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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChilling - Rogue State: How Far-Right Fanatics Hijacked Kansas
And now they have their sights on all of the US. Never underestimate this and think it ends in Kansas.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/rogue-state-how-far-right-fanatics-hijacked-kansas-20130612
It's been nearly 10 years since Thomas Frank wrote about the conservative takeover of his home state in What's the Matter With Kansas? Back then, Kansas still had a Democratic governor in Kathleen Sebelius. But after last fall's civil war, Kansas has emerged a more intense shade of red than even Frank imagined. The state legislature is the most conservative in the United States, and now there is absolutely nothing stopping the Brownback revolution one which happens to be entirely at odds with any notion of the GOP adapting to the broader social and demographic changes in the country. If anything, these purists argue, Republicans lost in 2012 because the party wasn't conservative enough.
No one can say that about Sam Brownback, who is rumored to be mulling his own presidential run in 2016 and using Kansas as a sort of laboratory, in which ideas cooked up by Koch-funded libertarian think tanks can be released like viruses on live subjects. At a national level, the GOP remains stuck in a reactive position, pursuing executive branch "scandals" and blocking Obama's policies with no real power to effect changes of their own, and so states like Kansas have become very important to the future of the party's far-right wing. Consider it a test, a case study proof, finally, that an unfettered hybrid of Randian free-market dogma and theocratic intolerance can create, in the bitter words of outgoing Senate President Steve Morris, one of the ousted moderates, an "ultraconservative utopia." Of course, Morris ruefully added, "It depends on your definition of utopia."
Back in April, Brownback was chosen to deliver the Republican response to the President's weekly radio address. He invited listeners everywhere to "join us as we remake our country, not into a place that looks more and more like Europe. We don't need to do that. We just need to become America again. And that is the rebirth we are doing." In other words, the Koch brothers may have lost the big battle last fall, but in states like Kansas, they're winning.
Mugzi
(2 posts)I use to live in KS and it was a great place..in the 60's. Schools were great, very progressive, for public schools almost 100% were eligible for college! Makes you wonder how naive people could be, how low they have to go to wonder "hey why haven't I increased my station in life?" I'm working hard, no high salaries, no retirement, no paid time off...just work and more work. Working is great, but workers need reward and it's not in KS...neither is Dorothy!
gopiscrap
(23,763 posts)RKP5637
(67,112 posts)Kansans are drugged when they go to vote, working hard to vote for candidates that will do the most harm to them, their families and to the state.
Welcome to DU!
Volaris
(10,274 posts)That's right guys, RUN that crazy fucker for President.
And after Mrs. Clinton wins the White House by the largest popular vote majority in 30 fucking years, EVEN YOU will not be able to say "Well, our candidate just wasn't a Really Really Real-est ENOUGH Conservative." and you will FINALLY be shown proof (AGAIN) that America simply isn't as racist, greedy, christian, rand-ian, center-right (I LOVE that claim BTW--idiots), stupid or Fascist as all of you dumb fuckers inside the bubble have been led to believe.
Yes, it will be mentally scarring.
Yes, it will traumatize you.
Yes, Knowledge can be painful.
YES, (Apparently) it IS the only way.
And no, I don't think any of us over here on this side will have ANY sympathy left for you, not anymore, not if you MAKE US hurt your Party this way, because the only people who don't know that it really IS unnecessary is YOU.