GOVERNMENT OF, BY, AND FOR BLOVIATORS: AMERICA'S FUTURE

In my last post I liked a Media Matters report on the New Black Panthers faux-scandal; I'd also like to recommend Adam Serwer's "Almost Everything You Need To Know About The New Black Panther Party Case," which will do a fine job of getting you up to speed, if you aren't there yet.

I have nothing to add to what Adam says, except a tangential comment. He writes the following about the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which despite the changeover in administrations is still lousy with Bush holdovers:

The USCCR on the other hand ... has devoted itself to some strange causes since becoming dominated by Bush appointees--most of whose experience with civil rights law is limited to opposing affirmative action. After the financial crisis, they wanted to investigate whether or not laws eliminating racial discrimination in home loans led to the crisis. During the health care debate they attacked provisions in the health care bill for aiming to increase the number of black doctors in the United States. In other words, prior to the New Black Panther case, the USCCR was devoting itself to other faux outrages that might occupy your average right wing blogger on any given day.

I just want to make the point that after Republicans take the House in November, and probably the Senate and White House two years later, the entire federal government is going to be like this. The central focus of Congress and the White House is going to be getting payback for real and imagined outrages trumped up by Fox and radio talkers, and this will be true regardless of what serious problems need to be addressed.

We've seen this for years at the periphery, but it's happening more and more. It's not just Texas textbook standards and Texas GOP platforms that are incoherent stews made up of right-wing resentments, it's entire sessions of right-wing state legislatures -- see, e.g., Louisiana's decision to respond to the despoliation of its coastline by further restricting abortion, allowing guns in church, and adding new language to the "crimes against nature" statutes. At Balloon Juice, John Cole said repeatedly in 2008 that the McCain campaign seemed to be run by wingnut bloggers, but that's increasingly true of the entire party -- if the folks in charge aren't literally part of the righty-blog tribe, they think like righty bloggers and righty talk-radio addicts and Fox Fans; they have no institutional memory of the days when Republicans made at least a passing effort to, y'know, govern.

So if you want to know what issues will be the top priorities of the Palin or Huckabee or even Romney administration, just turn on your AM radio right now.