The Reality Is That There Is No Difference Between repugican and tea party Candidates

One would be hard-pressed to find any difference whatsoever between repugicans and their teabagger cohort except their willingness to openly state their goals.…

In order to understand their surroundings, human beings depend on their brain’s ability to organize, identify, and interpret a barrage of sensory information that allows them to perceive, among other things, a potential threat. There has been a gross misperception among a large number of people who observe American politics that the greatest threat to this country, and more specifically its democracy, is the rise of extremists in the conservative movement. As a rule, the first extremist group that comes to most people’s mind is the Koch brothers’ tea party movement that they errantly bifurcate from establishment repugicans and it is curious how in dog’s name they make any distinction between the two. Apparently, it is fashionable to delineate two identical threats to America and its people and it is an error that establishment repugicans use to their advantage.

The recent defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor by a libertarian college professor due to wild support from teabaggers was supposedly a “sign” that the tea party was still relevant in American politics. Then on Tuesday, when an establishment repugican Senator defeated a teabagger challenger in Mississippi and another handily won in an Oklahoma congressional race over a Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz-endorsed teabagger, there was celebration that the lunatic fringe candidates lost. The insinuation is that there was a difference between the establishment candidates and teabagger challengers when the stark reality is that they are one-in-the-same in their vision for America and devotion to a brand of libertarianism with no use for the federal government; except possibly as a vehicle to issue biblical edicts as the law of the land.

One would be hard-pressed to find any difference whatsoever between repugicans and their teabagger cohort except their willingness to openly state their goals. It is true that establishment repugicans tend to keep their anti-government sentiments concealed, and temper their hatred for the poor, women, and gays with carefully censored remarks. But make no mistake, they hate those groups as much as they hate taxes, regulations, and President Obama that both groups openly express as racists and libertarians. About the only difference between lunatic fringe and establishment repugicans is the establishment fully understands it still needs the federal government machine to give taxpayer dollars to the rich, corporations, and Wall Street; otherwise, neither group has any use for the federal government.

Last October when House repugicans shutdown the government and refused to raise the debt limit, the majority of the blame was leveled at teabaggers even though so-called establishment repukicans gladly joined their lunatic fringe brethren and voted in concert (all but 9 repugicans voted for the shutdown) to shutdown the government. Further, when it came time to end the shutdown and raise the debt limit, 144 “repugicans” voted to keep the government closed and default on the nation’s debt. In both cases, there was no difference between lunatic fringe and establishment repugicans because their agenda was identical; neutering the federal government. The repugicans, especially establishment types, knew that the Senate would not acquiesce and defund the Affordable Care Act, and it was left for Speaker John Boehner to plead for assistance from Democrats to do the right thing by the American people; something neither establishment nor lunatic fringe repugicans have any interest in doing.

What both lunatic fringe and establishment repugicans have an inordinate interest in is cutting all funding for social programs, ending regulations, and eliminating taxation. A couple of weeks ago a teabagger was giddy at the prospect of repugicans gaining a majority in the Senate because then “food stamps, minimum wage, Planned Parenthood, taxes, Medicare, women’s and gay rights, and education funding are going to be abolished.” The idea of eliminating those programs are not exclusive to the lunatic fringe in the wingnut movement and it is a mistake to think otherwise. In fact, any program administered by the federal government has been targeted by mainstream repugicans for ultimate elimination and if anyone thinks otherwise they only have to peruse the budget proposals from the repugican wingnut coven and to a lesser extent Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity budget.

The truth is the repugican cabal has always been as much of the lunatic fringe as the tea party when it comes to taxation, federal regulations of any kind, as well as funding social programs; particularly since Americans elected an African American as President. One often reads that repugicans likely rued the day they embraced the Koch brothers’ teabagger movement, but that is clearly not the case.

There is no doubt whatsoever that in the leadup to the 2010 midterms, repugicans knew exactly what teabaggers intended to accomplish when they swept into control of the House. In fact, during the debt ceiling crisis of 2011, establishment repugicans were in league with teabaggers who opposed the so-called “grand bargain” John Boehner and President Obama reached to raise the debt limit and boasted they only achieved a minor victory in Draconian social program cuts they lusted after by threatening an American credit default that they would use again to finish the job they started.

It is high time for political pundits, and indeed all Americans, to stop segregating repugicans and teabaggers and call them what they really are; lunatic fringers intent on eliminating the federal government. It doesn’t matter if it is federal social programs, federal taxes, federal regulations, or the Constitution; repugicans of all stripes will go to any lengths to abolish the federal government’s authority to provide for the general welfare of the American people. In fact, in that sense, repugicans and their teabagger cohort are libertarians; except where civil rights and religion are involved. Both groups advocate for government interference in Americans’ lives according to the demands of the religi-wingnuts, and each lunatic fringe wing hates civil rights protections for any American that is not a white male or evangelical christian.

The danger in segregating establishment and lunatic fringe repugicans is that it gives so-called 'mainstream' repugicans cover for policies and agendas that are contrary to the will of the people and result in negative polling. It is important to remember that everything teabaggers support has been deeply imbedded in the repugican cabal and the racial opposition to President Obama enabled them to openly advocate for policies they have supported since FDR’s New Deal. 'Mainstream' repugicans did not suddenly have the idea to abolish worker rights, minimum wage, Social Security, banking and Wall Street regulations, or child labor laws; they just found willing partners in the tea party to openly oppose those federal protections and would eliminate them tomorrow if they were able.

There may be “moderate” repugicans in Congress and state legislatures, but they are few and far between and for the most part are not what reasonable Americans would consider “moderate” at all. The repugicans may appear moderate to garner electoral support during election years, but when it comes time to cast their votes, they are as lunatic fringe as the teabaggers and it is time to call the entire repugican cabal what it really is; an anti-American and anti-government lunatic fringe sect.