Scarborough: 'Conservatism Is A Racket For A Lot Of People To Get Very, Very Rich'

Is it possible to have a principled opposition to raising tax rates to avoid the fiscal cliff?  It seems that Joe Scarborough doesn't think so.  On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough suggested that those on the "far, far right" in the "conservative entertainment complex" and in the ranks of political consultants who oppose tax rate hikes do so out of base material motives.

According to Scarborough, speaking of such "far, far right" tax-increase opponents, "conservatism is a racket for a lot of people to get very, very rich." View the video after the jump.

Watch Scarborough attack the motives of those not willing to sign onto a deal that while surely raising tax rates is unlikely to do anything significant to reduce spending and avoid the impending financial crisis that will make the immediate cliff look like walk in the fiscal park.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: I've noticed a lot of the people on the far right, not the far, far right, Willie, it's almost like they got the memo. Our stupidity was not rewarded on election day. So perhaps we're going to have a more fact-based view of the political scene if not the entire world.

WILLIE GEIST: Bill Kristol said it a couple of days ago about turning down the conservative, what did he call it?

SCARBOROUGH: Conservative entertainment complex.

. . .

SCARBOROUGH: Bill Kristol has a great column. I'm going to retweet it right now. But he says, quote, every great cause begins as a movement. This is an Eric Hofher quote that he applies to the GOP. Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket. And that's exactly what happened. You had the great conservative revolution of 1980. And you had Heritage and a lot of other organizations grow up out of that. And all the intellectual thrust politically was on the Republican side from 1980 to, say, 1990. The Democratic party was tired. Liberalism was exhausted. But that turned into a business. We saw a couple this past week, a couple of Republican consultants got paid tens of millions of dollars. And then it becomes a racket, and that's where you have a lot of people running around saying harsh things that sell books and push ratings and lose elections. And that's where we are. Conservatism is a racket for a lot of people to get very, very rich. With no thought of winning elections.