Linkmeister

Norquist's agenda

From the "know thine enemy" department: Grover Norquist writes:

There are many good reasons to expect President George W. Bush to win re-election on November 2, 2004. And there is one good reason to believe a Democrat, any Democrat, will defeat him.

[snip]

The one big reason to bet against Bush is that the Republican coalition and the Democratic coalition face very different incentives this year. The marvels of modern gerrymandering and the five Senate seats in the South being vacated by Democrats ensure that, whatever happens to Bush, the Republicans will control the House and Senate on November 3, 2004. So if Bush loses, taxes will not be raised. Dean [this is from the March 2004 issue of The American Enterprise magazine] cannot enact any new spending program or law that doesn't first run the gauntlet of Tom DeLay and Bill Frist. There will be no new gun control laws. No part of the center-right coalition will be crushed.

[snip]

The coercive utopians of the Left, who rely on judges rather than lawmakers to enact an unpopular social, environmental, and aggressively secular agenda, cannot afford four years of Bush judicial appointments. Heck, just one or two Supreme Court appointments will put them at risk of losing 30 years of "progress."

If the Democrats win the Presidency, they can veto Republican advances. If they lose, they don't eat. The very sinews of their political power will decay with increasing speed. The Democratic coalition will be weaker, shorter, and poorer in 2008 than 2004. This sense of desperation explains the "hatred" and vicious attacks on Bush.

This should not surprise us. Expect the crescendo to grow through 2004. The other team isn't being unreasonable. It is reacting rationally to a real threat to its ability to function. Anything short of placing snipers on the rooftops of D.C. would be an underreaction by the Left.

Cornered rats fight. Hard.

So should we expect the GOP to invade the Democratic convention, à la Chicago 1968? Frankly, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a gathering of Republican operatives in Boston, similar to the ones who turned up in Miami in 2000 to disrupt vote counts. If you take Norquist's belligerence as gospel to the initiated, that may not be too outlandish a scenario.

I recommend you read the entire article; it's a pretty brazen display of what Norquist and his people would like to see happen. The destruction of unions, the packing of courts, the destruction of the Democratic party; it's all there. Grover isn't much of a fan of democracy, judging from this call to arms.