Jim DeMint’s Alternative (tea party) Reality

With apologies to Ronald Reagan, The Pink Flamingo is breaking his 11th Commandment.  I am guilty.  I freely admit my guilt.  I feel like a sociopath because I feel no shame.

I am angry.  I am furious that I need to write a post like this.  I have been a Republican my entire life (and have the buttons to prove it).  What I am seeing now is something new and very, very ugly.

I survived the purges of the Christian Coalition.  Rush talks about the country club elites and the establishment verses the regular joes of the world.  The problem, and he knows it, is the fact that the country clubs and the elites were elbowed out by the Christian Coalition in 1995.  The irony is those who live by the sword die by the sword.  The Christian Coalition is being purged by the Ron Paul Bot losertarians.

I am angry.

I am furious about the duplcity of the tea parties and the way they have been falsely promoted.

I am ticked with Republican officials who don’t have the courage to denounce them.

I don’t approve of true believers, the demand for ideological purity, and those who demand absolute obedience.  That is not freedom.  That is not American.

A few weeks ago Jim DeMint said if the GOP does not do as he tells them to do, he will take his marbles and go play elsewhere.  In other words, he will quit the party.  Where’s he going to go?  Is he going to become a caucus of one?  Doesn’t he understand his pathetic little tea party candidates, for the most part, lost?

The Pink Flamingo is an unapologetic Trekkie and sci fi fan.  While I was piddling around, looking for something to write about, it dawned on me that the only way one can actually understand Jim DeMint’s take on the devastating loss he dealt to the GOP is to take shelter in an alternative universe reality.

“…One of the earliest television plots to feature parallel time was a 1970 storyline on soap opera Dark Shadows. Vampire Barnabas Collins found a room in Collinwood which served as a portal to parallel time, and he entered the room in order to escape from his current problems. A year later, the show again traveled to parallel time, the setting this time being 1841.

A well known and often imitated example is the original Star Trek episode entitled “Mirror, Mirror“. The episode introduced an alternative version of the Star Trek universe where the main characters were barbaric and cruel to the point of being evil. When the parallel universe concept is parodied, the allusion is often to this Star Trek episode. A previous episode for the Trek series first hinted at the potential of differing reality planes (and their occupants) -titled “The Alternative Factor“. A mad scientist from “our” universe, named Lazarus B., hunts down the sane Lazarus A.; resident of an antimatter-comprised continuum. His counterpart, in a state of paranoia, claims the double threatens his and the very cosmos’ existence. With help from Captain Kirk, A traps B along with him in a “anti”-universe, for eternity, thus bringing balance to both matter oriented realms…”

Then again, the newly updated version of Star Trek features an Alternative Reality where Spock has screwed up everything.  FYI – The Pink Flamingo has been on record since elementary school that Spock was going to screw up everything in the universe before it was over.  I just wanted to go on record that I was right.

The easiest and quickest explanation of what is an alternative reality is the world C. S. Lewis created for his masterful Chronicles of Narnia.

“…The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children written by C. S. Lewis. It is considered a classic of children’s literature and is the author’s best-known work…. In addition to numerous traditional Christian themes, the series borrows characters and ideas from Greek and Roman mythology, as well as from traditional British and Irish fairy tales. The Chronicles of Narnia presents the adventures of children who play central roles in the unfolding history of the fictional realm of Narnia, a place where animals talk, magic is common, and good battles evil. Each of the books  features as its protagonists children from our world who are magically transported to Narnia, where they are called upon by the lion Aslan to help Narnia….”

Reuters

Let’s face it, there is no other, logical, rational explanation for what is going on with the very small minority of American voters who make up the actual tea parties, FOX News, and the DeMint-Palin Dog and Pony Show.

“…Parallel universe or alternative reality is a self-contained separate reality coexisting with one’s own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a “multiverse”, although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute physical reality. While the terms “parallel universe” and “alternative reality” are generally synonymous and can be used interchangeably in most cases, there is sometimes an additional connotation implied with the term “alternative reality” that implies that the reality is a variant of our own. The term “parallel universe” is more general, without any connotations implying a relationship, or lack of relationship, with our own universe. A universe where the very laws of nature are different – for example, one in which there are no relativistic limitations and the speed of light can be exceeded – would in general count as a parallel universe but not an alternative reality. The correct quantum mechanical definition of parallel universes is “universes that are separated from each other by a single quantum event.”…”

Washington Post

There is no logical explanation for someone who has seriously damaged the Republican Party’s much dreamed of majority in the US Senate to crow about his victory, and to start dictating terms for what HE wants.  It does not make sense.  It is not logical.  It is not rational.

Jim DeMint lost.

He blew it.

He ruined the GOP’s chances for a half-way decent majority.

