It’s bad enough Conservatives have to fight against Democrats: we also have to fight against Establishment Republicans
The Grifting Wing v. The Governing Wing
While the Tea Party is busy lining their pockets, the rest of the Republicans are actually trying to get things done.
These kinds of internecine fights constantly occur within the Parties, though, with the Democrats, it is typically their base talking about how the elected members aren’t far enough left. Oh, and how they haven’t voted the base more money and stuff. In the GOP, the Conservatives will fight to get things done in a conservative manner, and note that many Establishment Republicans might as well be Democrats. Establishment Republicans act like Democrats, smearing Conservatives.
Over the last few years we have seen the rise of a new grifter—the political grifter. And the most important battle being waged today isn’t the one about which party controls the House or the Senate, it’s about who controls the Republican Party: the grifting wing or the governing wing.
Today’s political grifters are a lot like the grifters of old—lining their pockets with the hard-earned money of working men and women be promising things in return that they know they can’t deliver.
Political grifting is a lucrative business. Groups like the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Patriots are run by men and women who have made millions by playing on the fears and anger about the dysfunction in Washington. My former House colleague Chris Chocola is pocketing a half-million dollars a year heading the Club for Growth; same for Matt Kibbe heading up FreedomWorks (and I don’t think Kibbe’s salary includes the infamous craft beer bar that FreedomWorks donors ended up paying for). The Tea Party Patriots pay their head, Jenny Beth Martin, almost as much. These people have lined their pockets by promising that if you send them money, they will send men and women to Washington who can “fix it.†Of course, in the ultimate con, the always extreme and often amateurish candidates these groups back either end up losing to Democrats or they come to Washington and actually make the process even more dysfunctional.
How well does it play for Establishment Republicans to smear the Conservative base? Can’t be good for donations. Instead of attacking, perhaps Establishment Republicans should listen. But, hey!
Our beef isn’t with the rank and file Tea Party members, either. We understand their justifiable frustration with Washington. Our beef is with the grifters who run the organizations in Washington that are fleecing these hardworking men and women.
When you’re assaulting and insulting the groups themselves, going after Ted Cruz (which Latourette did), telling us we have to “compromise” (which seems to be code for “giving Democrats what they want and selling out the conservative principles you claim Establishment Republicans stand for), you are making your beef with the rank and file.
Paula Bolyard notes that Latourette is pretty familiar with what it means to be a grifter
LaTourette, the Chamber of Commerce, and their comrades who support special breaks and preferential treatment by the government for the rich and well-connected have exactly zero moral authority to lecture the likes of Jenny Beth Martin and Chris Chocola about their political influence. Their hypocrisy is laughable.
What LaTourette is really saying is that there are outsiders who more and more in Congress are listening to and there are insiders who Congress used to listen to and he wishes Congress would go back to listening to them. LaTourette’s firm made over a million dollars in 2013 and wants to be listened to.
Notice please that LaTourette never mentions two words: “voters†or “constituents.†He does not care about them. He cares about his profit and, in an act more and more common these days, projects his own sins onto others because it is the only way he understands them.
The Lonely Conservative notes that what Latourette really wants is all that Tea Party money in his own pocket.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
