Krusty the Clown: "Smart lads who slip at times away/ From fields where glory will not stay/ Runners whom the race outran/ And the name died before the man."
Reporter: Krusty, does this have a point?
Krusty the Clown: Yes. I'm quitting show business. I was just trying to go out... with a little class, you jackass.
Reporter: But, Krusty, why now? Why not 20 years ago?
Krusty the Clown: 'Cause comedy ain't funny anymore...
Apparently neither is Conservatism, because its Clown Prince has finally decided to walk away from the party which he had pronounced "clean" --
From Mr. David Brooks in The New York Times:
The G.O.P. Rejects Conservatism
Yes, now that Left has been proven beyond all doubt to have been right about the Right all along -- now that toxic myth of Sane Conservatism on which David Brooks has spent his entire career supping like a tick on a hound-dog has finally blowed up real good -- Mr. Brooks has finally had to go into the deepest vault of all to retrieve the oldest Conservative lie of all. The lie that the inimitable Digby crystallized for us long ago, when the world was young and all blogs had comment sections:
Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed.
Yes in his June 27, 2017 column filed from (this is perfection itself) the Aspen Ideas Festival, Mr. Brooks has filed the requisite paperwork to divorce himself and his fellow band of Imaginary Conservative Intellectuals who labor tirelessly upon distant mountaintops to humanely solve humanities most vexing problems --
Over the past several years many plans have emerged from the various right-leaning thinking tanks that imagine consumer-driven health care that also has universal or near universal coverage.
These plans, from places like the American Enterprise Institute, use tax credits or pre-funded health savings accounts or some other method to give middle- and working-class people coverage, while reducing regulations and improving incentives throughout the system.
-- from the scrofulous, demented members of a group calling itself "The Republican Party" --
Republican politicians could have picked up one of these plans when they set out to repeal Obamacare. They could have created a better system that did not punish the poor. But there are two crucial differences between the conservative policy johnnies and Republican politicians.
-- whose existence has apparently gone completely undiscovered by Mr. Brooks until very recently:
Because Republicans have no governing vision, they can’t argue for their plans. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price came to the Aspen Ideas Festival to make the case for the G.O.P. approach. It’s not that he had bad arguments; he had no arguments, no vision for the sort of health care system these bills would usher in. He filled his time by rising to a level of vapid generality that was utterly detached from the choices in the actual legislation.
Because Republicans have no national vision, they seem largely uninterested in the actual effects their legislation would have on the country at large. This Senate bill would be completely unworkable because anybody with half a brain would get insurance only when they got sick.
But of course this is silly. The Republican Party has a very clear and all-encompassing governing vision. True, it is an utterly horrifying and barbaric vision, but there is nothing mysterious or surprising about it, and for decades the goals and methods of the Republican Party have been perfectly obvious to anyone who has been paying honest attention.
The lies, casual treason and policy disasters we see unspooling in every direction are not mistakaes -- they are the GOP's apotheosis, and the triumvirate of Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and President Stupid are not the GOP's freaks and outliers, but their Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
And has been true in the wake of every Republican catastrophe in recent memory, David Brooks can once again be found slinking away from the wreckage and claiming that he and his merry band of Imaginary Conservative Intellectuals had nothing to do with it.
Behold, a Tip Jar!
7 comments:
It’s not that he [Health & Human Services Secy Tom Price] had bad arguments; he had no arguments, no vision for the sort of health care system these bills would usher in. He filled his time by rising to a level of vapid generality that was utterly detached from the choices in the actual legislation.
Because Republicans have no national vision, they seem largely uninterested in the actual effects their legislation would have on the country at large.
And this is different from how Republicans have refused to govern for at least the past 8+ years (and, really, longer)??
We've all said dozens of times. During the 7 years post ACA, Republican politicians wasted infinite time and money endlessly voting to repeal ACA (I forget how many times these parasitical whores voted on this, but it was a lot), but they never, EVER had anything to replace it with.
I don't know about these rightwing "think" tank policies that DFB refers to in his screed, but if these exist at all, it's questionable how workable or "good" they would be. That said, it's clear that the Republicans in Wash DC couldn't be bothered to read them, much less use them as drafts. Why? Who knows and who cares.
But DFB knows for d*mn sure that these sh*tty monsters never had a plan because they can't be bothered to have one until they absolutely are FORCED to get offa their lazy azzes and produce something. Something that everyone knows d*mn good and well will be absolutely horrific for the poorz, the minoritiez, the wimminz, the oldz and the disabledz.
But the wealthier Republicans can shrug their collective entitled shoulders and go: What? Me worry? Tax Cut! Woot!
DFB knows this good and proper, but he's a highly compensated whore for the 1%, so he repeats his crapulous bs ad nauseum.
OK, once more with feeling: The Republicans don't have an alternative plan to the ACA because the ACA IS THAT PLAN. Thought up by Heritage in the '90s as a response to the wicked Hillary, implemented in Massachusetts by Romney, and passed in 2010 by the Democrats as the only available political option.
Like Krugman has said so many times, it's the ACA's three legged stool of mandates, subsidies, and insurance coverage requirements, or it's single payer, or it's a bunch of people don't get healthcare.
They are just trying to do damage control on the public admission that they favor that third option and always have, and DFB for some reason doesn't want to be seen swallowing it in public?
I smell a massive scamper being prepared for that we really shouldn't let them get away with this time.
-Doug in Oakland
Good morning, Mr. Glass.
About those Republicans who are totally divorced from conservatism: who elected them? Centrists? Liberals? It can't be conservatives, because those are the rational people who totes have a national vision and stuff.
Personally, I blame Liechtenstein. But then, I blame Liechtenstein for everything.
Be seeing you.
@dinthebeast:
OK, once more with feeling: The Republicans don't have an alternative plan to the ACA because the ACA IS THAT PLAN. Thought up by Heritage in the '90s as a response to the wicked Hillary...
...No.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2013/12/the-aca-v-the-heritage-plan-a-comparison-in-chart-form
I realize that this is a common belief on the left but it's really not accurate. The only thing the ACA and the Heritage plan had in common was an individual mandate, and that wasn't exactly a novel idea. And crediting it to Romney is especially absurd given that he repeatedly tried to veto the plan in Massachusetts and it only passed via supermajority in the state legislature. I realize that there's a strong belief on the left that the ACA is a conservative plan and they only oppose it because Obama, but that's just not accurate.
That's DFB's column for next week.
Brooks touts "plans ... from the various right-leaning thinking tanks that imagine consumer-driven health care." Those plans' actual purpose -- which Brooks helped obscure then and now -- was to delay or prevent anything from being enacted. For the financiers of the think tanks, it was the tobacco industry strategy. (See Michaels, "Doubt is Their Product")
I seem to remember that Ryan/McConnell et al. being rather explicit about their governing vision that would lead to such things as the Senate healthcare bill.
Hell, since 2009 several Republican controlled States have been passing these Randiate "market driven" legislative Fuck Yous for over a decade now...and they are all poorer, dumber, and bleeding skilled workforce.
Brooks, you won. You're getting exactly want you have been asking for. Why do you hate your creation now that your party has reached a point when children have to die to get the most recent "market driven solutions" enacted?
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