Almost Everyone Knows Who To Blame

Yesterday the congressional Republicans, having all read and digested the horrifying (for them) polling on their a tattered brand, decided to change tactics and see if people will like them more if they demand the Democrats gut Social Security and Medicare instead of delaying Obamacare. How do you think that's going to work out for Republicans in non-secessionist districts?

Even Republican economists repudiated their ideologically-motivated nonsense.

Republican lawmakers have played down the significance of hitting the debt limit, saying the U.S. can avoid default by putting aside funds to pay bond holders. Economists affiliated with the party aren’t so sanguine.

Glenn Hubbard, Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Donald Marron, all of whom served in President George W. Bush’s administration, voiced concern that such a strategy could end up hurting the economy even if default were averted.

But the GOP has already pivoted to salvaging something out of this mess they created and their goal-- which is supported by many of the worst New Dems, like Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY), Ron Barber (AZ), Mike McIntyre (NC), John Barrow (GA), and Patrick Murphy (FL)-- is to take money out of the pockets of seniors through Chained CPI. And while Boehner and his team were working on that, Ted Cruz and his team were on another planet entirely. This comes from Business Insider, not the Communist Manifesto:

This morning, Texas Senator Ted Cruz spoke to the Values Voters Summit, and his speech was really weird. It's like he's living on another planet.

On Planet Cruz, there is a massive outpouring of public support for a government shutdown over Obamacare and it's scaring the hell out of Democrats.

Read how Cruz describes the view from his corner of the universe:

The nice thing is the left will always, always, always tell you who they fear. And they fear you. They fear the American people.

The fundamental problem in Washington is Washington is not listening to America. And what happens? This fight on Obamacare, we went and made the case to the American people, launched a national website: dontfundit.com. In a matter of just a few weeks, over 2 million Americans signed that petition on dontfundit.com.

It is because of you that the House of Representatives has been standing strong because the House has been listening to the people. It is because of you that for the past two months, the country is engaged in a national debate about the enormous harms Obamacare is causing, all of the millions of Americans who are losing their jobs, being pushed into part-time work, losing their health insurance. It is because of you that the American people are energized.

And we see the Obama administration defending positions that are utterly and completely unreasonable. Repeatedly the House of Representatives has acted to compromise, to fund vital priorities, and repeatedly President Obama and the Democrats have refused to negotiate.

Now I will note this afternoon-- look, the Democrats are feeling the heat...

Listen, none of us know what’s going to happen on this Obamacare fight right now. In my view, the House of Representatives needs to keep doing what it’s been doing, which is standing strong. And that is the model for every other fight. We need no more Washington solutions. We need to go back to the American people.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, the public hates the shutdown, Americans are 20 points more likely to blame Republicans for the shutdown than Obama, the Republican Party is scoring its worst poll numbers on record, Cruz's colleagues in the House and Senate hate him, and they're preparing to cave to the president by reopening the government and funding Obamacare.

Cruz is betting that his supporters are too stupid to notice that his strategy is failing and was doomed to fail. He's probably right.

Lots of people thought that when Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election after months of conservatives proclaiming that the polls were "skewed" and he was on course to win, the party's base might start to evaluate whether it misunderstood the world around it.

Remarkably, conservative delusion about facts on the ground is more intense than ever. The appetite for stories like the one Cruz is telling is unending, impervious to facts and sustainable no matter how far the Republican Party's poll numbers fall.

When constituencies come to view themselves as aggrieved minorities, under attack by the establishment, they become vulnerable to hucksters like Cruz, because they disregard outside warnings and evidence that they are being had.

Usually, you see this on a smaller scale: Ohio's economically depressed Mahoning Valley sending Jim Traficant (D) to Congress for two decades even though he was obviously a corrupt politician with a mental disorder; New Orleans re-electing Bill Jefferson (D) to Congress after the FBI raided his home and found $90,000 in cash in his freezer, because maybe there was a perfectly good explanation for how it got there.

What's unprecedented about Cruz and similar Tea Party Republicans who make up about a third of the House Republican conference is that the aggrieved localized minority has gone national. Republicans once thought Fox News and the conservative media bubble were strategic advantages that allow them to coordinate messages and organize voters; instead, they have allowed Republican voters to remain unaware that their favorite politicians are lying to them and alienating the median voter.

Losing one election wasn't nearly enough to wake Republican voters up to this problem. Ted Cruz isn't alone on his strange planet; much of the Republican Party is right there with him. And that's likely to be true for a long time.

Emboldened by the polling, and fighting for self preservation and their careers, establishment Republicans are finally getting the nerve to stand up to Cruz and the teabaggers and fight back.

"It's time for someone to act like a grown-up in this process," former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu argues, faulting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and tea party Republicans in the House as much as President Barack Obama for taking an uncompromising stance.

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is just as pointed, saying this about the tea party-fueled refusal to support spending measures that include money for Obama's health care law: "It never had a chance."

The anger emanating from Republicans like Sununu and Barbour comes just three years after the GOP embraced the insurgent political group and rode its wave of new energy to return to power in the House.

Now, they're lashing out with polls showing Republicans bearing most of the blame for the federal shutdown, which entered its 11th day Friday. In some places, they're laying the groundwork to take action against the tea party in the 2014 congressional elections.

Iowa Republicans are recruiting a pro-business Republican to challenge six-term conservative Rep. Steve King, a leader in the push to defund the health care law. Disgruntled Republicans are further ahead in Michigan, where second-term, tea party-backed Rep. Justin Amash is facing a Republican primary challenger who is more in line with-- and being encouraged by-- the party establishment. And business interest groups, long aligned with the Republican Party, also are threatening to recruit and fund strong challengers to tea party House members.

Tea party backers are undeterred and assail party leaders.

"They keep compromising," said Katrina Pierson, a former Dallas-area tea party organizer now challenging Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas in the 2014 GOP primary. "They all campaigned on fiscal responsibility. They just need to do what they campaigned on."

In more than a dozen interviews, Republican leaders, officials and strategists at all levels of the party blamed Obama for the shutdown but also faulted tea party lawmakers in the House, who have insisted that any deal to reopen the government be contingent on stripping money for the health care law.

Enjoy your civil war. You earned it.