Wayward Republican Voters (Reading List for 1-29)

Potemkin Ideologies

What we’re seeing on the Republican side is that almost nobody except a handful of pundits and think-tank hired guns cares at all about the official party ideology...What’s really going on is (justified) fear over the erosion of white patriarchy. (That’s what the attack on Planned Parenthood is really about too.) That is, it’s about authority, not virtue. - Paul Krugman

Donald Trump is wrecking the conservative movement: How the billionaire is exposing its most toxic secret

Perhaps the most puzzled by what they’re seeing is the conservative movement old guard who spent decades creating the organizations that in recent years have risen up to challenge the Republican elites for supremacy of the party. They have made great strides, primarying apostates, defeating RINOs and even taking out good conservatives just to show they could. They showed the entire country that they are willing to destroy the government itself if that’s what it takes to demonstrate their commitment to their principles. They take no prisoners, give no quarter. And finally, after decades of hard work and strategizing, they are on the verge of total dominance.
Or they were until Trump came along and proved that many of the people they had been counting on to be the foot soldiers in this conservative revolution weren’t paying attention...
...They thought their years of carefully growing and indoctrinating the right wing of the Republican Party had resulted in a common belief in a certain conservative ideology, strategic vision and commitment to a specific agenda.  It turns out that a good number of the people they thought had signed on to their program just wanted someone to stick it to ethnic and racial minorities and make sure America is the biggest bad ass on the planet — authoritarian, white nationalism. If you’ve got a man who will deliver that you don’t need ideology. And he doesn’t need democracy. - Heather Digby Parton

David Brooks is freaking out: Why the voice of the conservative establishment is finally panicking

Then, by last week, Brooks was in a panic. His January 19 column, “Time for a Republican Conspiracy!” excoriates his party for failing to stand up to the Trump-Cruz juggernauts. He finally recognizes what has been obvious to others for years: That GOP voters are not really as anti-government as they appear. He misses the ever-present corollary, which is that conservative voters favor government when its benefits go to them, not to those lazy welfare moochers that every GOP candidate for over 40 years has brandished to scare people into voting Republican.
Do something! Do anything! Brooks pleads with the party. But don’t give up and cede the nomination to the vile hucksters who combine to attract over 50 percent of your voters! - Gary Legum

The Media of Foxworld

In Foxworld, WND is considered a reliable news source.

Having Withdrawals

Fact Check: Did Obama Withdraw From Iraq Too Soon, Allowing ISIS To Grow?

It was President George W. Bush who signed the Status of Forces agreement in 2008, which planned for all American troops to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011.
"The agreement lays out a framework for the withdrawal of American forces in Iraq — a withdrawal that is possible because of the success of the surge," he said in a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki at the time.
Moments later, an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at the president. It is important to remember most Iraqis saw the Americans as occupiers and blame them for civilian deaths.
Maliki summed up the sentiment at the time, thus:

"The incomplete sovereignty and the presence of foreign troops are the most dangerous, most complicated and most burdensome legacy we have faced since the time of dictatorship. Iraq should get rid of them to protect its young democratic experiment."

Thousands of American troops had died, and by the time Obama announced the withdrawal, fully three-quarters of Americans supported the withdrawal (though a majority of Republicans did not).
Still, many had real concerns al Qaeda wasn't done for. And there were some, including U.S. senators, saying the troops should stay just in case things went downhill. They say Obama should have sold the idea, hard, to Maliki.
...
The State Department's lawyers said troops couldn't stay in Iraq unless the Iraqi parliament authorized them to do so, including granting them immunity from Iraqi law. The Iraqi parliamentarians would never OK such a decision, with Iraqi popular opinion staunchly against U.S. troops staying.
[Iraq analyst Kirk] Sowell saw State's decision as a deliberately insurmountable obstacle.
"It was a barrier that was very high," he said, "and there was no way it was going to be jumped over."

But, does Obama bear responsibility for the timing of the troop withdrawal? On balance, no.
He was following through on an agreement made by Bush and abiding by the will of the Iraqi and American people.

Iraq rejects US request to maintain bases after troop withdrawal

The US suffered a major diplomatic and military rebuff on Friday when Iraq finally rejected its pleas to maintain bases in the country beyond this year.
Barack Obama announced at a White House press conference that all American troops will leave Iraq by the end of December, a decision forced by the final collapse of lengthy talks between the US and the Iraqi government on the issue....
Obama attempted to make the most of it by presenting the withdrawal as the fulfilment of one of his election promises.
"Today I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over," he told reporters.

But he had already announced this earlier this year, and the real significance today was in the failure of Obama, in spite of the cost to the US in dollars and deaths, to persuade the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to allow one or more American bases to be kept in the country.

Obama was formally told of Maliki's final decision on Friday morning in a video conference.
Speaking later to reporters, Obama glossed over the rejection, describing it as Iraq shaping its own future.
He told reporters that the "tide of war is receding", not only in Iraq but in Afghanistan and in Libya.
"The United States is moving forward to a position of strength. The long war in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year. The transition in Afghanistan is moving forward and our troops are finally coming home," he said.