Tea Parties Forever, By PAUL KRUGMAN - "It doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people..."

[jefferson_dem]

Tea Parties Forever
By PAUL KRUGMAN

This is a column about Republicans — and I’m not sure I should even be writing it.

Today’s G.O.P. is, after all, very much a minority party. It retains some limited ability to obstruct the Democrats, but has no ability to make or even significantly shape policy.

Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.

But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.

One way to get a good sense of the current state of the G.O.P., and also to see how little has really changed, is to look at the “tea parties” that have been held in a number of places already, and will be held across the country on Wednesday. These parties — antitaxation demonstrations that are supposed to evoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution — have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so.

But everything that critics mock about these parties has long been standard practice within the Republican Party.

Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/opinion/13krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

[EmilyAnne]

1. But it sort of feels right when these crazy people were cheering on as Bush/ Cheney took this

country down, down, down.

But, he's right. Its better to look at the real policy debates.

We can do both, yes?

[tblue37]

2. One of his most important points here is that craziness of this same

caliber did not preent the GOP from gaining control of all three branches of government, and we must not feel complacent that it will prevent them from doing so again.

[Soylent Brice]

3. i would say that it is not nice to point out how crazy someone is, unless

they are in a position to ruin the majority of lives in an entire country, and have any power at all.

seems kind of okay at that point.

[Phx_Dem]

4. I have to give it up for Krugman. One of his best columns!