Exclusive: House Speaker John Boehner warned his fellow Republicans that President Obama may be preparing “to annihilate” the GOP, surely an overly dramatic claim but one that marks a stunning reversal of fortune for swaggering Republicans who once dreamt of their own one-party state, says Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
For anyone who has lived through the past several decades of Republican bullying from Richard Nixon’s anything-goes politics through Karl Rove’s dreams of a “permanent Republican majority” it had to be startling to hear House Speaker John Boehner complaining that President Barack Obama’s goal was “to annihilate” the GOP.
During a private luncheon of the Republican Ripon Society on Tuesday, Boehner cited Obama’s progressive agenda as outlined in his Second Inaugural Address as representing an existential threat to the GOP.
“It’s pretty clear to me that he knows he can’t do any of that as long as the House is controlled by Republicans,” Boehner said. “So we’re expecting over the next 22 months to be the focus of this administration as they attempt to annihilate the Republican Party.” The Ohio Republican also claimed that it was Obama’s goal “to just shove us into the dustbin of history.”
Of course, Boehner may be wildly exaggerating the Republican plight to shock the party out of its funk, raise more money, and get right-wing activists back to the barricades. Still, his comments marked a remarkable reversal of fortune, like the playground bully getting his nose bloodied and running to the teacher in tears.
Even if hyped from political effect, Boehner’s lament also might force some progressives to rethink their negative views about President Obama. If indeed Obama has gotten the upper hand on America’s swaggering Right, then he might not be the political wimp that many on the Left have pegged him to be.
Without doubt, America’s political landscape has shifted from what it was just eight years ago when President George W. Bush was talking about using his political capital to privatize Social Security and Bush’s political guru, Karl Rove, was contemplating an enduring Republican control of all three branches of the U.S. government.
As part of that Zeitgeist of 2005, as Bush entered his second term, right-wing activist Grover Norquist joked about keeping the Democrats around as neutered farm animals. The president of Americans for Tax Reform most famous for getting Republicans to pledge never to raise taxes told the Washington Post that congressional Democrats should grow accustomed to having no power and no reproductive ability.
“Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans,” Norquist said. “Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant. But when they’ve been ‘fixed,’ then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful.”
How We Got There
That moment of right-wing arrogance represented a culmination of decades of hardball Republican politics, a take-no-prisoners style that usually encountered only the softest of responses from the Democrats and progressives.
Arguably the pattern was set in fall 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson learned that GOP presidential nominee Nixon was sabotaging the Vietnam peace talks to ensure his victory over Vice President Hubert Humphrey but Johnson stayed silent about what he called Nixon’s “treason” out of concern that its exposure would not be “good for the country.” [See Robert Parry’s America’s Stolen Narrative.]
Nixon’s success in 1968 and the Democratic silence contributed to his decision several years later to create an extra-legal intelligence unit to spy on and undermine the Democrats heading into Election 1972. Finally, Nixon’s political chicanery undid him when his team of burglars was arrested inside the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate building. The resulting scandal led to his resignation in 1974.
But the Republican response to Watergate wasn’t to mend the party’s ways but rather to learn how to protect against ever again being held accountable. That reality became the political back story of the next three decades, as the Right built up a fearsome media apparatus and deployed well-funded operatives to shield Republicans and to discredit anyone who presented a threat, whether untamed Democrats, nosy reporters or average citizens.
This Right-Wing Machine showed off its value during the 1980s and early 1990s when President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush were caught up in the Iran-Contra national security scandal but succeeded in skating away with only minimal political damage. Instead of Reagan and Bush being held accountable for their crimes, far worse damage was inflicted on the careers of investigators, journalists and witnesses who tried to expose the wrongdoing.
Within this political/media framework, when Democrats did win elections, Republicans immediately demeaned them as illegitimate interlopers. For instance, Bill Clinton’s electoral victory in 1992 was an opportunity for the Right-Wing Machine to demonstrate that it could play offense as well as defense, tying up Clinton’s presidency endlessly in trivial “scandals” and setting the stage for the GOP congressional comeback in 1994.
