When AC (Adorable Child) was in kindergarten, she met children who would throw themselves to the ground, kick and scream, and demonstrate an infantile version of “going postal”. Chairs would be thrown, food would spatter… and absolutely nothing rational could be said. (Luckily, AC didn’t do this…)
The reaction from the hard right “conservative base” to Bush’s speech last night reminds me of those days; it’s just not as cute. (I kid you not, there is some astounding hysteria out there.)
Polimom originally planned to do a round-up of the foaming and frothing, but since I’ve decided that two broken parties are actually worse than the one we’ve had for a while, I think it’s more productive to take some time to notice the conservatives who were able to turn off the noise machines and give Bush’s speech the attention it deserved last night.
For instance, along with a great round-up of some of the hysteria, I found this at Flopping Aces:
Bush is offering a common sense approach to this problem but some on the right are going to stamp their feet until they get what they want, damn the consequences.
Have I agreed with his take on this issue, no. But I will not jump in with both feet and help destroy everything he has done and will do in the next few years because I don’t get my way. There is no such thing as a President who pleases all sides on every issue.
And from Decision ’08 comes this:
I missed the live coverage, but I’ve read the content, and I must say I the President’s immigration speech hit just about every note I wanted to hear. He talked about concrete steps to stop the flow of illegal immigration, but stopped short of being draconian; he talked of needed steps to end ‘catch and release’; he talked of the welcoming spirit we must have for immigrants who play by the rules; and he resisted calls to round up 11 million people and drag ‘em away in front of the whole world (and for those who support the mass deportation of all existing illegals, I don’t think you’ve seriously considered the images – it would be brutal).
Of course, Polimom finds these folks rational because I agree with most of what Bush said last night; my biggest sticking point comes with this “English only” oddness. (A prior post on that here.) Yes, many folks have at least one point of departure from what Bush said last night, but attacks and dropping ethnic slurs are… well… a bit juvenile.
There’s a lot written this morning about how “the base” is “upset”, but Polimom couldn’t find anyone who said it better than The Anchoress does here [her emphasis]:
Here is a Newsflash, Mr. Base: The President of the United States is not merely President of the Base, but of the whole country. When a president is elected, his job is not then to “do the bidding of the base” or face their wrath. I daresay you would be horrified to see a Democrat president listening only to “the base.” I respectfully suggest that when a president is elected, it does not translate into “the base gets to decide policy for the nation.” I further suggest that a president who has managed to give you 70% or so of what you, “the base” wanted has earned both his say and a calm, rational, NOT-hysterical perusal of what he is proposing before the lynching party goes off half-cocked.
What Bush laid out last night was a plan for cooperation and reason, and he finally spoke directly to that thinking, rational, and (usually) calm majority of Americans who have retained their compassion while recognizing that there are problems.
The folks who simply cannot let go of their bizarre irrationality — the “I want my way and I WANT IT NOW” — are marginalizing themselves, and just as those from the far left who cannot hear the word “Bush” without falling into fits and twitches have harmed the Democrats, the foaming ravers are creating a laughing-stock of the GOP.
Time to pull some weeds.
The far-right wingnuts are ranting and raving as if George W Bush owes them something for getting him elected twice. Well, he DOES owe them something, but as an employee of the United States of America, he is not beholden only to his most ardent followers but to the nation as a whole. It would be irresponsible of him, at this point, just to play to his biggest fans.
And incidentally, isn’t it curious how one’s most ardent followers become eager to throw down one’s statues and defecate on one’s portrait in the first minute after one does something out of line with the admirers’ expectations?
Great blog and good point about Bush being President of the whole country and not just his base. Of course, he no longer has much of a base. Guest worker programs are not what the base wanted to hear. They want to hear about fences and deportation.
As a member of that infamous base, allow me to agree with you. Bush does have some moderate conservatives among his general supporters.
Forester –
Mark Tapscott (at Tapscott’s Copy Desk) has written what he thinks the hard-right wing of the GOP should do. He laid out a number of items, and then said,
Given that I already think a moderate alternative is desperately needed for American politics, I found that thought intriguing. I also think that the Progressives might consider something similar, taking with them the more radical elements from the left wing of the Democrats.
So when I read your comment, I found myself wondering where a moderate Republican (like yourself) would fall in a potential disintegration/splinter-off scenario such as that put forward by Mark Tapscott.
Do you think that the GOP has enough of a moderate constituency to survive in such a scenario? Thoughts?
I’ll have to give your question some thought. I’m still a bit burned by the victory Ross Perot handed to Bill Clinton in 1992, so third parties make me pause. I wish we could move suddenly to a four- or five-party system — our politics would be in much healthier shape.
Will that happen? No — for precisely the same reason that we’re a two-party system now: the mad dash to the center. Call Bush an extreme right-winger if you like, at election time he still runs as a moderate — and so does every Democrat. Technology has enabled such skilled and ceaseless polling that candidates can tweak their positions and rhetoric with high precision, making sure they land just left or right of center while still bringing as many voters under their umbrella as possible. I believe that for the rest of American history, every election will be just as close as the last two were.
And that’s to our detriment, in that it makes us a 50/50 nation grown so accustomed to the status quo that we think it a principle to be preserved. Much as you may diagree, I don’t believe our hostility against Bush is so much over the specifics of his actions as it is about the fact that he acts at all. Consider how he contrasts with Clinton, who did basically nothing in office but wave his arms and let us all proceed. Thankfully that worked in terms of our economy (thanks to the internet’s rising business force), but it was disastrous in terms of opening us up to 9/11 (after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, our two embassy bombings in Africa, the naval ship bombing in the Middle East, you’d think our nation would have done something).
Of course, I’m the one who started this post by resisting the thought of starting a third party. I guess I’m infected by the status quo, too.
Why is it so very hard for you “rational” people to recognize the distinction between legal and illegal? It’s not just the so-called Republican “base” upset by the spectre of amnesty. Democrats and Independents are also concerned. Millions of people who pay their taxes and do not hire illegal aliens are deeply concerned, and these are not irrational racists. They are just good people who do not cheat, and they are bewildered at the arrogance of the “rational” bloggers who favor deceitful employers and illegal aliens who lie, cheat and steal to obtain competitive advantage and then demand amnesty because it is “rational.”
Who is most harmed by illegal immigration? The middle class wage earners, entry-level laborers, and small business owners who obey the laws, pay the taxes, and get screwed from both left and right by limosine liberals and country club conservatives. The big shots don’t pay for amnesty. The little people pay.
Amnesty will disenfranchise these good people by diluting the voter pool with millions of illegitimate voters, further impoverish them by taking even more of their hard-earned wages to pay for the unearned benefits of the illegals, destroy what little is left of the social compact, and render respect for the law and therefore the constitution meaningless.
Rational indeed.