It is a truism that politics breeds cynicism, but occasionally even those long inured to the idiocy that passes for political discourse on the right can have their breath taken away by the unexpected. In this case, it was the truly horrifying remarks by Congressman Todd Akin, the Republican (of course) candidate for the U.S. Senate in Missouri.
Over the course of a TV interview a week before the GOP officially nominated their candidate for president, Congressman Akin informed the nation that he was opposed to abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, because, “If it is a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” A veritable cascade of outrage followed, drowning Akin in a heap of criticism as fellow Republicans blasted him for stating truthfully what he and many other religious conservatives actually believe to be true – that when a woman says, “no, no, no,” she actually means, “yes, yes, yes.”
The Republican equivalents of elder statesmen were quick to condemn Akin for foolishly stating what was eventually put into the party platform at the GOP convention. Mitt Romney said the comments were “insulting, inexcusable and frankly wrong,” even though his pick for the vice presidency – Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin – essentially co-authored a bill that would have outlawed all forms of abortion expect in cases of “forcible rape” – another bit of Orwellian newspeak that suggests that when it comes to rape, most women are probably asking for it.
Others echoed Romney. Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, his party’s leader in the Senate, and John Cornyn of Texas, a key Senate election strategist for the GOP, both declared that the foolish Akin should step aside and let someone else take up the race to beat incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill – who now stands a fair chance of winning a seat that most had thought a sure win for the Republicans.
But some Republicans were not so quick to throw Akin under the proverbial bus. Mike Huckabee, the Southern Baptist minister and former governor of Arkansas who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the GOP nomination in 2008, came to the embattled candidate’s defense by arguing on his radio program that “some horrible rapes had created some extraordinary people.” Later, Huckabee extolled Missouri Baptists to come to the aid of Akin by contributing funds – noting that major donors had stopped airing ads and so crippled Akin’s campaign. Indeed, he compared the Republican establishment, of which Huckabee is apparently not a member, to “union goons” who “kneecap” their opponents.
This conflict between wealthy establishment Republicans and less well-heeled populist conservatives is an old one. For several generations now, the GOP has been a party of calculated cooperation between different right-wing groups who all see a liberal federal government as an insidious threat. When liberals were powerful and the Soviet Union a clear enemy, the alliance of anti-communist nationalists, wealthy industrialists and social conservatives made sense. Communism, both at home and abroad, was the true enemy. Disputes over the particulars of tax or social policy could be papered over until the dragon of global socialism was slain.
Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and fully thirty after the collapse of the old New Deal coalition that had catapulted Democrats into power for decades, the GOP has found it can no longer paper over its internal differences in order to fight the larger enemy. Indeed, this inability to massage out differences over each constituent group’s preferred policy is what made the presidency of George W. Bush such an unmitigated disaster.
The paradoxes of conservative governance thus became clear. An ever-expanding war on terror that includes the invasion and occupation of major portions of the Muslim world cannot be sustained on a policy of tax cuts for the rich. Similarly, a policy of open immigration that aids wealthy business interests cannot be abided by a racist, socially-conservative base that views anyone with a Hispanic surname as an alien invader. Religious mandates to care for the weak and the powerless cannot indefinitely support a corporate-run health care system that crushes the poor. Likewise, libertarians chafe at drug prohibition, anti-gay discrimination and, like liberals, are outraged by the surveillance state that has been established since 9/11. Finally, everyone hates the rich, transnational corporate elite who bankroll the party. This last bit probably goes a long way in explaining the lukewarm reception Republicans of all types outside corporate America have given to Mitt “corporations-are-people” Romney.
The situation now faced by the coalition midwifed by Goldwater and grew up under Nixon, which came of age under Reagan, and finally reached maturity under George W. Bush is not unlike that faced by Wile E. Coyote in the famous Roadrunner cartoons. Having finally captured the roadrunner, conservatives have found themselves unable to actually do anything with it. In power, they have the opposite of the Midas touch. Instead of gold, everything turns to ruin because the disparate demands of their coalition makes coherent policy making impossible. Faith-based, ideological answers that sound great in the echo chamber of conservative media is great for a campaign speech, but melts like ice in the Sahara when put up against the harsh reality of the world as it actually exists. Trying to discriminate between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” rape is a case in point. To sane people who have not drunk the conservative Kool-Aid, such talk is vomit inducing.
And vomit is exactly what the American people did in 2008 after having been so disgusted by conservative government that they elected a black guy president. Now, as we head full-speed into another presidential election season, Republicans have made a good show of once again papering over their differences in the face of the unmitigated evil that is President Obama.
The Akin rape controversy demonstrates, however, that behind the Potemkin village of solidarity they have created around Romney lurks the same incoherence in the face of reality that failed so miserably under George W. Bush. Republicans have gone to great efforts to forget about Bush and his failed presidency in the hopes that we will, too. I hope, for all our sakes, the voters don’t.