With Apologies

..to Mel Brooks.

GOP Pollster: "Sir, the base voters are revolting!"

Willard: "You're tellin' me - they stink on ice"

(hat tip = Crooks and Liars)

A Revoltin' Development

South Carolina Tea Partiers are gearing up to put on quite a show for us next month.

"The Tea Party" isn't monolithic.  Like most political entities, it's an amalgam - but unlike a "real political party" where the point of the exercise is to cobble together a coalition of interests that's as wide and as deep as possible, Tea Partiers are all about purity.  And I think that means they'll have to keep splitting into smaller and smaller factions as they try to rid themselves of "the non-believers".  Listening to their language, I hear the telltale signs of Fundamentalism taken to the Logical Extreme.
1) Compromise is not an option.
2) Compromisers must be expelled.

So what happens when Fundamentalists start feelin' their oats?
(hat tip = The Firebrand)

Organizers of a tea party convention scheduled to convene next month in Myrtle Beach are fending off accusations that they called for “armed guards” with concealed weapons permits to staff the event. A senior leader of one tea party group in the Palmetto State raised concern about heat-packing patriots amid a flurry of email backlash after supporters of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann announced their intention to hold a straw poll at the event to promote their candidate.
Read more: The Daily Caller

And be sure to drill down into the comments to get a good taste of what's in store for us.

If it was any less tragic, it wouldn't be funny.

Stunned? - Really?

The old guard GOP establishment must be really nervous about where the nutters are taking the party.



Remember, there are no accidents and no surprises on DumFux News. This was on the air because Roger Ailes wanted it on the air. And it was "shocking" because Ailes intended it to be shocking.

It could represent a direct swipe at The Limbaugh Wing - Rush's been flacking for Gingrich pretty hard lately so the message could be, "OK, you've had your fun, but it's time to end this flirtation and get down to business". 

Unfortunately, that genie's outa the bottle now. There's a TeaBagger Caucus in The House. The big money aggregators helped 'em get organized. They were dispatched to disrupt meetings and throw rocks thru windows. Etc.

Now the GOP Graybeards are nervous about how stupidly fascist the whole thing looks and they're making desperate attempts to get the rubes back in line.

(Driftglass made some great points on The Professional Left podcast this week)

So I'm wondering about the fault lines, and how serious the fracturing will get.

Elizabeth Warren Heckled

Everybody gets to say what's on his mind, even if he insists on being a complete asshole about it (speaking from experience here).

Two things I really like about this:
1) Warren quiets the crowd when they start to go after him for calling her "a socialist whore".  She's a fighter and as sweet as she sounds, I'm betting she can cut you to ribbons when she feels the need, but she keeps it cool and there's nothing the guy can push back against.  Conflict resolved.
2) As is usually the case, the heckler was prob'ly a little nervous about being kinda shitty in public, so he needed to make the statement and then stride purposefully from the room - for dramatic effect.  But the door at the front is locked.  He tries the opener a couple of times, and then has to walk past the crowd to get out.  His body language is defiant and proud, but nobody's paying any attention to him, so again he has nothing to fight.  He's just some random dick callin' people names.

(hat tip: Crooks and Liars)

History Lessons ala Beck

The people Glenn Beck has in his thrall are thirsty for knowledge - they see things are going wrong in their lives but they can't quite accept that they've just been voting for the wrong people.  They need their favorite opinion makers to explain how they can let themselves off the hook, and find somebody to blame for their troubles.  Beck is really good at playing the "don't be naive" card.  "Wake up, America!" is something the guy says on his shows a lot.

He draws it out on his blackboard and always presents his doctrine as if he's just eager to share this new-found information with all of his friends.  The visuals and the presentation style are (I think) purposeful and well thought out - they're aimed at evoking a Sunday School feeling in the audience.  Here's good ol' Glenn; all he wants is to help regular people understand some things.

So now he's all about rewriting US History, but of course what the Beckies are actually learning is a Politically Branded version of history; instead of learning the facts or something as close to the facts as possible.

Read this from Will Bunch at CNN.

The revisionist message behind "Restoring Honor" is nothing new for the conservative shock jock. In the year and half since President Obama took office, Beck has led his loyal followers on a journey not just to "reclaim" civil rights but much more audaciously to rewrite the sweeping narrative arc of American history from the time of the Founding Fathers forward.

The backbone of the Tea Party is over-55s and especially retirees -- some planned, some forced -- with the most valuable asset of all, time.

They see studying U.S. history as a powerful reconnection with their youth. Waiting for Beck's "American Revival" show in Orlando, Florida, in March, 70-year-old fan Joseph Cerniglia told me he was way too busy for civics lessons when he was raising kids and working as a stockbroker and then cider-maker. "I have learned more from Glenn Beck -- learned more about American history and government, from Glenn Beck -- than in the previous 40 years of my life," the retiree told me.