The economic policy know-nothings at the Club for Growth endorse John Shadegg for Majority Leader. Note that this is part of a curious effort to redefine what’s at issue here in intra-Republican politics away from the topic of corruption and toward the idea that the problem with Tom DeLay was insufficient fealty to rightwing dogma.
Back on Planet Earth the actual root source of the problem is precisely the tension between rightwing dogma and reality. The tax cut jihad the Club for the Growth has done so much to foster is a serviceable basis for electioneering, but as a basis for governance it has some serious flaws. In particular, it implies very large cuts in federal spending. But actually implementing cuts on the necessary level would be politically untenable. The result is a governing majority that lacks the capacity to govern and instead invests its energy in spinning all sorts of mumbo-jumbo to cover its tracks and a kind of inertia where the majority’s perpetuation in power becomes the primary goal. In some sense, I suppose it’s possible that Shadegg or whomever will return the GOP to the True Faith of massive budget cuts and simply lead everyone over the electoral cliff in a straightforward manner, but that seems very unlikely in practice. And if you’re not willing to do that and you’re not willing to rethink any of conservatism’s prime articles of faith, the only real alternative is to continue with self-interested machine politics.
