This is what’s wrong with the Republicans

Listening to Limbaugh today as I was stepping out of the shower, I heard him talking about Angelo Codavilla’s piece “America’s Ruling Class and the Perils of Revolution” in the American Spectator.  Some friends had sent it to me on Friday — with an attached note from editor Thomas Lifson urging us to read it over the weekend.

So as I’m toweling off, I put off the blow-dry because I definitely wanted to pay attention to what el-Rushbo was saying.  This, THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely what I and others have been saying for a looooong time about the GOP.  It’s what’s wrong with the Republicans…

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RUSH: There was a Washington Post story on Sunday.  A lot of people sent this to me.  “Rush, Rush, Rush, look at this.  Look at Trent Lott’s quotes, look at this! What are the Republicans doing?”  Same old question.  I was inundated with e-mail about this.

Here’s the headline, and it’s by Shailagh Murray.  “Republican Lawmakers Gird for Rowdy Tea Party — So who wants to join Rand Paul’s ‘tea-party’ caucus?

‘I don’t know about that,’ Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) replied with a nervous laugh. ‘I’m not sure I should be participating in this story.’  Republican lawmakers see plenty of good in the Tea Party, but they also see reasons to worry. The movement, which has ignited passion among conservative voters and pushed big government to the forefront of the 2010 election debate, has also stirred quite a bit of controversy. Voters who don’t want to privatize Social Security or withdraw from the United Nations could begin to see the Tea Party and the Republican Party as one and the same.

“Paul, the GOP Senate nominee in Kentucky, floated the idea of forming an official caucus for tea-party-minded senators in an interview in the National Review as one way he would shake up Washington. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), one of the movement’s favorite incumbents, filed paperwork on Thursday to register a similar group in the House ‘to promote Americans’ call for fiscal responsibility, adherence to the Constitution, and limited government.'”

And there you have the Tea Party, and that threatens establishment Republicans.  And people say, “Why?”  How in the world could this threaten established Republicans?  We think this is the ticket to victory.  We think there’s never been a greater opportunity to contrast what we believe with what is happening.  We are watching our country be bankrupted right in front of our eyes and they’re smiling and laughing at us while they do it, and the Republicans to one degree or another are joining in.

“Some Republicans worry that tea-party candidates are settling too comfortably into their roles as unruly insurgents and could prove hard to manage if they get elected.”

Really?  So here the Tea Party represents the salvation — remember when I have said, and you know this, that Reagan was considered an embarrassment to the Republican upper class?  They agreed with Tip O’Neill, Reagan was a dunce.  They couldn’t do much about it because the guy won landslides.  But they had no appreciation for him.  These are the people who are embarrassed of the pro-life movement, ’cause they have to go to Republican conventions with those people.  And their friends in the Democrat side of the ruling class tease them and give them grief over being at a party with a bunch of hayseed hick pro-lifers, which is not acceptable thinking, pro-lifism, not acceptable thinking in the ruling class.

“Some Republicans worry that tea-party candidates are settling too comfortably into their roles as unruly insurgents and could prove hard to manage if they get elected. Paul, who beat GOP establishment favorite Trey Grayson in Kentucky’s primary, told the National Review that he would seek to join forces with GOP Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.), ‘who are unafraid to stand up’ and who have blocked numerous bills advanced by both parties deemed by the pair as expanding government.”

And here we get to the meat of the piece.

“Former Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), now a D.C. lobbyist, warned that a robust bloc of rabble-rousers spells further Senate dysfunction.  ‘We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples,’ Lott said in an interview. ‘As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.'”

And he’s not even in the Senate!  He’s now a lobbyist.  So all of you looking at the Tea Party thinking it’s the Republican Party’s salvation, the Republican members of the ruling class are just as threatened by the Tea Party as the Democrats are.  Because the Tea Party is outsiders; the Tea Party is not in the big clique; the Tea Party does not want to be in the big clique.  The Tea Party wants to wrest power away from the big clique.  The problem, and as Mr. Codevilla’s piece points out is, what vehicle does the Tea Party use?

It gets really interesting. This I will share with you, it’s the end of the piece. The only vehicle available to the Tea Party right now is the Republican Party.  And what do they do?  You and I, have we not, we have been saying — well, some have said third-party route, clearly this piece demonstrates that’s a failure, but others have been saying that the future of the country depends on the conservative movement retaking the Republican Party.  Now, here we have people like Trent Lott, everybody’s assumed is a conservative all along, now being threatened by the arrival of a Tea Party caucus, ah, ah, ah, ah, “‘We don’t need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples. As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them.’  But Lott said he’s not expecting a tea-party sweep. ‘I still have faith in the visceral judgment of the American people.'”

So he thinks that you, the American people will see the Tea Party for the rabble-rousers they are and will not elect anybody from the Tea Party or anybody who believes things the Tea Party believes because you really do not want Washington shaken up.  You like the ruling class running the show.

“Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah), who failed to survive his party’s nominating process after running afoul of local tea-party activists, told a local Associated Press reporter last week that the GOP had jeopardized its chance to win Senate seats in Republican-leaning states such as Nevada and Kentucky and potentially in Colorado, where tea-party favorite Ken Buck has surged ahead of Lt. Gov. Jane Norton in their primary battle. Bennett warned that such candidates are stealing attention from top GOP recruits such as Mike Castle in Delaware and John Hoeven in North Dakota, both of whom are favored to win seats held by Democrats.”

But it is not in the cards for these Tea Party people to win.  And this explains it, in part, this piece.

Now, it’s at the American Spectator.  We’ll link to it at RushLimbaugh.com, as I say, we’ll be talking about it extensively during the program today, along with all the other things in the news.  It’s 16 pages, much too long to read in its entirety here.  But it explains so much, and it’s so thorough, and it dovetails so nicely with some of the theories I have evolved to explain or answer your questions, “Why don’t the Republicans do X?”

You notice that Trent Lott displays more anger and more hostility toward any potential new conservative members of the Republican Party than he would ever display to even the most radical of his Democrat congressional colleagues, who led the charge to get him out of leadership in the Republican Party.  But he was taken care of.  He’s now a lobbyist.  It all works out.  The ruling class takes care of its members who follow their own rules.

Geithner is a perfect example.  He’s never held a real job in his life, doesn’t have the slightest clue how to fix anything.  He wouldn’t know how to fix a broken lightbulb.  He wouldn’t know how to fix anything that’s broken.  The men in the country class are the fixers and they’re looked upon with disdain.

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There’s much more at Rush Limbaugh.com if you want to read transcripts of the entire show.  It’s an EIB education, folks.  Trust me on that.