Understanding Mississippi Republicans 101 -- How to Understand Conservative Conflict. Many of us have heard about the Republicans in Jackson failing to respect the 11 member Conservative Coalition, which includes Senator Chris McDaniel and his campaign manager, freshman Senator Melanie Sojourner. Those 2 are the bad kids right now, and the problem is actually a lot bigger than a failure to respect. This is war, and the battle of the day is the Cochran seat. If you look at Republican politics, all the state Republicans basically use the same rhetoric, which is old white Citizens Council constitution stuff, minus the open talk about blacks. Barack Obama is a way to talk acceptably about blacks, and use the same part of the brain, but with plausible deniability for the recovering racist. So, they all talk about him as a centerpiece. The idea hes more of a socialist than a black guy fits perfectly into our old mold. We always called anyone telling us what to do about blacks, socialists. I really believe the ire we see in the mainstream Republicans, for the Tea Party types, is not moral indignation -- it is irritation at the Tea Partiers more inept use of the old dog-whistles, and the fact the Tea Partiers seem to respect no one in the process. The old salts dont like the chaos and they dont like their tools being used by upstarts. Just examine the planks of the platform, and theyre really identical. Less government means less welfare (and taxes), low minimum wages, and fewer safeguards for people. It serves to effect the same people it did when the Citizens Councils wanted the same thing during the race wars. If you dont agree you get called a communist socialist, or a socialist communist, whichever is worse. Tea Partier McDaniel uses a new word, statist, but its really the same thing. The 2nd Amendment is important, and they talk about the need to guard against a rogue government, but we all know who they think they will need to shoot, first. Lets be honest about that, then go back to talking about our militia needs, and the sacred Second. Vouchers and/or charter schools are important to the old guard, and the reason for that is they see the public schools as a money pit, and the popular instinct is to siphon some away from wherever the black folks are going to school. Its an ancient theme here, and a reason to hate the federal government for giving us standards. The difference is the Tea Partiers also hate Common Core, and the old line is not so livid about that. Not much of a difference. The old timers claimed God a long time ago, and its offensive to them having a group of upstarts who actually believe that government can be run on faith instead of figures, trying to one-up them. So we see the constant showing out in the legislature to defend against the Tea Party idea of purity. Those arent the only parallels but its pretty obvious with all the unneeded defiance legislation Philbilly and the old guard pump out, theyre trying to show who is more concerned about continuing to apply Mississippi style, last-place wisdom, in government. Theyre mostly showing out for the votes, since the old guard knows there are about 49 states who do better than we do. The conservatives and Mississippis majority dont seem to have realized that quite yet, and set the tone of the battle, as if the entire rest of the nation is just stupid. Not much has changed, and the ire for the upstarts in Jackson is just a turf war. Ted Cruz looks like a messiah to the nuttier of these folks, and Chris McDaniel seems to believe he should be the face in front of all those cameras. Never mind he has no solutions, he and Sarah and Phylis Schlafly are going to let some blood and just to do it. The smarter old timers see the end of that down the road. They also see the end of the GOP as we know it, AND the Tea Party, at the hands of the Tea Party. But they still want to be able to use the old tactics to rally the vote, like they always did. The Republican old timers of Mississippi politics are tired of these green upstarts using dads favorite dog whistle, and afraid the kids are going to lose it. Or worse yet, if the kids play with it too much, the dogs might quit coming to it.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 15:03:38 +0000
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