Republican lawmakers probably shouldn’t brag about how they’ve betrayed the right wing …
by digby
Betsy Woodruff has a story up at The Daily Beast about how the conservatives are losing their shirts in legislative battles on the Hill.One after the other, concluding with the Omnibus, they are not getting their way.
It wasn’t always this way. During the 2013 government shutdown, Heritage Action exerted enormous influence to pressure members of Congress against supporting any funding for the Affordable Care Act. And members shivered at the prospect of facing primary challengers who would attack them over low marks on the group’s vote scorecard. But now, much of that fear seems to have abated.
“When Heritage key-votes against a bill now, it is almost guaranteed to get less conservative, and guaranteed to pass both chambers and become law,” said one former Republican House leadership staffer. “They have reverse Midas touch.”
It’s a fascinating story but it doesn’t go into what the reaction is among grassroots conservatives. They are, to say the least, apoplectic. (I wrote about on aspect of it here at Salon.) I don’t think the beltway quite grasps the level of anger. Indeed, they should be asking themselves how much this is contributing to the rise of Trump and Cruz.
Cruz probably isn’t going to leave the GOP. He’s gone rogue, but he’s not going to destroy the party. However, if Trump feels he’s being treated “unfairly” he could cause some real headaches for Republicans.
The party is in crisis. And a lot of it is caused by Republicans promising these people that they will go to Washington and create radical, revolutionary change. It’s bad enough when they fail to do that due to all these inconvenient constitutional requirements. But when they go bragging about how they’ve defanged the right wing — well, lets just say it’s doubtful it will end well.
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