re: #153 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

The Tea Party was when the inmates took over the asylum. The GOP was afraid to call them out on their excesses or even distance themselves, and that led to an attention-seeking rush to bottom and they are still on their way down.

Because there is no bottom for those people.

The Tea Party is an object lesson in why promoting “political outsiders” only works if you have control over those “outsiders.” The Repubs pursued Citizens United because they thought it would open the funding taps, that they could have unlimited funds to build the party. What they ignored until it bit them in the ass is relatively unregulated funding meant people who weren’t allied with the Old Guard could fuck the party over a bramble patch and there was like the OG could do about it. Just ask guys like Eric Cantor about what happens when you get primaried by a guy who isn’t afraid of threats to be cut off from RNCC support because Super PAC money is there to make up the difference.

In keeping with all the 1930s analogies we’ve been using for years now, Trump’s nomination was the Austrian corporal being appointed Chancellor: The party thought the real power would remain in the legislature, while all they needed was a meat puppet to smile for the cameras and sign any bills put in front of him. They thought they could control him, not the other way around.