Martin Longman wrote a very good article last week, Ted Cruz to Push It Real Good. It’s all about the upcoming government shutdown. To my surprise, there are actually some Republicans in the House, called the Main Street Partnership, who are pushing back publicly on the idea. They point out that it is really bad for the economy — which happens to be right. But the Ted Cruz wing of the party thinks they have to shut down the government, because the Republican base is restless. To support this idea, check out this amazing stat: “Survey data released by the Pew Research Center over the summer showed that positive views of the GOP among Republicans declined by an astonishing 18 percentage points since January.”

Longman’s claim is that the Republican Party is in a catch-22. Appealing to the base will necessarily offend everyone else. His advice, “But, as a rule, when you’re in a hole…” That’s certainly true. The problem at this point is that the GOP has made far too many promises. They are now in control of Congress. They told the whole nation that things were going to change. But of course, they haven’t. The base was hoping for a big showdown with the president. Instead, it has managed to get only two bills passed that Obama vetoed: one about the Keystone XL Pipeline and another minor bill trying to micromanage the NLRB. Not exactly exciting stuff.

But I wonder if the Republican Party could stop now even if it wanted to. As it is, I doubt that Donald Trump would be leading in the Republican presidential primary if the party had had its way. But instead, it is all the conservative media sources that have allowed him to become a big deal. This is a classic case of “live by the sword and die by the sword.” People tend to say that the Republican Party has created a monster in its base. But it isn’t the base. If the base weren’t told every day on Fox News that the country was going to hell, it would get in line with the Republican Party.

That’s the true catch-22 here. Because if the GOP doesn’t have Fox News, what does it have? My experience in talking to conservatives is that they don’t know what to think beyond, “America good!” Fox News manages to get them riled up about the most ridiculous stuff in the world. But it also keeps them focused on the thing that Republican elites care most about: tax cuts. Most conservatives I know want to see taxes raised on the rich. If it weren’t for the conservative commentators talking about this stuff, keeping taxes low on the rich would be as politically relevant as whether we should continue to fund the military.

I really don’t know where the Republican Party goes from here. My best guess is that they don’t go anywhere. Most people don’t pay enough attention to politics for it to matter. If China’s economy tanks and it takes down the rest of the world, the Republicans will probably do great in the 2016 election. It’s certainly the case that while the 2013 government shutdown was bad for the economy, it wasn’t bad for the Republicans in the election just a year later. And let’s face it: the power elite in this country know they have nothing to fear from the Democrats. Maybe their taxes will go up a tiny amount — that’s about it. At worst, having Democrats in power just means treading water until the Republicans get control and give the power elite everything it wants.

So maybe it’s not a catch-22 after all. Maybe we are all too focused on the short game. It doesn’t matter what happens to this week, or this year, or even this decade. And don’t forget: the power elite have done great under Obama. Under a Republican, they get a bigger slice of the pie, but a smaller pie. It may be that they support the Republicans just to keep the Democrats from doing anything that would hurt them.

Is it just me or do Republicans really not care at all about being anything close to correct about what they rant about? On Tuesday, Jeb Bush had an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, How I’ll Slash the Regulation Tax. He wrote, “To understand what is wrong with the regulatory culture of the US under President Obama, consider this alarming statistic: today, according to the World Bank — not exactly a right-wing think tank — the US ranks 46th in the world in terms of ease of starting a business.”

As a long time micro-businessman, let me respond: what a crock! The regulatory problems with running a business are all about state and local laws. I’m particularly annoyed by inventory taxes here in California. They really should be set up so that, for example, computer refurbishers can keep a small amount of hardware around without having to keep track of it for tax purposes. For people like me, this isn’t about the money — which is negligible — but about the hassle of it. There are other things too, like the fact that you can hardly move a block without the sales tax rate changing. There is much else, but none of it has to do with the federal government — much less President Obama.

I’m not surprised that Bush doesn’t know about this kind of thing. The way business works at the bottom rungs of the economy really is hidden from the likes of Bush and Trump. There are millions of little businesses around the US and they don’t have much to do with the way that business is taught in school or practiced in the Fortune 500 companies. It’s a hell of a lot more like Bob’s Burgers. Maybe Bush should spend some time watching that show — he might learn a thing or two.