Over those decades, the Republicans behaved as if national power was their birthright. In Election 2000, they saw nothing wrong with aggressively disrupting the recount in Florida, both with rioters on the ground and partisan justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. It didn’t matter that Vice President Al Gore had won the nation’s popular vote and would have carried Florida if all legal ballots were counted. What mattered was putting a Republican in the White House by whatever means necessary. [For details, see Neck Deep.]
The Republican Apex
After the 9/11 attacks, even as Democrats set aside partisan concerns to support President George W. Bush’s response to the crisis, Bush and the Republicans painted the Democrats as “soft on terror” and unpatriotic. The GOP did whatever it took to expand and solidify power.
In 2004, the Republicans and the Right went so far as to portray Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry as a fake Vietnam War hero. GOP activists even mocked his war wounds by passing out “Purple Heart Band-Aids” at the Republican National Convention.
Then, after Bush rode his post-9/11 reputation as a “war president” to a second term, Republican operatives like Rove and Norquist saw their moment for making their political power permanent, in effect turning the United States into a one-party state with the Democrats kept around for the necessary cosmetics of a “democracy.” The GOP would use its money, its media and its control of the judicial process to make successful electoral challenges unthinkable.
But 2005 instead turned out to be the GOP’s high-water mark, a time of premature celebration, the last moment of sunlight before the arrival of darkening clouds, or in this case, the American people’s realization that the Right’s anti-government extremism mixed with the neocons’ imperialist wars was a recipe for disaster.
Bush’s inept handling of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation that it inflicted along the Gulf of Mexico showed the downside of a hollowed-out federal government. And the bloody stalemate in Iraq revealed the dangers of ill-conceived military adventures.
Bush’s tax-cutting and deregulation produced other harmful consequences, including soaring federal deficits, rising income inequality, an eroding middle class and an unstable “bubble” economy that finally burst in 2008. The electorate’s recognition of Bush’s failures led to Democratic victories, including Obama’s election as President.
Yet, despite the extraordinary national crisis that Bush left behind millions of Americans losing their jobs and their homes as well as two unfinished wars the Republicans refused to play the role of “loyal opposition.” They pulled out their successful playbook from the early Clinton years and confronted Obama with unrelenting hostility.
Once again, the obstructionist strategy worked at least in a narrow political sense. By mid-2009, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and other loud voices from the muscular Right-Wing Machine had whipped up a passionate Tea Party opposition to Obama, including crypto-racist allegations that the President was born in Kenya, despite the evidence of birth records in Hawaii.
Meanwhile, America’s weak and disorganized Left mostly complained that Obama hadn’t delivered on everything that he should have. For his part, Obama squandered valuable time reaching out for a bipartisanship that never came, and the mainstream news media faulted him anyway for failing to achieve that bipartisanship.
Getting Obama
So, the Right surged to electoral victories in 2010. Republicans reclaimed the House and seized control of many state governments. Senior Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, openly declared that their top priority would be to ensure Obama’s failure as President and his defeat in 2012. Part of the Republican strategy to reclaim national power was to disenfranchise blacks and other minorities by creating obstacle courses of legal impediments to voting, such as onerous voter ID laws and reduced hours.
Many top GOP operatives, including Rove, remained confident of success as late as Election Night 2012, expecting Mitt Romney to unseat Barack Obama. However, Democrats blocked many of the voter-suppression schemes and Obama marshaled an unprecedented coalition of African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, women and the young to decisively defeat Romney.
In Congress, Democrats strengthened their control of the Senate and narrowed the Republican majority in the House. That GOP majority was retained only because Republicans had gerrymandered districts after the 2010 elections enabling the party to keep most seats despite losing the popular vote nationally.
During his Second Inaugural Address, Obama also made clear that he had finally forsaken the “inside game” of trying to sweet talk the Republicans into cooperation or negotiating from positions of weakness. Instead, Obama delivered a strong defense of American progressivism. He tied that tradition to the ideals of the Framers who wrote the Constitution with the intent of creating a vibrant Republic, a government of, by and for the people.
Obama’s speech and its warm reception apparently unnerved Speaker Boehner who suddenly saw something akin to an existential threat to the GOP. There were the painful election results, the nation’s shifting demographics, the newly assertive President, and hundreds of thousands of Americans again packing the Mall to celebrate Obama’s victory.
