So Eric Cantor, the fanatical right-winger (I refuse to use “conservative” to describe a movement that is un-American in its goals and radical in its tactics) who was hoping to succeed the extremely right-wing John Boehner as Speaker of the House, wasn’t extreme enough for the Republican primary voters in his Virginia district, and will now be forced to accept ten times or so his Congressional salary as a lobbyist for various factions of the plutocracy.
In the short term, this is bad news if you thought that something sensible on immigration might make it through the House this year, or if you believed that K Street/Chamber of Commerce Republicans, in coalition with Teahadis, constituted a possibly tolerable party of government. If you didn’t believe in that (or the Tooth Fairy) then it’s not bad news even in the short run. The fact of the apparently irreversible degeneration of the GOP is terrible news, except that it’s not “new.” Anything that helps demonstrate that to deluded reporters and self-deluded Republicans counts, I think, as good news.
Footnote Just to illustrate: it was Cantor who said of Social Security and Medicare “these programs cannot exist if we want America to be what we want America to be.” And led the jihad against NSF social-science funding.
Update
“Eric Cantor has long been the face of House Republicans’ extreme policies, debilitating dysfunction and manufactured crises. Tonight is a major victory for the Tea Party as they yet again pull the Republican Party further to the radical right.”
jeffj900 says
"led the jihad against NSF social-science funding."
If Trammel manages to win, a social-scientist takes Cantor's seat. Poetic justice.
JamesWimberley says
Brat is an economics teacher, I assume of the pure Chicago variety.
HRC only has to show up to be certain of the Presidency in 2016. The psephological question of interest is whether Latinos will be angry enough at the GOP in November 2014 to vote then as well.
bighorn50 says
Just for grins, I got on our library's website and checked the EconLit index. Here's what I found attributed to David Brat as author.
It appears that Walter Park was his advisor at American, if that helps to classify Brat.
Brat's 1995 dissertation at American University is titled, "Essays on Human Capital, Religion and Growth." Since leaving American (presumably for his current job) he's published a handful of papers in regional journals (mostly the Virginia Economic Journal, one in the Eastern Economic Journal). He cites Mankiw and Freedman heavily in his work, so I'd say the pure Chicago School is spot on.
J_Michael_Neal says
Brat is not a pure Chicago variety economist, though I assume that he ends up with a lot of the same policy preferences. He disavows the methodology of standard economics altogether so he’s coming at it from a completely different direction.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/06/11/david_brat_thinks_economics_is_a_sham.html
JamesWimberley says
A review of Brat's dissertation by Patrick Iber. He's more interesting than I thought. His key thesis is rehashed Weber and Tawney: Protestantism gave us science and capitalism.
ThorntonHall says
I think the term "Reaganist" works well. Kinda like Peronist (and related).
rachelrachel777 says
Here's a Brian Beutler piece from Talking Points Memo: "Dems Inaccurately Attack Cantor for Elimination of Social Security." If you read Cantor's statement in context, it seems that the thinks that the programs cannot exist without being reformed, not that they ought to be gotten rid of completely. He used an awkward phrasing that went quoted out of context seems to mean something from what he said.
It's one of those "Ha, ha, ha! Obama thinks there are 57 states" sort of things.