Rick Perry looks like most people think a president should: handsome, steely eyed, with flecks of salt and pepper running through his thick, dark hair. Thrice elected governor of the second most populous state in the union and former head of the Republican Governor’s association, a resume and a headshot could convince a great chunk of the country to give him their votes. This man is electable.
Rick Perry is also one of the most regressive, knee-jerk, conservative-spouting heads in a field dominated by ideology and anger and light on intellect. Indeed, Perry represents another link in the chain of our country’s possibly unavoidable apocalyptic transformation into, what could best be described as, a Confederate backwater. This man is selling old ideas, repackaged with a smirk and a middle finger towards the black president, and he could win.
Tea Partiers will see Perry as a kindred spirit, someone for whom America is a combination of a doting June Cleaver fantasy and the simplistic rants of Archie Bunker. After leading a group of Teabaggers in a prayer, he announced to his audience and to the larger media audience that Teabaggers aren’t mad; they are indignant (there is a difference, apparently) because he thinks Obama is an apologist for America rather than believing in its exceptionalism. This is actually an issue to these people: if you don’t believe our country is, and has always been, the best country on earth and announce it frequently and with great gusto, you’re not fit to lead it.
Perry will tout his economic credentials as the governor of a state that creates more jobs than many others. Never mind that Texas labor and environmental regulations are close to nonexistent, the growth of jobs doesn’t match the population growth, and Texas has the second highest rate of minimum-wage workers behind Mississippi; according to Dick Lavine, a senior fiscal analyst with the Center for Public Policy Priorities. Never mind that Texas has the largest percentage of citizens without health insurance and that their economy is built on the back of demonized immigrants, both legal and illegal. In an election season where economic matters seem to trump the others, Perry seems likely to give the sitting president a run for his money.
The GOP’s economic policy has pretty much been the same since Reagan: Deregulate, even to the point of assured self-destruction of selected industry; and cut revenues and taxes, even to the point of running huge national debts, raising the debt ceiling, and gutting social programs. Like most mainstream Republicans, and all Teabaggers, Perry thinks all taxes are bad and the Federal Government should be as weak as possible.
And of course, Perry is a rock-solid social conservative. They all are (and by “they” I mean every GOP contender except Gary Johnson) but they aren’t talking about it. Neither are the Teabaggers, the re-branded, freshly funded and organized Republican base. As purposely disorganized as the Tea Party movement is, they are good at controlling the message and keeping it about economics and not about the draconian views on gays, women’s rights, and the environment, that they all share.
We know that the GOP has played politics with our debt ceiling, which has been raised by Republican and Democratic presidents without incident numerous times, almost causing our government to default and leading to a downgrade of our national credit rating by Standard and Poor. We know they wrote a bill called “Repeal the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act” (H.R. 2) and passed it in the House of Representatives, ignoring the nonpartisan CBO’s assessment that Obamacare would actually reduce the cost of health care for most Americans. They know politics a lot better than they understand how to manage the world’s largest economy.
But the social issues, the ones that aren’t being talked about, are the ones that are truly frightening. Perry spoke out in opposition to Lawrence v Texas (the 2002 Supreme Court ruling against Texas’ anti-sodomy law) in 2002 and called the Supreme Court Justices who overturned it “oligarchs” in his 2011 book, Fed Up. He supports teaching intelligent design, making women see their sonograms before getting an abortion, and… surprise!… doesn’t think Global Warming is real. There isn’t much ideological wiggle room to his right, suffice it to say.
Whoever the nominee is, the GOP candidate is almost certain to have views on social issues that are well outside the mainstream; but appealing to the 20-30% of the country that decide GOP primary victor. Then, after the convention, said candidate will overplay his or her hand on economics; accusing the president of killing jobs, forcing the country to enact a health reform law it didn’t want (even though we clearly did), and being a black Nazi communist. Okay, they won’t actually SAY that, but their proxies, like shrill former SNL cast member Victoria Jackson and gluttonous Mormon conspiracy nut Glenn Beck, will. And if America is distracted enough by their pocketbooks to let someone like Perry slide in (and that is not out of the question), our country’s social policy will backslide a generation.
Edited By: Alexis Atherton
Perry and Bachmann are tools…
You certainly are correct about the danger of electing such a toal incompetent fool to a position of real authority. This is one (of several) who MUST be stopped from achieving national office. This country is already in deep enough shit as it is, without adding the king of crap…
totally agrees. rick is a loud mouthed hypocritical buffoon. he is what the far right extreme conservatives consider a 2nd choice to bachmann. you have Romney whose religion believes black people were intelligent cattle!?!? cmon man… what next? there are so many independent bigots already trying to run representing the tea party.