By: Richard Andrew
Unless the GOP can distinguish who their real enemy is they just might be on the road to finishing off what is left of the Grand Ol’ Party. Obamacare has brought about evidence that the Republican Party is being torn apart by the monster they’ve created. We’re talking about the Tea Party.
Charles Krauthammer, a Washington Post columnist, wrote: “[the] battle is about defunding Obamacare. Led by Sens. Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, the GOP insurgents are threatening to shut down the government on Oct. 1 if the stopgap funding bill contains money for Obamacare. The president will never sign a bill defunding the singular achievement of his presidency. Especially when he has control of the Senate. President Obama so knows he’ll win any shutdown showdown that he’s practically goading the Republicans into trying.“
Krauthammer, and many more of his conservative colleagues, know that pushing the government into another shutdown could be the Party’s last hurrah. Republicans may be deaf to the voices of the majority but they are not completely stupid. The GOP’s House Speaker, John Boehner and GOP majority membership have finally shown they have learned something from the last time they tried a shutdown.
In an article by Steve Benen for MaddowBlog, The Senate Conservatives Fund launched this radio ad against Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) for, as the far-right group put it, failing to “stand up to President Obama and join conservatives in pledging to oppose funding for the implementation of Obamacare.” Flake was against a government shutdown. So, the Senate Conservative Fund has begun a campaign with ads attacking Flake and six of his fellow Republicans, in GOP primaries.
It sounds like Tea Party Republicans, like Ted Cruz, along with well funded far-right “fringe” groups, are eating their young. They are even rallying against their own House Speaker Boehner. Steve Benen continues, “At the same time, Tea Party activists have scheduled a rally at House Speaker John Boehner’s Ohio office for (Aug.27th), insisting that unless the Republican leader agrees to use the upcoming budget fight to further undermine the federal health care system, they’ll start using the word ‘BoehnerCare’ instead of ‘ObamaCare.’” As of last week, Boehner signaled he has no intention of following the government-shutdown plan.
How do the voters feel about going after Obamcare and possibly shutting down the country in the wake of the fight to defund it? Ruy Teixeira, blogger for ThinkProgress reported that, “Seventy-one percent of voters express unfavorable feelings toward “‘a Republican who, as an elected official, refuses to help individuals and small businesses understand how best to deal with Obamacare and take advantage of its benefits.”….Two-thirds of all voters (including 60% of undecided voters) have an unfavorable impression of “a Republican who repeatedly voted to cut the funding needed to effectively implement the law, and refuses to provide information to employers and individuals about it.’”
Some Republicans believe the polls. There are many Republicans trying to stop this insane movement by the Tea Party to destroy Obamacare by defunding it. These fringe “crazies” are living in their self-proclaimed isolationism because they don’t want to hear what voters really want. They are going down a road of self-destruction that will take the entire GOP with them. Unless the Republican Party polices itself of their fanatic fringe and elects a House Speaker that can stand up to these political madmen in his/her party, they will not survive this midterm election, let alone 2016.
Richard Andrew is a guest blogger for Ring of Fire.
