George Will - not so useful, just an idiot.

I had time this morning to read a number of articles/posts on a broad range of topics of the day.  Much of it had to do with the the president's potential nominees for replacing Justice Kennedy who is retiring from the Supreme Court.  But the one that caught my eye was this article in the American Spectator by Emerald Robinson, The Collapse of the Never-Trump Conservatives. Probably because it meshed well with my tongue-in-cheek take on whether George Will's departure from the Republican Party. Was Will being a political genius in leaving the Republican Party in hopes of creating a split in the Democrats between moderates and progressives, thus ensuring continued Republican hegemony in the Congress and White House? Or was he just a useful idiot for either the Republicans or the Democrats?

It turns out, according to the Spectator article that he's just clueless and basically an island unto himself.  So not useful, just an idiot:

George Will, was not for surrender or appeasement. He had finally found an enemy to relish: his fellow conservatives. One measure of Will’s self-exile was the indifference his most recent column elicited, though it urged Republicans to vote against the GOP at the midterms “for their own good.” Was anyone still listening? It was Will who sagely warned the world mere days before the election: “Until the Republican Party gets right with minorities in this country, it’s never going to win another presidential election.” Not content with that spectacular blunder, Will had doubled down with attacks on Billy Graham and Vice President Mike Pence. The symbolism of such stunts, at least, was clear. As a model conservative, Will stands alone in his own estimation. And what could be more conservative than voting for liberal Democrats?

In that sense, Will’s latest column was merely the fitting coda to a long career of effete snobbery — one that had led him to “leave the party” before it won the White House and march off into the wilderness.

That's called hitting the nail on the head.

George Will, useful idiot or political genius?

George Will, perennial NeverTrumper, might be a useful idiot. Or... he might be a political genius set to doom Democrats to non-contender status for decades. American Greatness surmised this of the NeverTrumpers:

...That leaves NeverTrump Republicans with a set of very painful choices. They cannot retake their party without accommodating the views of voters who they so far have denounced from their pulpits. But they are not strong enough to beat the pro-Trump coalition on their own, nor are they numerous enough to win with a new party, as Juleanna Glover suggested in the New York Times earlier this year. To win without Trump backers, they would need either permanently to join the Democrats, strengthening the moderate Left in their perennial battle with progressives for party control, or join independents and dissident center-left Democrats to form a new, aggressively centrist third party. Either course would require compromise on issues that many have championed for the majority of their adult lives.

The American Greatness essay argues Trump supporters need these people to win. Currently, perhaps yes. But a third party of centrists who need to fight a two front war with both progressives and Populist Republicans will eat away from Democrat support far more than it does from Republicans. For a demonstration, see Canada. Instead of needing 50%+1 support to win a state, 40% becomes pretty safe. For president at least that's true. 

 The Senate and Congress are another story.  In some districts that are far left the remnant Democrat would not be a serious contender and vice versa.  But it's hard to see a close Republican/Democrat district having a third party not help the Republican candidate.  The real danger is a potential coalition in Congress having the seats to override a Republican seat plurality.  That might come down to the Republicans having to run stronger candidates and with the Republican Establishment believing that means RINOs, perhaps a Republican civil war could follow resulting in 4 parties, not 3.  At that point it becomes a crap shoot as to who wins seats.  And there's always the possibility that the Democrats would (erroneously) be seen as the centrist party and take enough voters from both the Republicans and socialists to become a dominant party.  Just like in Canada they would then ally with the socialists and conservatives could end up in the wilderness for decades.

Back to George Will.  He's left the GOP.  Really; it happened when no Republicans were bothering to care anymore.  Now if he's just an anti-Trump #NeverTrumper then he's effectively a useful idiot for the Democrats.  That's especially true if he believes there's no potential split on the Democrat side.  But if he believes that the Democrats might break apart into socialists and center-left Democrats, then he's either a useful idiot for Republicans, or a political genius trying to ferment a Democrat split by looking for fellow 'moderates' to form a centrist party, thereby splitting up the Not Trump vote and effectively ensuring that Trump not only wins a second term but is benefited by midterm results as well.

