Wednesday, August 17, 2011

The Confederate Party

That's what one of the Balloon Juice front-pagers (I think DougJ?) has been calling the Republican Party, with a nice elephant logo emblazones with stars and bars.

Today David Campbell and Robert Putnam put some statistics behind that.

And Wisconsin voters back up their contention that the Tea Party is not particularly popular.

Ta-Nehisi Coates and others have been contemplating the role of slavery in the Civil War. It's worth thinking more about this turning point in the nation and how some part (that 27% that always seem to hold the views of the demented right?) of the country has never given up the ideals of the Confederacy.

It has seemed to me for some time that the Republican Party is building up to its George McGovern moment. Nice to see Campbell and Putnam pointing this out. And maybe President Obama is going with the dictum that when you see your opponents destroying themselve, you should let them do it?

Update: A view from Ohio.

And Yet Another Update: Daniel Little illuminates "possessive individualism." That's an idea I've been trying to work out here as one of the very divisive tenets of excessive free-marketism. Great to know that someone else has done the heavy lifting.
The Tea Party seems to be a contemporary descendent of this ideology. Taxation is theft; the state has no legitimate role beyond protecting individual security and property; government regulation of private business activity is an immoral intrusion on liberty and property; individuals possess liberties and property that the state cannot limit; individuals deserve what they own and owe nothing to society or other citizens.

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