But it turns out that Jeb Bush was just being deceptive. If you look at the actual World Bank rankings, you will find the following table. You will have to click on it to read it. But what it shows is the top ten countries where it is easiest to do business. There are ten factors listed that go into this. The overall ranking of the US is 7th. All Bush did was find the subcategories where the US did the worst and talk about that. It’s just despicable behavior.

Kevin Drum did a bit of a deep dive into the subject and he noted a few things. For really large economies, the World Bank just looked at two cities. In the case of the US: New York City and Los Angeles. They aren’t exactly representative, but okay — that’s good to know. But then Drum compared the US versus New Zealand, which ranks first on “stating a business.” It turns out that in New Zealand you can start a business in a half of a day, but it takes four days in the US. This isn’t actually starting a business, of course, “It’s solely about registering a new business.” In other words, the most trivial part of starting a new business.

But I thought that Drum’s conclusion was particularly important, “As for the outrageous regulations he promises to repeal on Day One, this would mostly just benefit big campaign donors, not the yeoman entrepreneurs he claims to be sticking up for.” Of course! Because Jeb Bush isn’t interested in people starting new businesses; he’s interested in allowing profitable existing businesses to make even more money. There’s a name for what Bush promises: crony capitalism.

According to The New York Times, John Boehner Will Resign From Congress. The weird thing is that when I first heard it, I though, “Oh, no!” And that just shows how crazy things have gotten with the Republicans. In the first sentence of the Times article, it mentions that Boehner is “under intense pressure from conservatives in his party.” From conservatives?! Because here’s the thing: Boehner is as conservative as it gets. He came to power during the whole Newt Gingrich takeover of the House. He was one of the architects of the ridiculous focus-grouped “Contract with America.” You don’t get more conservative than John Boehner.

But you do get more stupid. You do get more infantile. You do get more useless. And over half of the Republicans in the House certainly fall into those categories. I’ve mentioned it a lot, but it always bears repeating: the difference between the “extreme” and “moderate” Republican is almost exclusively rhetoric. I just wrote about this, The Postmodern Theory That Marco Rubio Will Appeal to Latinos: the ultimate symbol of Republican “moderation,” claims we have to wait at least a decade before we even talk about normalizing the more than ten million undocumented residents.

Right before the announcement, Jonathan Bernstein wrote, Stop the Shutdown Before It Starts. His argument was simple: the shutdown will fail and the Republicans will be harmed. All the hard-line, Ted Cruz types will claim that Obama was just about to blink, and blame Boehner (and McConnell) for finally okaying a deal. So since Boehner would be blamed regardless, he ought to take the blame now and stop the shutdown. Why? Because it is his job to protect his caucus. Now, according to The Washington Post, “House Republicans said there was agreement to pass a clean spending bill to keep the government open.”

According to Ezra Klein, Boehner was facing “House conservatives [who] want to use an unusual parliamentary maneuver to launch a coup against [him].” And that was far more likely, regardless of how this went down. Again: a lot of House Republicans are infantile — they think if they just hold their breath long enough, they will get all the toys they’ve demanded. And you have to believe that managing these people is a total drag. After all, what the loons want is the same thing that Boehner wants. But they won’t even let him take a course that will move them in that direction. In a recent interview, Boehner claimed that he didn’t mind the job in a way that clearly indicated that he did, “Garbage men get used to the smell of bad garbage. Prisoners learn how to become prisoners, all right?”

Then, after Macro Rubio announced to the Values Voter Summit that Boehner was retiring, there was a “HUGE ovation.” Do these people really think that it was John Boehner who was stopping them from getting all their grandest wishes fulfilled? Apparently so. At Crooks & Liars this morning, Karoli reported, Limbaugh’s Latest Conspiracy Theory: Obama Hijacked All The Conservatives! On his list is, of course, John Boehner. It also includes John Roberts. This has long been a thing among conservatives: there are certain opinions and everyone must share them. I noticed in the mid-1980s that a conservative’s definition of “liberal” was simply “not conservative.”

