PRIMARY CHALLENGES ARE NOT POLITICS AS USUAL

Relooking at the primary challenge atmosphere of the Tea Party brings me to the same conclusion; it is criminal. Several of my previous blog posts have implied this and I have been criticized for saying this based on the idea that it no more than politics as usual. If an elected representative is not doing what “the people who elected them want”, he can and should be challenged and voted out so office. That is not criminal. However, this is not what is happening in Tea Party directed primary challenges.

In the “protection racket”, if a young tough gang member approaches a store and say that owner has to pay protection or someone might destroy his store that is a threat. Authorities cannot arrest the gang member cannot be arrested and charged with making a threat because no one knows who was going to carry out the threat. In addition, the business owner has to survive in his or her neighborhood. The same situation prevails in the Tea Party primary challenge. There is the threat; you either vote the way we tell you or you will have challenge. Who is making the threat?  The Supreme Court’s Citizen United Decision has made it so the people will never know who is actually making the threat. It is important to realize it is not the “the people who elected them” who is making the threat of a primary challenge or telling them how to vote. In addition, the elected representative has to live in his “political neighborhood” or political party and that party feels they are benefiting—the Tea Party is a branch of the Republican Party.

The threat is as real as the gang member’s threat to trash a business in a tough neighborhood. Instead of a bunch of young tattooed punks willing to carry out the threats, there is a bunch of business people in $1,000 suites standing in the shadows with bankbooks held at ready. They can buy political operatives such as Karl Rove to do their bidding in finding candidates that do not represent the people and other willing to work to elect them. Look at the people claiming to challenge Republican incumbents.  Every one of them has some extreme radical view of an established party platform. For example, some candidates are people who wrote legislation requiring vaginal probes for women who request abortion services. Other candidates believe rape victims wanted to be raped if the get pregnant. One candidate insured the voters that she was “not a witch”.

There is a saying in evolution that biology does not tolerate extremes but the same is true of politics: so what is the objective; why are they nominated for the post; and how are they elected.  The answer to the last is they often not elected but sometimes they are; we have Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee to prove that they are. The central question is what is the objective of the guys with the money in nominating such failed candidates? It seems their objective is to destroy the government by making it as bad as they can make it and they do this by forcing those in congress to vote their way. They have been successful in forcing the Republican Party to help them in meeting their objective.

They have essentially prevented the government from writing and passing laws. In fact, they are picking apart existing laws; Todd-Frank and Affordable Health Care Act for examples. By their inaction, they have put huge numbers of guns and assault weapons in the hands of criminals and allowed laws such as the stand your ground laws that undermine police authority. They have stopped almost all presidential nominations. They have cut welfare and even cut Pentagon spending. They have prevented existing regulatory agencies from functioning and prevent the formation of much needed banking and financial regulations. They are destroying the government’s ability to protect the people from radical political electoral laws.  They have allowed reestablishment of racism in elections. The most dangerous of all is that they have been cutting and not raising corporate taxes; thus increasing the national debt, while complaining about the size of that debt. Democrats cannot clean up the Republican mess, only Republicans do that. What we all can do for a start is try to convince the Department of Justice that primary challenges in the present form it are violations of the principles of democracy, it is not just politics as usual because it is not.

By the way, the people in the shadows with the bankbook are the second generation of the John Birch society. If you do not recognize the name of that society, there is always the internet.   

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