After his Inaugural Address as he stepped back into the U.S. Capitol, President Obama paused, turned around and looked back at the throngs of people waving American flags as far as the eye could see. He said wistfully, “I’m not going to see this again.”
From his seat in the Inaugural reviewing stands, Speaker Boehner saw the same impressive scene, and he may have grasped its implicit message. The large and diverse crowd personified the Obama coalition — and the mortal threat that it represents to traditional American politics, always dominated by white men of means.
Of course, the Republicans still have the Right-Wing Machine churning out propaganda to rally the party’s angry white-male base. Plus, the GOP is coming up with more new plans for minimizing the votes of black and brown people and maximizing the political clout of whites, such as a scheme in several states to apportion presidential electors based on the Republicans’ gerrymandered congressional districts.
But Boehner seems to sense that something fundamental has changed. Perhaps he was playacting a bit when he warned fellow Republicans that Obama hoped to “annihilate” the Republican Party. But overdramatized or not Boehner’s alarm suggests that finally it is the Republicans who are afraid.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Suffragettes are still fighting all over the world for an equal vote. Every human and civil right has been fought for and the fight must continue until world poverty, slavery and lack of health care is addressed. If there were more parties enlisted in the fight, we would not be occupied with he said, she said two party stalemate.
Good. I hope Obama and the Dems can beat the Republicans back into the hole they crawled out of, all of those years ago.
People need to understand that for the “Grand Old Party,” it’s not about governance. It’s about getting their way. Hence the gridlock in Congress right now. Sure, Reid and the Democrats could be doing better to capitalize on the current Republican weakness, but the fact of the matter is that it wouldn’t even be an issue if Republicans would just reach across the aisle and COMPROMISE. Instead, they cower and recoil at the mere suggestion, clucking about traditional values and the like.
At least Obama attempted to forge bipartisan ties. Even the liberal media tends to fault him for doing so, as if he squandered some phenomenal opportunity to just get stuff done. In fact, his unifying agenda in those early years – though naive – can be seen as prophetic, trying to head off the bitter partisan ethos in Washington we have today.
Some serious strides have to be taken by the Republican Party, in the way they conduct their business. The American people can’t wait another four years while they dissolve into their usual machinations to steal 2016 from the Democrats.
The article should read “The American People Are Afraid” Dems, Repubs, are both hand in hand screwing the American people while they solidify there power over us. Funny how one thinks one party is better than the other. Can we say brainwashed?
Mr Perry has it correct one more time. As for Mr Boehner, he’s plenty engaged in conduct per usual. Mr Boehner and Obama say nothing about DHS, FBI, State police, and local police forces using all the counter-intelligence assets aquired after 911 and psycological operations to neutralize Occupy Wall Street protestors all across Amerika; this is completely unconstitutional on it’s face where citizen protest is expressly protected conduct and speech. Obama a Constitutional professor? Sure. What is going to be done to stop the official security forces in the USA from taking us to jail and/or subjecting more (pepper spray, trunchons, rubber bullets, pain holds) next time we protest across the USA? With the gun grabbing that is going of now instead of stopping the “legal” drug dealers ie seratonan uptake pills, it won’t be long until the next uprising in the USA. The next uprising is really going to be one ugly totalitarian smash/kill/grab.
Steve I could not agree more nor could not have said it better !
Ever notice the propensity of Republicans to head right for the sewer of sexual innuendo? The “fixed†metaphor referring to castration and sexual impotence is an obvious example. False patriotism, flag waving and the incessant mantra of “supporting the troops†always devolves into smearing the service record of some bona fide hero like John Kerry or Chuck Hagel when it serves their purposes. A coterie of bullies such as Rove and Norquist always turn to legal avenues when they lose. I remember the little gang of thugs that constantly tormented other kids when I was in high school. The rules never seemed to apply when some poor victim complained about their beastly activities: they were the “majorityâ€. Finally, some kid caught the ringleader and beat the living shit out of him. The bully’s parents immediately resorted to “lawfareâ€, and the rules suddenly became important. This is the schoolyard equivalent of gerrymandering and Supreme Court stacking. But, in all fairness, the Democrats are not immune to that peccadillo either. Prosecuting whistle blowers for exposing war crimes when Wall Street fraudsters are above the law amounts to the same thing. While filibustering has gotten a bad name recently, its original intent was to provide an avenue to fight back against a misguided majority. Obstructionism is not always a bad thing. Some of you may have missed Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washingtonâ€. Personally, my bladder wouldn’t have held that long, and in real life, that would lead to a slimy hailstorm of typical Republican innuendo. Personally, I can’t wait for the next installment of a Republican playing “footsie†under a men’s room stall. There’s bound to be one, because hypocrisy is their common denominator.
