Political analysts have debated for months whether the Republican establishment or the Tea Party has the upper hand in the GOP. Esquire blogger Charles Pierce argued in a post very early Wednesday morning, not long after the polls closed in Alaska, that the Republicans’ big day in the midterms resulted from a combination of establishment style and Tea Party substance.
“The Republicans did not defeat the Tea Party,” wrote Pierce. “The Tea Party's ideas animated what happened on Tuesday night. What the Republicans managed to do was to teach the Tea Party to wear shoes, mind its language, and use the proper knife while amputating the social safety net. They did nothing except send the Tea Party to finishing school.”
From Pierce’s post (emphasis added):
I hate to break this to Tom Brokaw, and to Kasie Hunt, who talked about how the Republicans know they have to "govern," but this election couldn't have been less of a repudiation of the Tea Party. As the cable shows signed off last night, it was dawning even on the most conventional pundits that the Republicans had not elected an escadrille of Republican archangels to descend upon Capitol Hill. It was more like a murder of angry crows. Joni Ernst is not a moderate. David Perdue is not a moderate. Thom Tillis is not a moderate. Cory Gardner -- who spiced up his victory by calling himself "the tip of the spear" -- is not a moderate. Tom Cotton is not a moderate. And these were the people who flipped the Senate to the Republicans. In the reliably Republican states, Ben Sasse in Nebraska is not a moderate. James Lankford in Oklahoma is not a moderate. He's a red-haired fanatic who believes that welfare causes school shootings.
Several of these people -- most notably, Sasse and Ernst -- won Republican primaries specifically as Tea Partiers, defeating establishment candidates. The Republicans did not defeat the Tea Party. The Tea Party's ideas animated what happened on Tuesday night. What the Republicans managed to do was to teach the Tea Party to wear shoes, mind its language, and use the proper knife while amputating the social safety net. They did nothing except send the Tea Party to finishing school.
In a post later Wednesday on President Obama’s post-election presser, Pierce discussed what he sees as Obama’s naivete about the forces aligned against him:
The president still seems to believe that unmoored anger is not really a force in politics. Once again, the electorate showed him how wrong he was. The president still seems to believe that calculated vengeance is not really a force in politics. Once again, the electorate showed him how wrong he was. The president still seems to believe that covert (and not so covert) racism is not really a force in politics. Or he believes he has the personal and political skills to overcome all of them with the strength of his personal narrative. Fundamentally, that's the hill he would have his administration die on. Once again, the electorate showed him how wrong he was.
And then conservative mole Jonathan Karl of ABC asked him whether or not he had made a mistake in not "reaching out" to Mitch McConnell to help end the dysfunction in the Congress. (This was nothing compared to Ed Henry from Fox, who wanted to know why we hadn't beaten ISIS yet. Sometimes, I yearn for Chris Christie.) Now this is the same as asking the arsonist to join the bucket brigade. This was the time for a little truth-telling about what actually has been going on since 2009, some of which we actually have on video. This was the time to set down a marker as to exactly how much truthless drivel he is willing to tolerate just to be allowed to be president a while longer. This was the time to Agnew Jonathan Karl into next Tuesday for having asked a question so obviously loaded with arrant bullshit. Instead, the president talked about how he wakes up every morning, thinking about how he could do his job better.
