White House vs. Jonestown

John Podesta's appointment as White House counselor "is explicitly meant to shake things up inside the White House," writes Politico's Glenn Thrush. Yet this explicit shot aimed outward by Podesta is an even better start: "[The WH needs] to focus on executive action given that they are facing a second term against a cult worthy of Jonestown in charge of one of the houses of Congress."

Thrush notes that President Obama is repelled by "certified Type A" personalities--they give him "Rahm flashbacks," said a former WH aide--but more than ever he needs just that: an Emanuelian attack dog aggressively imbued with the further inhuman traits of a Joey "The Animal" Barboza.

The countless outrages of Boehner's pack are too often dismissed by the WH as self-evident madness. The president trusts in the electorate's native intelligence to condemn the congressionally condemnable, so why consistently push back? 

To a certain extent the president has been correct in that trust. The GOP's "favorable" numbers are anything but. Yet the electorate has been exposed with a pounding regularity to the GOP's fiercely negative message machine, and that exposure, almost imperceptibly, was taking its toll. All that was needed to push a public plurality from approval to possibly chronic disapproval of the WH was some otherwise temporary debacle such as the ACA's troubled rollout.

The GOP may be nuts, but it understands with impressive clarity its relentlessly methodical doings in the politics of now.

Still, Podesta is perceptive in describing the party as cultishly Jonestownian, in that we know Jonestown ended suicidally, which, on its present course, seems the GOP's destiny. We must recall, however, that Jonestown's implosion required an external detonation. It appears Mr. Podesta has recalled just that.  

 

Comments

[Peter G]

You are certainly firing on all cylinders today. Permit me to offer a few of my own observations. If Podesta was brought in to improve governance then it is clear to me, at least, that he is going to be working on functional compromises with the Speaker of the House and House leadership. With that task comes another, dealing with the more fractious elements of the Democratic caucus. I fear progressives will soon be shitting bricks. Alongside their newborn cows.

[AnneJ]

I think the saddest thing about today's republican party is that the ones who have been in office a long time and knew better, drank just as much Kool-Aid as the tea party cult members.

[Turgidson]

That's a doozy of a quote. The fainting couches will be overcrowded with perpetually-outraged right wing hacks for the next couple news cycles.