The question is, what do all those cheering “values voters” think they are going to get now? The problem with John Boehner was not that he wasn’t conservative enough; the problem was reality. We don’t live in a dictatorship. And if we did, it is unlikely that the dictator would be ideologically pure enough for these loons anyway. The next Speaker will run into the same reality that Boehner did, and the usual suspects will soon be claiming that he is a squish and a RINO.

Behold the postmodern nature of the Republican Party! On Tuesday, Jonathan Chait wrote, Marco Rubio Won’t Even Consider Path to Citizenship During His Presidency. It was a short article and that headline captures its contents perfectly. What’s more: there is no question but that Chait is right. Rubio said that we shouldn’t even be talking about a path to citizenship for 10 to 12 years. He said it in his book and he said it recently to Sean Hannity. In as much as we know anything, we know that this means exactly what Chait said: Rubio won’t consider a path to citizenship for his presidential term — and then some.

But Rubio’s communications director, Alex Conant, was upset at Chait, claiming, “Your piece about immigration misunderstands his position.” And then Conant goes on to say, “Marco has repeatedly stated — and did so again last night — that he is open to green cards after 10 years and he has outlined a specific idea on how to do that.” In other words, Conant is repeating exactly what Chait wrote. But the Rubio campaign was apparently unhappy that Chait was complaining about it. It’s roughly tribal: you were right on the facts but you don’t understand; it’s Rubio and so therefore it is good!

Chait’s larger point is that Rubio’s position on this matter undercuts his primary selling point. He was supposed to be the guy who would reach out to Latino and Asian American voters with a positive message. But instead, because of criticism he got the moment he took the smallest of steps toward that, he is pushing a line that is in no important way different from Donald Trump’s. Think about that. It shouldn’t be hard, because for at least the last decade, the only real difference between the far right and the “moderate” right has been rhetoric.

There really is a fundamental problem with the Republican Party when it comes to national politics. All the elites stand around hoping for a savior: someone who will come along and not be so absolutely terrifying to anyone but the Republican base. And then, in order to actually win a majority of Republican votes, that candidate has to become terrifying. And I think this is why the national Republican Party seems so much like it is treading water. Eventually, they seem to think, they will luck out and get someone in because the economics are right or the voting machines are wrong or whatever. (Sadly, they are correct to assume this.)

The one thing that is most clear is that the Republican Party is not willing to do anything to reach out to minority voters. It’s actually pretty funny. I wrote about this a lot after their loss in 2012. The attitude — Among the elites! The supposed adults in the party! — was, “All right: we’ll pass immigration reform but that’s it! After we do this one thing for you, we don’t wanna hear anymore whining!” It’s like something I heard from a number of conservatives after same sex marriage became the law of the land, “I wonder what they’ll want next?!” (Perhaps the right not to be fired for being gay?!)

The Republican Party will never be able to “reach out” to Latinos as long as they think of Latinos as people who they have to reach out to. The big problem that the Republicans have is that Latinos tend to be poor. Republicans do not propose policies that will help the poor get ahead. So any “reach out” campaign is doomed anyway. It is just that the obvious hatred that Republicans have for all minority groups doesn’t help. But I don’t think that the Republican elites really care. They are are like Alex Conant: postmodern thinkers who define their own reality.

Earlier this week, I was reading Belle Waring’s hilarious take down of Richard Dawkins and the other Islamophobes about the whole Ahmed Mohamed clock incident, When a Policeman Asks You for a Correct Philosophy of Time, You Give It. I was going to post it as a quote. But then I came upon something she mentioned[1] from someone in the Dawkins crowd. And it is really telling because I’ve heard this kind of argumentation for my entire life. It is designed to sound open-minded, but as I will discuss, it is just the opposite. In fact, Fox News uses this same exact propaganda tool all the time:

Got that? He just doesn’t know. He’s not saying that anything nefarious was going on. He’s just asking questions. It just so happens that this is exactly what the slightly more educated Birthers say, “I don’t know where Obama was born; I’m just asking questions.” Similarly, James Inhofe doesn’t know that global warming is a hoax. He too is just asking questions. This is even true of Holocaust deniers. Obviously, none of this is true of the Little Brains. But anyone with the slightest intellectual sophistication grabs onto the “just asking questions” rhetoric.

