Buckley tried to rid the GOP of fringe elements, notably the John Birch Society, today's conservatives have let them back in. The 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference was co-sponsored by the Birchers.

Meanwhile, the big tent fashioned by Ronald Reagan has become bilious with the hot air of religious fervor. No one was more devout than the very-Catholic Buckley, but you didn't see him convening revivals in the public square. Nor is it likely he would have embraced fundamentalist views that increasingly have forced the party into a corner where science and religion can't coexist.

Scientific skepticism, the engine that propels intellectual inquiry, has morphed into skepticism of science fueled by religious certitude. In this strange world, it is heresy to express concern about, for example, climate change -- or even to suggest that human behavior may be a contributing factor. Jon Huntsman committed blasphemy when he told ABC's Jake Tapper that he trusts scientists on global warming.

What Huntsman next said, though refreshing and true, ensured that his poll numbers would remain in the basement: "When we take a position that isn't willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Sciences has said about what is causing climate change and man's contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science and, therefore, in a losing position."

This isn't something we hear a lot from the 21st-century Right. Which is one reason Jon Huntsman's presidential campaign has been a nonstarter.

Another reason, of course, and a more fundamental one, as I've pointed out, is that hardly anybody except the political pundits has ever heard of Huntsman, even (especially?) among that curious subset of American voters who participate in the selection of Republican presidential candidates. This problem might have mattered less if the ambassador could count on unified support from the Right-Wing Noise Machine. Instead, the RWNM has treated him with derision.

Scientific skepticism, the engine that propels intellectual inquiry, has morphed into skepticism of science fueled by religious certitude. In this strange world, it is heresy to express concern about, for example, climate change -- or even to suggest that human behavior may be a contributing factor. Jon Huntsman committed blasphemy when he told ABC's Jake Tapper that he trusts scientists on global warming.

What Huntsman next said, though refreshing and true, ensured that his poll numbers would remain in the basement: "When we take a position that isn't willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Sciences has said about what is causing climate change and man's contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science and, therefore, in a losing position."

What Kathleen says next, the paragraph that leads up to the middle part of the quote I've put at the top of this post, especially interests me:

Of course, plenty of Republicans agree with this appraisal, including other presidential candidates. They understand that the challenge is to figure out to what extent humans contribute and what humans can reasonably do without bankrupting the planet.

Nevertheless, the Republican base requires that candidates tack away from science toward the theistic position -- only God controls climate. More to the point, Rush Limbaugh says that climate change is a hoax and so it must be. Huntsman may as well be a Democrat.

Let me say again that those "plenty of Republicans" who agree with Jon Huntsman's appraisal have been mighty quiet about it. Nevertheless, Kathleen suggests:

[T]here are signs that the GOP is recognizing its weaknesses and is ready to play smarter. To wit: The sudden surge of Gingrich, who, whatever his flaws and despite the weight of his considerable baggage, is no intellectual slouch. Whether he can pull off a victory in Iowa remains to be seen, but a populist professor -- a bombastic smarty-pants Republicans can call their own -- may be just the ticket.

Oh great! After all this good toiling in the XXXXXX of right-wing dumbing down, the ray of hope Kathleen has to offer us is -- Newt Gingrich??? I'll agree that Newt is probably smarter than most of the GOP field, but that doesn't qualify an individual as "smart." In any case, the smarts of a stiff like Willard Inc. only make him more dangerous.

More to the point, Newt is the fellow described by Forbes.com blogger E. D. Kain the other day as "The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Candidate" --

a candidate who represents the worst qualities of all the other candidates. Newt Gingrich is beyond mediocre, he's downright awful.

He's the perfect candidate, in other words, if you're a Democrat.

Newt, Kathleen's "populist professor," is the candidate who's apt to be caught on any given day advocating slave-wage child labor as the solution to economic inequality (as reported by Politico, and passed on by Think Progress via Nation of Change):

"This is something that no liberal wants to deal with,' Gingrich said. "Core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization against children in the poorest neighborhoods, crippling them by putting them in schools that fail has done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy. It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid." [...]

"Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising."

Showing us that Kathleen's "bombastic smartypants" knows nothing about (a) American history, (b) American economics, (c) American economic inequality, or in particular (d) the history of the American labor movement, which did more than any other force to reduce economic inequality. What Newt has to offer is (a) his crackpot ideology, the ideology that Barack Obama had a window of opportunity to put on public trial, and (b) his seemingly limitless personal greed. I guess he's hoping that if we put enough of those kids to work as janitors (simultaneously increasing unemployment among actual custodians, of course), they'll chip in and pay his Tiffany's bills. Somebody's got to, don't they?

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