A veteran Republican Congressional insider wrote:
To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.
It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill. A couple of months ago, I retired; but I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages.
The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel — how prudent is that? — in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.
Sheesh! And I thought they were crazy in 1985!
David Badash analyzed Lofgren’s article, at the New Civil Rights Movement:
GOP veteran Congressional staffer of 28 years, Mike Lofgren, who retired in June, just published a 6114 word attack on today’s Republican party, classifying them as “an apocalyptic cult” “full of lunatics.” Unsurprisingly, it’s gone viral. Included within Lofrgren’s 28 years in Congress is his “16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees,” according to his bio. James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, calls Lofgren “a familiar and highly esteemed figure.” Lofgren likens today’s Republican Party to the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic, and observes that “legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.”
Also unsurprisingly, Lofgren talks about the GOP’s attacks on same-sex marriage, several times.
And almost exactly like we at The New Civil Rights Movement have been doing, Lofgren particularly targets Steve King, Michele Bachman, Paul Broun, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, and Allen West. (Good to know we’re on the right track!)
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
I honestly don’t believe that even the Republican party’s “leadership” believes half of what they say. Look at Rick Perry who was flirting with secession and three days later begging for drought relief from the federal government. Not a single one of the Tea Party styled congressman has shirked from dipping into the federal treasury for perks for their local district.
I’m especially not buying into Michele Bachmanns rapture-ready b.s. because I’m quite sure she’s paying a mortgage. Are you willing to explain to Jesus in person that you’ve been sending money to the bank instead of helping the poor? Not if you’ve actually read the Gospels you shouldn’t.
It’s theatre of the televised professional wrestling sort and aimed at the same demographic market. The GOP base are people who want to be fooled; demand to be fooled. Because the truth is that they are no better than anybody else of any color or any nation by virtue of winning the lucky sperm contest. It’s bleeping obvious whenever you see an illegal immigrant working a field or repairing a roof. That guy out in the hot sun is going to work harder than you’ve ever worked in your life. So how do you justify your wealth compared to his poverty; you lie…..and lie and lie and lie and keep lying all your life because to admit the truth is to look in the mirror and see a monster.
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Good points Ed and Nic. And shortly after 1856, the Republicans gave us one of the greatest Americans ever in Abe Lincoln.
I’d like to see this, Nic. I’d like to see Senators Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Scott Brown and Mark Kirk…along with the 1 or 2 moderate R’s left in the House (Dave Reichert of Washington State comes to mind)…and a raft of former GOP officeholders like Dave Durenberger, Larry Pressler, William Cohen, Jim Leach, Bill Weld, Paul Cellucci, Colin Powell, Alan Simpson, John Danforth, John Warner, Warren Rudman, Jodi Rell, Don Carcieri, Howard Baker, Nancy Kassebaum, Christie Todd Whitman, Tom Kean, and maybe Ed Brooke and Chuck Percy (if they are well enough…they are awfully old)…get together and hold a big press conference.
There are hundreds of semi-prominent retired Republicans who must hate the current drift of this party. Do they care enough about America to get active again? Not to run for office, necessarily, but to write and speak? The once-a-year op-ed by someone like Colin Powell or (when he was alive) Gerry Ford urged moderation. But once a year won’t cut it. Not when the lunatics are running the asylum daily…hourly, in fact, if you pay any attention to talk radio.
I actually campaigned for Bob Dole in 1988 as college student. Tilting at windmills, for sure…it was in Illinois! But the thought of Pat Robert$on (who had HUGE momentum at first) winning the nomination was terrifying. Today, the entire party is made up of either Pat Robert$ons or Rush Limbaughs….
Is there even a blog by a prominent Republican urging moderation?
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Were the Whigs the model for the modern Republican Party implosion? Ironic, no? Millard Fillmore was the last Whig president; Whigs gave way to the Republicans in 1856.
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Jim, I’m suspecting that either the Bob Dole types will either try to take the party back…or they’ll split the Republican party down the middle and we’ll end up with a Republican party of crazies like Morgan and a sane Republican party led by Bob Dole types.
That or the Republican party will just implode completely.
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My dad is a lifelong republican and even he thinks the party has gone off the rails with the taxes bit and more then a few other things.
I’m trying to make him understand that the reason the party went off the rails is because actual Republicans like him sat down and were as silent as churchmice when the crazies started to take over.
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Nic let me know about this one, Ed. It’s a tragic masterpiece. You can “hear” in the guy’s tone that he’s still a loyal Republican…he just doesn’t understand the current tribe. Why do they so seem to hate the American people? Why do they want to destroy the very institutions that were established to serve those people?
I’ve some Republican friends who feel similarly. They long for the day when they can, again, call for limits on spending and a strong national defense. But they think it utter suicide to support NO spending and total deregulation/privatization.
I’ve been asking when the Bob Dole and Howard Baker types are going to speak out. Perhaps Lofgren’s impassioned tome will spur some action.
Thanks for reposting it!
Jim
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