“…Asked by “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace, “Do you think you could be elected president in 2012, or do you think you are too far to the right?” DeMint chuckled.  “I don’t think I’m far to the right at all,” DeMint said. “I think this election shows that my views of balancing the checkbook are not radical at all.”   “Right now,’ he added, “I have no plans to run for president. I’m looking for someone who will have the courage and leadership abilities to come out and make the hard decisions that we need to turn this country away from a cliff.”…”

The Politico

Conservative all the way…

.like chasing a little white rabbit!

Or….

“…“Americans want Congress to shut down the earmark favor factory,” DeMint, a prominent voice of the Tea Party movement, said in a prepared statement last week. “Instead of spending time chasing money for pet projects, lawmakers will be able to focus on balancing the budget, reforming the tax code and repealing the costly health care takeover.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, and other earmark defenders, who argue that banning the practice would not actually decrease the budget, have been canvassing the caucus in recent days lining up votes against DeMint’s moratorium.

“The problem is, it doesn’t save any money,” McConnell said last Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “What we really need to do is to concentrate on reducing spending and reducing debt. And this debate doesn’t save any money, which is why it is kind of exasperating to some of us who really want to cut spending.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican and another supporter of earmarks, said in an interview that banning earmarks “gives cover for big-spending members of Congress to look conservative. They start demagoguing the earmark thing and everybody goes, ‘Oh, they must be conservative.’ “…”

Atlantic Sentinel

It’s all about HIM….

“...That said, the compromise he is proposing is one written largely on Republican terms. Even the White House, which has signaled its willingness to negotiate on the matter, has refused to budge from its belief that the middle class rates should be extended permanently while the rates of the wealthy should revert to previous levels or be extended for a temporary period of time. …”

Is there something about reality this man does not comprehend?

“...On Sunday, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) added a bit of fuel to the fire when he refused to support the re-election hopes of RNC Chairman Michael Steele, saying he would look for alternatives instead.

“I want to look at the choices,” DeMint told “Fox News Sunday” when asked if he would support Steele. “Frankly, I think where we lost a few Senate seats our ground game was not as strong as it could have been. We were actually out-manned on the ground, and going into 2012 we need a really strong leader for the Republican Party to match the get-out-the-vote [efforts] that we saw from the Obama machine last time. So I appreciate Michael Steele’s service but I am looking for some alternatives right now. I haven’t decided who I would support. But we need a strong national Republican organization to help organize the energy of the Tea Parties and the other citizen activism that we are seeing out there right now. We need to make sure we have a lot of boots on the ground.”

As the Washington emissary of the Tea Party movement, DeMint has been accused of encouraging the type of Republican primary disorder that resulted in the nomination of Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, and the like. So his coldness toward Steele is not without a personal interest in reassigning blame. …”

If DeMint cost us the Senate….

Boston Herald

“…Senator Jim DeMint told me that the Tea Party-backed Congressional gains would lead to a political realignment and a second chance for Republicans who recovered from big losses in 2006 and 2008.

“I’m glad to see the determination from Boehner and others in the House that this time we’re going to do it the right way,” he told me on “Good Morning America.”

“I think, right now George, what I’m hopeful for is Republicans in the House will show what they stand for. They will pass legislation and send it to the Senate that we can debate and say ‘yes’ to so we won’t be in a position like we have been the last four years of just saying no to really bad legislation,” he added….”

Huffy Post

“…Within the GOP it has reportedly been suggested that the rise of some of the conservative Senate hopefuls — who ran with strong support from DeMint, but ultimately failed to come out on top in their respective fights — may have cost the Republicans a chance at retaking control of the Senate.

Amid the post-election blame game, South Carolina’s senior senator, Republican Lindsey Graham, didn’t mince words in addressing the issue as it relates to DeMint-backed candidate Christine O’Donnell, who lost her race in Delaware by a wide margin. Before the GOP hopeful’s come-from-nowhere win in the state’s primary, the seat formerly held by Vice President Joe Biden was widely expected to flip red.

“If you think what happened in Delaware is ‘a win’ for the Republican Party then we don’t have a snowball’s chance to win the White House,” explained Graham to Politico. “If you think Delaware was a wake-up call for Republicans than we have shot at doing well for a long time.”

On the heels of the remarks coming to light, along with similar criticism from other Republicans, DeMint told the National Journal that O’Donnell would have had a better shot at winning “had [she] not been so vilified by the Republican Party” at the beginning of her general election campaign.

“It’s like you’re on the five-yard line ready to score and the quarterback calls the play and some member of your team tackles one of your members and keeps you from scoring,” said one unnamed Republican Senator to Politico. “We came tantalizingly close to a majority.”…”

Conservatives are entreated to Pray for Jim DeMint – a million strong.  Right now there are less than 10,000 people who have signed up to pray for him.  Makes you wonder about those tea party numbers?

Salon

Then again, this is how I feel about the tea parties and those who pander to them.