Hullabaloo

Thursday, February 07, 2013

 
Can't take the grift out of the GOP

by David Atkins

Politico buries the lede in their story about the Republican Party and Fox News attempt at reinvention in a kinder, softer mold. There are two things that stand in the way:

But a senior Republican operative said the party has two huge, unresolved impediments to the top leaders’ grand plans: “suicide conservatives, who would rather lose elections than win seats with moderates,” and the “many groups on the hard right that depend on direct mail fundraising that requires a high degree of audacity, and borderline shrillness.”

"Groups that depend on direct mail fundraising is only the tip of the iceberg, and is code for "fraudulent grifters." Rick Perlstein has the classic rundown on the long con of the mail order Republican scams that fleece money from their paranoid base. And there's much more where that came from.

Just take a gander at this hilarious Newsmax con advertising frequently on Fox News this month alongside the invitations to buy gold in bulk:



Yes, there are people in this country stupid enough to send these grifters twenty of their hard-earned dollars. The Republican grifter establishment has depended on these suckers for years. They're the ones who help pay the bills, and more importantly they're the ones who stew in a soup of such paranoia that they work their fingers to the bone to beat the EnviroCommieNaziDemoSocialists.

The Republicans are stuck. The establishment GOP ship knows it's headed for a demographic iceberg and needs to change or die. But they're tethered to Fox News and its audience, which won't let them change course. And Fox News itself also realizes it's headed for the same iceberg to a certain degree, but Roger Ailes is tied to the Breitbarts and Newsmaxes that won't let them budge, either.

They've been creating this monster of ugly profiteering and rabid resentment for decades. They can't just make it go away now. The base has too much invested, and the con artists aren't done bilking their marks.


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thereisnospoon 2/07/2013 07:30:00 AM