Elias Isquith
@eliasisquith
Assistant politics editor @salon
NYC · salon.com/writer
Posted on 10/11/2013 2:24:32 PM PDT by mdittmar
For nearly 150 years, there was something in America called the Republican Party. It was far from perfect. It made mistakes. But it was predictable; when it was in power, you knew, for the most part, what you were getting.
Cut to now and things look mighty different. The Republican Party today is, as political scholars Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein put it, “an insurgent outlier in American politics . . . ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” But, to borrow the title of Mann and Ornstein’s recent book, it’s even worse than it looks. There’s the Tea Party and then there’s a rump of spineless moderates. The GOP, quite simply, has been split in two.
This division has been evident for some time, but the recent squabbling over the government shutdown has put the internal discord in sharp relief. We’ve become accustomed to Speaker John Boehner’s flailing attempts to corral his Tea Party faction; and we’ve seen the sad spectacle of this ostensible leader of his party taking his orders almost exclusively from the most harebrained and hard-line members. What’s genuinely new, and far more consequential, is a recent New York Times report finding that even big business — including Wall Street! — is itself unable to force Tea Party members to fall in line.
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
New title for the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
Tea Party is We The People.
I REALLY want to listen/take advice from someone from Chicago. /sarc
If only this were true
>> The Tea Party
The Leftwing and RINO’s bogeymen. Two groups working hard to sow division on the Right which is gaining strength.
Damn! The headline got my hopes up.
The new Republican Party will be called the “Cruzers”.
Yep, from Lincoln to TR, to Eisenhower, to Reagan, to W - all exactly the same, no evolution of thought or policy. Who needs to know anything about history anyway?
Snarky little article about the tea party that indicates how worried the establishment really is about conservative politicians who care more about their country and maintaining its traditional values than getting re-elected and qualifying for a comfortable federal retirement check after a few terms in office. They don’t know what to make of this, which may be conservatives best weapon. The tea party is not your father’s GOP.
“....The Republican Party today is, as political scholars Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein put it, “an insurgent outlier in American politics . . . ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science;....”
This is just like when unbelievers tell ME about Christianity.
Imagine that. A party that doesn’t take its orders from an ossified leadership and can’t be corralled by Wall Street fat cats. Why, they must be getting their orders from, insert quaking RINO pic here, their constituents!
Actually Mr. Isquith lives in NYC which makes him even more credible with liberals....
Boy, the TEA Party sure bugs the left-wing hive a lot more than the Coffee Party ever bothered our side.
Elias Isquith
@eliasisquith
Assistant politics editor @salon
NYC · salon.com/writer
Project we much...
The GOP left us.
Even if these organizations lost their funding from wall street or the chamber of commerce, they could rely on donations from the Tea Party base...
So, he's complaining that it's those grass roots hicks that are driving this. I thought this Tea Party stuff was all astro-turfing. Now, I'm really confused.
I can think of 16.7 trillion reasons the Tea Party should act up and refuse to cooperate with GOP-e and eventually it will dawn on everybody else.
Has anyone ever linked Obamacare to the extreme left (besides us, of course)?
Reality to a liberal is what a chicken sandwich is to an amoeba
lol. They can’t keep their lies straight.
Me too.
Aren't these the same brain surgeons who declared the Tea Party dead 6 or 7 times in the last 3 years?
we do not want or need a third party.
third party is the road to defeat.
we need to kick out the rinos and have mccain and graham and boehner form the whiney party.
How can you secede from something you are not a part of? The TEA Party is independent and only has a voice in the Republican Party.
Of course, to the elitists, anyone standing for the Constitutional rule of law is dangerous, radical, uncompromising, ideological, perhaps even a disturbed “whacko bird”.
Nice try Chicago Sun-Times and one reason I give your telemarketing callers a flat out no for a subscription.
_________________________
The Republican party is still very predictable....you can count on them to disregard their constituents, and cave on every issue of debate. Oh yes, and call constantly wanting money.
Interesting, the media ignores that Collectivists have taken over the Dem party and have purged the moderates.
The DNC Party (and MSM media) of today are the bomb throwing Communist revolutionaries of 1968. John Kerry, Bill Ayers, et al.
Scumbag traitors.
Obamacare is a train wreck but there’s another one coming down the tracks: the $17+ trillion debt. The truth is, nobody knows what to do about this approaching monster. It will devour everything in its path. An economic calamity may be the only thing that will wake the Sheeple up. No one will escape the effects of it.
Divide and conquer; works for the fascist democrats almost all the time.
Oh yes, and call constantly wanting money.
********
Good luck with that. Who will donate to these losers? DEFUND the GOP!
Over the years, the spineless establishment Republicans have compromised us all the way past socialism to the brink of communism. There IS no room for significant compromise anymore without handing over our freedom and our property.
“We do not need a Third Party”
Exactly what is the head count of conservatives in Congress now with an R on their name? 25-30?
Maybe we should leave the R Party and start a new 2nd Party.
Talk about an article basically explaining what they truly are afraid of.
I think the count is at least 105
How can someone from the Chicago Sun-Times profess to be an expert on the Republican party when Chicago hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1931 and is today as solidly Democratic as Detroit, its role model on the road to bankruptcy?
And how can any honest journalist claim that Tea Party Conservatives are an EXTREMIST group when they constitute the majority of the leading party in the House of Representatives, which is the most REPRESENTATIVE body in the federal government?
Yeh, me too. Take advice from a Chicago Lib? Not on your life. But they are drooling in their beer that this means a split. And they are quite fearful that it might mean, instead, the Waking of the Sleeping Giant.’
He looks like he knows a few things about rumps.
I’m actually pretty excited about the idea of a “Tea Party”, but I have heard very little about any concrete concerted efforts to actually organize one at the national level.
As far as I know, the “Tea Party” is more of a movement than an organization.
If ever there was a time for the Tea Party to step up to the next level, it is now... but where does it start?... and has it already, I just havn’t heard of it?
OK What do you want advice on?
How to get your own personal page on the Southern Poverty Law Center website?
DONE!!
First one is free, your next question you will have to pay for!
Sounds like Obama to me.
God Bless America! I left Chicago long enough to go take care of my father in Texas and was able to vote for Cruz!
WooHoo!!
Bull $hit......Good Luck!!
I like the meme where Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka says:
“Please go on and on and tell me about the Bible that you've never read”
;—)
So now adhering to the Constitution is “ideologically extreme.”
Finally, a fair and balanced analysis of the current GOP! /sarc
It’s called revolution, you 50 IQ Chicago ape.
My view is that the Tea Party’s real problem is not establishment Republicans; it’s lack of leadership, money and ground troops. If we can give generously and avoid the circular firing squad, these problems will dissipate.
The Left has a savage, tribal mentality. The need a leader. They need talking points.
When I tell a Leftist that I didn't get any talking points from anyone they stare in disbelief with a flycatcher mouth and glazed eyes. It's something that they can't comprehend.
The laughable accusations that Rush Limbaugh gives Republican politicians and even citizens “marching orders” is hilarious. They really do not know how to think for themselves. They even sometimes use that very phrase in an argument whilst poll parroting some nonsense that they heard a Socialist/Democrat politician (or worse Bill Maher) say in a grand mal of utter irony.
We Conservatives, for the most part, get information from people and decide to agree or not agree.
HA! They say the Tea Party won’t comprimise! What about their master, Obama? That SOB had straight up kicked out the idea of any comprimise 2 times within this last week.
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