The New GOP Congress: Class Combat With a Side of Culture War
February 17, 2011 By Laura Flanders
It might be the greatest bait and switch ever pulled on the American voter. For two successive election cycles we’ve been promised jobs, a recovering economy, attention to the Constitution. After the last one, triumphant Republican after triumphant Republican declared November’s to be an election decided on jobs.
Well I don’t know what jobs you had in mind, but I’ll bet most voters weren’t thinking axe wielder or culture warrior. But suddenly all we’re getting is tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for everyone else, and no jobs, unless you happen to be paid for pursuing abortion doctors.
Call it class combat with a nice healthy side dose of culture war. While Obama’s pursuing the Republican priorities of cutting spending, Republicans and a few of their Blue Dog buddies are attacking abortion rights. Again.
Rand Paul, the supposed Tea Party champion who ran on individual rights to privacy and liberty, has introduced the Life Begins at Conception Act to make sure that fetuses have individual rights too. No word on whether Paul considers the women who carry those fetuses humans under his Constitution.
South Dakota is considering a bill that would make it “justifiable homicide” to kill a doctor who performs abortions. That’s right, they want to legalize killings like that of Dr. George Tiller in 2009. Apparently they’ve learned nothing from the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. Would it be OK in South Dakota to preemptively kill batterers, or employers with fetus-unfriendly workplaces? Maybe that’s on its way.
And those kinder, gentler Republicans who were going to bring back jobs to their states, like Scott Walker in Wisconsin? They’re busy threatening to call out the National Guard on workers who don’t like having their rights to collective bargaining taken away—or having their jobs slashed. That’s not exactly concern for the economy, Governor Walker.