Here’s what you need to know about this: there are literally an infinite number of questions that can be asked. The questions that you ask say a great deal about you. So this guy is just asking questions, because he can’t trust the news. If it had been news about a tsunami or a vote in Congress, well, then it wouldn’t occur to him to ask questions or even remember that he can’t trust the news. It’s sad. The guy is a classic example of what I call a subgenius: someone smart, but not incredibly smart, and not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.

The main purpose of his article is to try to show — in a very very Alex Jones kind of way — that Mohamed did not build the clock. Mostly, his point is that it uses old electronics parts. As I noted when I first discussed it: I have done the same thing. I had an electronics lab filled with equipment. I assume Mohamed had old bits of electronics that could be scavenged. Not that it matters. Arguing with this guy would be exactly like arguing with 9/11 Truthers.

This spectacle is hilarious in a certain way. There are people who are classic Islamophobes: people who fear, hate, and distrust Muslims. But like all bigots, they don’t see themselves as bigots. So they come up with elaborate ways to justify their bigotry. But most of all, they are just open-minded. They are just asking questions.

[1] The site is currently down, but it is: clock | Tech Voice – Artvoice. Whether this is because of bad luck, a DDoS attack, or simply because there are lots of people like Richard Dawkins who just can’t get enough of this kind of thing, I can’t say. Here’s a copy: Google cache.

So there has been this whole dust-up about Ben Carson saying that a Muslim shouldn’t be president because, “I do not believe Sharia is consistent with the Constitution of this country.” And then Ted Cruz — Truest Defender of the Constitution™ — pointed out that there is no “religious test” for holding public office. As Martin Longman pointed out, this is true but hardly relevant: Carson wasn’t saying that Muslim’s shouldn’t have a legal right to be president — just that they shouldn’t be president in the same way that Nazis shouldn’t be president. And wouldn’t Ted Cruz agree with that vile comparison? I think he would.

PM Carpenter made a wonderful point about this. Carson also said, “Muslims feel that their religion is very much a part of your public life and what you do as a public official, and that’s inconsistent with our principles and our Constitution.” This is the very definition of bigotry: lumping all Muslims together. But this is also a mighty ironic thing coming from a guy who wears his Christianity on his political sleeve. And it’s not just him. All Republicans of recent years have gone out of their way to say that their Iron Age religious beliefs would be the basis of their presidencies.

But as I’ve written about too many times to list, modern American Christianity — and conservative Christianity most of all — is all about cultural signifying. There isn’t much theology going on. It is about Christianity being what the Good Guys believe in. And as such, it is tribal. And that’s why it is totally okay to dump all over Muslims, even if Islam and Christianity aren’t that different theologically. But it is more than that. Hatred of Muslims is pretty much the same as hatred of Mexicans. The Republican Party has the power it has because of deep-seated bigotry on the part of much of its base of voters.

Jonathan Chait wrote an excellent article Monday morning, How Conservatives Explain Away Republican Islamophobia. He mentioned several examples of Republicans making the argument that all this bigotry doesn’t say anything about their party. It’s really annoying, actually. I have no doubt whatsoever that people like Kevin Williamson aren’t personally against Muslims. But they are all firm supporters of the Republican Party as it is. And that is a party that depends upon courting these bigots with subtle and not-so-subtle rhetoric.

As Rick Santorum said about the man who wanted us to do something about the problem of Muslims in this country, “People are entitled to their opinions. We have a First Amendment for a reason.” That’s very much like Ted Cruz’s statement about the religious test: no one questions the man’s right to say those things. The question is whether Republicans are willing to correct this kind of vile thinking. And they aren’t. And the reason they aren’t is the same reason that so much of the base believes this nonsense: the Republican Party has spent decades pushing it, because it is the only way to get more than 50% of the country to vote for its vile economic policies.

Over the weekend, Frank Rich wrote, The Importance of Donald Trump. He summed it up well:

All that Trump shows is that for most of the Republican base, the issue is just bigotry and a vague anger at the world. It isn’t about all the “great” ideas that the Republican Party has for solving America’s problems.