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Republicans have another chance to demonstrate that they’re Americans first and petty, malicious rogues second, and naturally they’re squandering that chance. The manifest fanaticism of Republicans on everything from prudent fiscal measures as confiscatory socialism to Rhodes-scholar ambassadors as treasonous nincompoops to accessible healthcare as Big Brother tyranny are merely the more prominent symptoms of a party gone hopelessly mad. Really. They’ve reached a point of political psychosis.
How doomed are conservatives? Pretty doomed, if you look carefully at the Pew Research Survey’s close analysis of the youth vote in the 2012 elections. The Republicans’ long-term dilemma has generally been framed in racial terms, but it’s mainly a generational one. The youngest generation of voters contains a much smaller proportion of white voters than previous generations, and those whites in that generation vote Republican by a much smaller margin than their elders. What’s more, younger voters supported President Obama during the last two election cycles for reasons that seem to go beyond the usual reasons — social issues like gay marriage and feminism, immigration policy, or Obama’s personal appeal — and suggest a deeper attachment to liberalism. The proclivities of younger voters may actually portend a full-scale sea change in American politics.
— Jonathan Chait, writing in New York Magazine.
Boehner, Boehner, don’t be a dick, budget cuts will make us sick.
— Chant of three female AIDS activists, who said they wanted to highlight the “naked truth” about potential spending cuts in HIV programs befoe being arrested after taking their clothes off in the lobby of House Speaker John Boehner’s office, the AP reports.
I think we ought to take the 98 percent deal right now. It doesn’t mean I agree with raising the top 2. I don’t.
— Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), urging colleagues in a private session “to vote to extend the Bush tax rates for all but the highest earners before the end of the year — and to battle over the rest later,” Politico reports. The conservative Republican said that he believes such a vote would not violate Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge and that he’s not alone within Republican circles.
