Craziest Republican of the Day: Todd Rokita

By Michael J.W. Stickings

To put it nicely, Republicans -- wallowing in ignorance and delusion to the point they're prepared to destroy America -- have their heads so far up their asses on the debt ceiling they're spewing nothing but excrement every time they open their mouths.

Is that clear enough?

For some, it's not so much ignorance or delusion as it is pure politics. Sen. Mitch McConnell, for example, knows full well what's going on, but he's torn, as the party itself is, between the corporate financiers in the establishment and the anti-government Teabaggers on the far right. While trying to score political points, he and Speaker John Boehner are at least also trying to work out a deal with President Obama.

But, on Capitol Hill, they appear to be in the minority. Not only do McConnell and Boehner face the wrath of the Tea Party, which promises to launch primary challenges against any Republican who dares violate its orthodoxy, they also face the opposition of their own caucuses, particularly in the House, where Boehner himself has effectively been pushed to the side and where his main rival, Eric Cantor, has already made a move, if as yet informal and unofficial, to unseat him.

And, make no mistake, the extremists in the House, extremists who are really now the Republican mainstream, are crazy. For example:

Despite numerous warnings from three major credit agencies, economists, businesses, members of their own party, and general common sense, the Republican "Hell No" caucus remains ever vigilant in ignoring the economic disaster that will follow a failure to raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2. While some Republicans have offered simply ludicrous reasons to paint the deadline as arbitrary, an increasing number are pushing the notion that there's no danger at all in defaulting on our debt.

[Yesterday] on ABC’s Top Line, Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN) went one step further and threw away the word "default" altogether. While he views Aug. 2 as an "important date," he refuses to "take the premise that we're going to default on our obligations." Believing "default" isn't even the right word to use to describe the economic consequences, Rokita slammed those who would avoid default as "piggish" and "un-American" for worrying about "my own little program or my own little economy." Rokita then declared defiantly that he's willing to vote down a debt ceiling raise even if it means "the economy might get worse."

Fuck the economy, in other words, not to mention the millions upon millions of Americans who would suffer should the country go into default. This is pretty standard fare among Republicans, but the degree of abject ignorance on the economy, on what the debt ceiling issue is all about, on what would happen were America to go into default, is nonetheless astonishing -- even when you expect nothing else from them, even when you know these are your views, it's hard to believe that the people's representatives can be this stupid, this careless, this irresponsible.

Well, okay, no. Maybe it's not so hard to believe, not if you've spent any time thinking about the Republican Party, even just observing it from afar. And maybe that's part of the problem. We don't actually want to believe that the country is in the hands of stupid, careless, irresponsible, and downright fucking crazy blowhards who seem to have little to no regard for reality and who spew shit whenever they open their mouths. And so we pretend, or a lot of us do (not me, mind you), that it isn't that bad, that surely they know what they're talking about, that they're all in it for the common good, that it'll all somehow work out -- now pass the deep-fried pork fat, the extra-meat pizza, and the gargantuan Coke, and let us get back to watching American Idol.

Well, that's what you get when you elect a Republican, and it's only so much worse when you hand them the keys, say, to the House, where with a majority they can spew so much shit as to threaten to sink the whole country.

Which, apparently, they're more than happy to do. Even if they don't have a fucking clue.