On This Day in 2008 -- The Past Is Never Dead. It’s Not Even Past.

That post headline?  That's a quote by William Faulkner, from his 1951 novel "Requiem for a Nun".  Seemed appropriate since today's birthday fundraiser trip down memory lane is from this very day, October 29, in the Year of Our Lord 2008.

On this day 15 years ago. the Age of Obama had not yet begun.  The presidential election was still six days away.  Donald Trump wasn't even a speck on the Republican horizon.

And yet what was I writing about on this blog on that day? 

Litmus tests and the fracturing of the GOP over its embrace of a lunatic.

Republican preparations to declare the upcoming election "rigged" if they lost.  Rigged at the hands of a shadowy organization called ACORN.

The elevation of boot-licking fealty to the Lords of Flag and Bible as the cardinal Republican virtue.

The specter of government shutdowns and relentless Republican obstruction used as tactical weapons.

And after they ground the government to a halt, Republicans scuttling over to the Sunday Shows where they would tearfully blame Democrats, and the complicit media would gobble it up like the last slice of birthday cake.

This is what many of us saw leering over the horizon in 2008, before a single vote was cast for the Kenyan Usurper.

So the next time you hear a Never Trumper bleating about how no one could have predicted that the Republican party could ever end up in such a dark place, send 'em around here to have a chat with me.

Now, from exactly 15 years ago,  I bring you, "Understanding the Right #3.  For the record, this was the third is a multi-part series I ran back then in understanding the Right.  If you're interested, Part #1 is here.

Understanding the Right #3    

[ORIGINAL VIDEO NO LONGER AVAILABLE]

Omertà.

A rule or code that prohibits speaking or divulging information about certain activities, especially the activities of a criminal organization.

For those who have only lately found a seat at the American political circus, let me assure you that this is nothing new:

GOP Draws Internal Battle Lines Around Sarah Palin
Jason Linkins
October 27, 2008 04:19 PM

With the GOP looking more and more set to fracture as the possibility of electoral defeat looms, the cannibals' knives are out. Consider this quote, via Yglesias:

Jim Nuzzo, a White House aide to the first President Bush, dismissed Mrs Palin's critics as "cocktail party conservatives" who "give aid and comfort to the enemy".

He told The Sunday Telegraph: "There's going to be a bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated. David Brooks and David Frum and Peggy Noonan are dead people in the Republican Party. The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?"

Hold it now. They're serious about going all in with the Palin loyalty test? Uhm...apparently so! Nuzzo adds:

He said: "Win or lose, there is a ready made conservative candidate waiting in the wings. Sarah Palin is not the new Iain Duncan Smith, she is the new Ronald Reagan."

Yowee. So, for the sake of Sarah Palin -- who many conservatives correctly assessed as the candidate-born-yesterday -- a whole slew of Republicans-in-good-standing are going to be thrown under the bus? That's a serious civil war, or rather, a war betwixt the Serious and the Un-Serious. Keep in mind that Palin's critics are not marginal figures in the conservative movement. We're talking the aforementioned Brooks and Noonan and Frum, and we're adding Christopher Buckley, George Will, Kathleen Parker, Colin Powell, Charles Krauthammer, Matthew Dowd, and for the sake of argument, we'll throw in Chuck Hagel, Andrew Sullivan, and Christopher Hitchens, even though I hesitate to pin any of them to any sort of doctrinaire conservative group.

This is, indeed, a "bloodbath," and for what? A distinctly semi-pro Alaskan governor who's more or less made the charisma-free Tim Pawlenty look like What Could Have Been?
…

Since the very beginning, the lords and ladies of the Pig People at the top of the Money Party pyramid have recognized one and only one cardinal value.

Loyalty.

Unswerving, dog-obedient loyalty.

It is the only coin of their realm.

Bankrupt an entire country? Shit happens.

Hijack flag and Bible to sleaze your way into power? High fives all around.

Lie America into a disastrous war? Wev.

But publicly show anything less than boot-licking fealty to the Lords of Flag and Bible…

                           [ORIGINAL VIDEO NO LONGER AVAILABLE]

Remember that Oliver North is a traitor, liar and war criminal, but he defended the Don, and was paid off with sweet gigs at the Fox News Plantation.

That G. Gordon Liddy is a thug, convicted felon, hardcore fascist and domestic terrorist who has been well-rewarded and befriended by Party elders and financiers.

That Bush 41 himself did not precipitate out of thin air, but instead stayed more fiercely loyal to Richard Nixon for longer than just about anyone else in the Republican Establishment.

...
After a second unsuccessful bid for the Senate in 1970, Bush served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (1971–72) and in 1972 was named chairman of the Republican National Committee by President Richard M. Nixon. He traveled the country for 20 months defending Nixon and the GOP against the widening Watergate scandal, which brought the president close to impeachment. Staunchly loyal almost to the end, Bush urged Nixon to step down on Aug. 7, 1974.
…

And for his sins?

