The Demoralizing of the GOP (and America)
Peter Spiliakos
10 hrs ago The Republican party is morally sick. Some of the GOP’s vices are pervasive within our political culture, and some are particular to the party itself. In his article for The Atlantic, George Packer got the diagnosis impressively — indeed perfectly — wrong.
Packer writes that the Republican party isn’t a “coalition of interests in search of a majority†but is “ideological in character.†The GOP’s institutional and ideological corruption is supposedly rooted in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 insurgency against the party’s establishment, and “movement†conservatism’s general hostility to established journalistic, academic, and political elites.
Some of Packer’s charges are standard partisan mewling that one would expect from a Democratic consultant. When the Senate’s blocking of a presidential court appointment counts as “taking away democratic rights,†you know the author has lost either his perspective or his integrity. Somebody should tell Packer about Joe Biden’s extensive history of killing court appointments by blocking hearings and votes. No doubt Packer’s love of democratic rights will be terribly outraged.
Packer might respond that blocking one Supreme Court nominee is much worse than blocking a slew of lower-court nominations. And it is worse . . . for liberal partisans — but only because they lost. Most of Packer’s indictment is the kind of self-serving griping one might get from Hillary Clinton after giving her a six-figure speaking fee and a couple of bottles of wine.
<..snip..>
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-demoralizing-of-the-gop-and-america/ar-BBSdWJt?ocid=ientp