While I'd like to think that George Will is the latter political genius, evidence has me sticking with the useful idiot theory.  My hope is that he is either wildly successful as a useful idiot for the GOP, but my expectation is that he just goes away, or ends up on CNN, which is basically the same thing.

I blew it on the shutdown

That's me.

Yesterday I said the government would not get shut down.  I blew it.  A little.  It wasn't my main point - my main point was that the underpinnings of the government ride were susceptible to a major catastrophe like a ride collapsing.  But still, I said the government would not get shut down.  Apparently I misunderestimated the stupidity of the governing parties.  Or at least the GOP.

 

That's the GOP.

Having said that, I don't know how long the shutdown will last.  A one or two day shutdown will be long forgotten by the next election and it might be enough for the GOP to have thrown a scare into Democrats about the fact that they are serious about dealing with debt and/or Obamacare.  But there is the possibility that the Tea Party portion of the GOP could see this play out until something gets done.  Perhaps by not blinking, for a long, long time - they will get Democrats to buckle.  after all, if the president and the majority in the Senate can't get Congress to smarten up, maybe their supporters will wonder what good they really are.  Maybe their supporters will demand that they make concessions to get the government up and running again.  After all, the when the trough gets shut off, they are the ones who lose out.
 





That's the president.

Addendum: Prior to the shutdown President Obama followed the Harkin unuseful idiot approach by talking about serious talks, and in the same breath lambasting his political opponents.  He continued the attacks after the shutdown. 

"They've shut down the government over an ideological crusade to deny affordable health insurance to millions of Americans," he said during his speech in the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday.

That's sure to bring them to the table Mr. President.  Insults work best when you are trying to work together.
 

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Tom Harkin, unuseful idiot

Contests can't declare themselves impartial observers Tom Harkin.

Tom Harkin, in speaking about how the United States congress is looking more and more like a pre-civil war America ratchets up the hate speech.  In an alarming lack of understanding of his own hypocrisy, he blasts Ted Cruz and the Tea Party for causing such angry partisanship and acrimony - by insulting them.

On the Senate floor before 10 a.m. Friday, the senator gave a speech describing how American politics have reached the level at which "a small group of willful men and women who have a certain ideology"—read: the tea party and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas—have been able to take over the congressional budget debate in the last week. "Since they can't get their way," Harkin said, "they're going to create this confusion and discourse and hope that the public will be so mixed up in who is to blame for this, that they'll blame both sides."

This isn't just congressional business as usual, Harkin said. It's much, much more dire:

It's dangerous. It's very dangerous. I believe, Mr. President, we are at one of the most dangerous points in our history right now. Every bit as dangerous as the break-up of the Union before the Civil War.

This isn't the first time the senator has spoken out about the spiraling budget and the fight over Obamacare. Harkin suggested Thursday that Cruz looked "foolish" for his "little tirade" that lasted from Tuesday afternoon until Wednesday morning. Harkin called out Cruz as being part of "the most extreme tea-party wing" of his party, and for his "ideology-driven obstructionism."

That's really helpful Senator. Thanks for that - way to throw gasoline on a brush fire.

 

I titled my post "Tom Harkin, unuseful idiot". I have always argued that name calling adds exactly zero to debates. In case you missed it, the title is intended to be ironic.

 

Tom Harkin will not read that and think, "Gee, you know what, I am being an unuseful idiot and I should change my tone to a more civil one if I want to change the minds of my political adversaries. If I really want to promote civility in politics and ratchet down the hyper-partisanship, I probably shouldn't resort to name calling."

Then again, Tom Harkin is actually as much a part of the problem of hyper-partisanship as anyone in the Senate, if not more.  So I wouldn't expect him to read more civil critique of his actions and change his mind either.