Envoy to China

Gerald Ford, Nixon's successor, appointed Bush to be Chief of the US Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China. Since the United States at the time maintained official relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan and not the People's Republic of China, the Liaison Office did not have the official status of an embassy and Bush did not formally hold the position of "ambassador", though he unofficially acted as one. The time that he spent in China—14 months—were seen as largely beneficial for US-Chinese relations.

Director of Central Intelligence

In 1976, Ford brought Bush back to Washington to become Director of Central Intelligence. He served in this role for 355 days, from January 30, 1976 to January 20, 1977.

The loyalty litmus test is why GOP Brain Caste has stopped worrying about this election. Instead, they’re making up their “Naughty” and “Nice” lists, sharpening their blades for a Night of the Long Knives, and stacking the deck for the next election. Spinning a tangle of lies around ACORN and building the narrative that 2008 was stolen by dirty Liberals and their scary Negro henchmen.

The irreplaceable Billmon has it all here:

With the prospect of a bone-crushing election defeat staring them full in the face, the diehard rump of the conservative movement is already busy fashioning a narrative to explain the dissolution of its world -- the one that Ronald Reagan built and that George W. Bush (with an assist from Wall Street) has thoroughly trashed.

And the emerging story line appears to be, roughly, that ACORN did it.

Given the underlying proclivities of the modern conservative movement (Sarah Palin division) we should have understood that sooner or later it would come to something as absurd as this. Failed authoritarian movements needs scapegoats the way fecal coliform bacteria need a steady supply of raw sewage, and this one has a lot of failures that need explaining.

The remarkable thing, of course, is the right's effort to make the ACORN boogie man do double duty: responsible not only for the looming "theft" of American democracy (per John McCain) but also for bringing the US and global financial system to its knees (per any number of conservative quacks economists and cranks pundits).

You have to admit: That's a damned impressive revolutionary track record for an obscure group of community organizers operating on a shoestring budget. I mean, who needs the Red Army when you've got ACORN and the Community Reinvestment Act?

It would be easy to dismiss this lunacy as a manifestation of what the social scientist Richard Hofstader called the "paranoid style" in American politics. And some liberals have already made the connection. As far as the grassroots hysterics are concerned(i.e. the sort of people who are obsessed with the kerning and font size on Barack Obama's "alleged" birth certificate) this is no doubt true.

But I think by now it's also very clear that the GOP high commmand -- as far back as the Twin Cities white power rally, if not before -- deliberately adopted the demonization of ACORN/community organizers/the poor as a proxy for the hatred that no longer dares to speak its real name (except at the occasional Sarah Palin rally).
…

And with the Right’s “Loyalty Uber Alles” centrifuge now kicking in the afterburners, if you think that the last eight years were twisted, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. Because with another Aggrieved White Conservative myth bolted into place, the entire Hatespeech Establishment will be thrown into high gear, ranting to the Pig People 24/7 that Barack Hussein Obama isn’t really the legitimate President.

Which means the 1990s all over again, on Hulk/gamma/radioactive-spider/mutant juice.

You think one government shutdown was fun? Try one a week.

Hell, Newt Gingrich was loudly lobbying for a shut down over oil drilling as recently as two months ago --

Gingrich Threatens Government Shutdown

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich "indicates his party is seriously considering another shutdown threat to force a vote on offshore oil drilling in September," CNN reports.

"The precise maneuvering of a shutdown threat is complicated, but it revolves around the fact that key government spending bills expire when the fiscal year ends September 30 and Congress must vote next month to keep the government operating."

Said Gingrich: "Are [Democrats] really prepared to close the government in order to stop drilling? Because I think the country will find that to be a suicidal strategy."

-- and rather than stuffing a rag in his mouth and packing this vicious, little ratfucker off to internal exile, the wingnuts proudly trot out their Party’s Elder Hatesman every time a network news camera flickers to life.

In the year to come, Monday through Friday expect the Republican Party to filibuster every single bill that comes to a vote that doesn’t funnel tax money to billionaires, after which they'll sprint to the MSM Saturday and Sunday to whine about the “do nothing” Congress and the failed Obama Administration.

While the desperate Shills of Fake Centrism like Cokie Roberts, Tom Friedman, David Broder and David Fucking Brooks run frantically in panicked circles begging Liberals to please, please, pretty please bend over and say “Thank you, Rush, may I have another!”

And why?

Because they sold their souls to the Big Media Store years ago, and know if they don't loyally hit their marks and deliver their Quisling lines, this is what will be waiting for them --

[ORIGINAL VIDEO NO LONGER AVAILABLE BUT I'M PRETTY SURE THIS WAS IT]

 

-- when they get home.