There was a time when the GOP effectively hid their fealty for the robber-barons behind a facade of Jesus swaddled in small government patriotism. It worked for years. But alas, by 2008 those policies disintegrated, epic fail across the board, leaving foreign policy in paralyzed shambles and the national economy in tatters. From that point on the mask was off, the political hounds and media minions were unleashed to spread naked zombie lies and hatred, the real money behind this bizarre shit exposed:  a tiny sliver of zillionaire wackos obsessed with getting every last dime they can beg, borrow, or steal and exploit a populace not just devastated by those same ideas but who bailed the wealthy out of their own sinking ship. So, seeing them get their clocks cleaned was a nice holiday surprise:

(NYT) –For a full year, House Republicans have replaced governing with confrontations that they allow to reach the brink of crisis, only then making extreme demands in exchange for a resolution. On Thursday, that strategy crumbled.

We can have any kind of government we want. That’s what democracy means. What worries news junkies like us, the crux of democracy rests on informed voters; it’s no wonder some politicians and party’s work hard to misinform them. But that’s the realty. And so we’re treated to enormous, institutional idiocy, duplicity on every scale, and media complicity with the whole bewildering show every damn day of our middle-class lives.

Even during good times, it’s not easy to talk a quarter of the population into voting to give their dwindling piggy bank to greedy, repulsive  zillionaires. Over the last few years this has taken on the qualities of a performance art project. Mouthpieces talk about Obama’s birth certificate, love of Islamic terrorism, and his hatred of America, while he coolly gives the order to shoot bin Laden in the face.  Ignorant blabbermouths run on a platform of constitutional liberty and opposition to intrusive government, get into office, and start passing laws to strictly monitor and regulate our genitals, or making it illegal for government employees to freely assemble and negotiate pay and benefits with The State. The crazed base elevates one pampered millionaire candidate after another who literally cannot complete memorized talking points on camera without screwing up, and proclaims them brilliant. They blew trillions in war and tax cuts, cranked the deficit through the roof, and then had to borrow more to bail out their Wall Street patrons when deregulation led us away from the economic promised land and straight into a crisis of Biblical proportion; they really got up in the morning after all, were somehow able to look at themselves in the mirror, and ran on slaying “Obama’s Deficit Monster” on the backs of the same middle class taxpayers whose credit card they so recently enjoyed, all the while lecturing us on debt. They are irrational to say the least, borderline insane by some definitions, certainly Orwellian, at times macabre to behold, and at times chilling — especially when the underlying veins of tribal hatred and implied violence beat through the noise. 

This time around it didn’t work, as in blew up in their faces, a small serving of bitter justice from the heaping helping they deserve, exposing deep divisions in the GOP while unifying progressives. Best of all, the worst know-nothing faction of the GOP took the hit. The ones so seething with fury at imagined foes they are beyond all hope of reason. That’s the group that lost all kinds of credibility with middle class independents and even some Republicans. It’s not exactly the gift I would have chosen, but it’s the best one I’ve actually received in quite some time, here’s to hoping it keeps giving all year long.