Only the Conservative Movement, which is the Republican Party
On the station that broadcasts Rush Limbaugh (more importantly, Art Bell and Ean Punnett on the weekend show of that lesser Coast to Coast host who’s the main host these days — and I don’t want to dignify him by mentioning his name), I hear a curious promo for Rush’s program.
“There are no right wing extremists. There is only the Consrvative Movement, which is the Republican Party.”
This sounds weirdly Maoist to me. I don’t know the context of Rush Limbaugh’s comments, and charitably trying to figure out what the heck he is talking about all I can come up with is an idea that there are “left wing extremists” who have a difficult relationship with the Democratic Party (making up a significant part of the base, but in various ways ignored and/or campaigned against by Democratic Party politicians… and just who represents the war protesters in the streets?*), whereas with the Republican Party — they proudly declare themselves “Conservative”, work with the “Conservative Movement”, and we march toward the Great Conservative Whatever Paradise of Meaning. (We do end up with a difference between the Democratic Party and Republican Party with Rush Limbaugh’s statement: the Republican Party is less fractured due to a blind-numbing single-mindedness. Which, I guess, is both why the Democratic Party is the lesser party, and why I am much more comfortable with the Democratic Party… why do I want 200+ Representatives in Washington thinking and acting in lockstep?)
Which makes Rush Limbaugh a Republican Party hack, as opposed to a Conservative Ideologue. Seriously, the latest Weekly Standard has an article that concerns itself with how the “Conservative Movement” should proceed post-Bush, where they will have the opportunity to rid itself of its many discontents with the president. Leave aside the paleo-conservative American Conservative (isolationists and social conervatives that they are, Pat Buchannan’s brigade are doomed to a lifetime of grumpiness as they survey the landscape, and find that — no — no matter what they do, they cannot seem to ban the existence of homosexuals, or lock women in the kitchen). Otherwise, you’re throwing your dice in with a political party, and the purpose of a political party is to move money through channels of the governement into whoever is funding the party… which does not a political movement make.
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*A good example of the disconnect came on the march the day after Election Day. Okay, they waved the mantle against Bush, but there was significant Kerry sentiment in the crowds. The War was the central issue. What were they marching for — Kerry’s position of increased troop levels in Iraq?