This week's tale is a horror story about lessons learned by the GOP from the 2012 presidential election. And those teachable moments are... nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. Empty voids. "Hear the hollow roar of the Pod People. See them lash out at the unknown. Feel their blind terror of a future they don't understand. It's Son of the Bride of the Attack of the Robot Amnesiacs! Part 6."
They say one sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Which means it can't be long before the entire Republican Party is institutionalized for their own safety shuffling around in shabby bathrobes popping a daily regimen of psychotropic pills in miniature Dixie Cups. Falling asleep during games of checkers. Which, admittedly, is redundant.
The contraction of the party into a hard white stone nugget the size of a peach pit is almost complete. Inclusion? Heresy! Generosity? Hah, we spit on your generosity! And fie on your benevolence. Compassion? Grace? Sympathy? Tolerance? More liberal plots solely designed to destroy the lives of decent God-fearing people. Just like science and education and the EPA.
Fueled by the fiery core of Tea Party Irregulars, the GOP futilely pursues an agenda intended to replicate a simpler time gone past. An imaginary simpler time gone past. Right now, from Texas to Wisconsin to Florida to North Dakota, coordinated efforts are rolling back anything that smells like a societal advance. Voting rights. The control of women over their own bodies. The freedom to marry any person you love. Equal access to health care. The Republicans are undergoing an overhaul to remake themselves the Party of the '50s. The 1750s.
These guys have assumed multiple positions so far on the wrong side of history they probably see dinosaurs chewing on extinct ferns in their back yards. Going to end up with La Brea tar pit fossils as their only friends. Their theme song -- straight from the movie "Horsefeathers," by Groucho Marx: "Whatever it is, I'm against it." Should really adopt the Wooly Mammoth to replace the elephant as their mascot. Maybe the Dodo Bird.
Furthermore, the stated plans of John Boehner's House majority now involve slowing down immigration reform. Of course, "slowing down" is simply another euphemism for "getting rid of." "Termination with extreme prejudice." "Buried so deep in committee, you wouldn't be able to find it with a thousand Klieg Lights and a molecular microscope." Not hard to imagine the next order of business is to mandate American housewives wash their clothes in the creek.
One fact never addressed, their record -- not really one to write home about. Unless your home is on Failure Avenue. Stubborn Street. Contrary Court. Wayward Way. Think about it. Conservatives have opposed every, single, major advancement in human rights over the last 200 years. Freeing the slaves. Women getting the vote. Minimum wage. Child labor laws. Medicare. Social Security. ObamaCare. Miniskirts. Arugula. Jazz.
So that's their back to the future track. Morphing into the modern equivalent of the Whig Party. The sepia-toned, Sansabelt-slacks wearing, Tin Pan Alley listening, rabbit-ears adjusting, blacksmithing, coal-powered, buggy-whipped, daguerreotype party. Sitting all by themselves in an outhouse with a Sears catalogue and black and white dreams of separate but equal water fountains as only their companions.
5 time Emmy nominee, Will Durst's new one- man show "BoomeRaging: From LSD to OMG" presented every Tuesday, at the Marsh, San Francisco. Go to... themarsh.org for more info. Or willdurst.com. And don't forget to listen to the newest edition of the Will & Willie Show on KKSF 910 @ 7pm this Saturday night and 960 KNEW @ 6pm this Sunday night. Or willandwillie.com 24/7.