Fred,
Agreed. I’m reluctant to abolish the filibuster as I still remember it being used against some really misguided Republican policies about 10 years ago.
The reason 2005 was the high-water mark for the America-hating Republicans, is the Republicans failed to get their war ostensibly against the Iranians. A war based on lies in Iran is really a war against Americans and against American Democracy. The bankruptcy and the terrorist retaliation would have given the reactionaries every unholy power they have ever wanted back since 800 AD. The British Sailor incident followed more than a year of daily headlines accusing Iran of having been responsible for most of the IEDs in Iraq that were killing American soldiers and this is now debunked but the back at the time alot of Americans who didnt learn the lessons of Iraq and Vietnam thought the lies about Iran were supposedly true.
So every member of the party whose only motto since 1860 has been, “Screw the Workers” falls down dead. Where’s the bad?
Outstanding analysis.
Obama should annihilate the Republican Party for what they’ve done to the country and to him personally. Getting rid of Petraeus was a good start. Boehner is right to warn the other inmates in his asylum. They are out of control. They were just handled by Hillary Clinton, a war monger of major proportions.
The citizenry will make the right decision when they have either full information or enough time. Time has run out for the Republican stupidity. We’re in a depression with real unemployment at 23% (see shadowstats.com). Obama knows this as do the Republicans with any cranial matter. Both parties are ready for a big fall for years of failure on this core issue.
Hagel and Kerry are encouraging appointments. Obama should listen to them. However, putting a government insider who used to sell derivatives in Treasury is a huge lapse. And his DoJ crew won’t enforce the law against Wall Street crooks and give the people just a bit of satisfaction for the big heist of their net worth.
Obama neglected his chance to reverse Bush constitutional and human rights abuses, he blew the economy (when he had a larger mandate than today), and, goD forbid, he may blow the environment with Keystone XL approval.
Both parties are whistling past the graveyard of history, to little avail. Their conspicuous inability to recognize the real problems and suffering of the people spells their ultimate doom. The Democrats will last a bit longer but not much.
Mr Parry can listen to Republicans if he wants, but why bother. Their strategy seems to be simply to say the MOST MELODRAMATIC, HYPERBOLIC things they can – – – with random (at best) relevance to the truth – – – just to keep the emotional pitch high. They do NOT want their supporters calmly thinking about things… they NEED them emotionally on-edge using more of their reptilian brains, so that they can continue to vote against what is typically (except for the 1%-ers) their better economic and personal interests. You might as well try to analyze the rantings of the ‘Sham-wow’ guy for all the difference it makes to one’s understanding of the political process…
If you were to take every politician, badge licker, political sycophant, banker, FED RES chairman etc…..throw ALL into a huge blender….. the viscous slime would spell THEM.
If you were to ask any citizen still capable of critical/objective thought whom, in their opinion is the biggest threat to AmeriKa and what it USED to represent not only to it’s citizens and the world there would have to be one answer;
THEM!!
Republi-Cons have done everything in their power to destroy the Presidency of President Obama, to destroy this country and to destroy the people in this country by any means necessary. Now they want to cry “WOOF” because their tactics and LIES didn’t get them the Presidency. They have not worked with this President; they have only worked with the Rich; they have dumped all of the people of color; asian, hispanic, black, etc. to keep their lily white Party of NO. They Lie on God and say they are Christians but they are trying to destroy the President. The Word says I am paraphrasing ” when you dig a ditch for someone else dig one for yourself”. The Republi-Con party is burying themselves at the cost of everything that is ugly. They are annihilating themselves and until they stop blaming everyone else and see the real problem they will continue to fade away… When you are pointing a finger at someone else, 3 fingers are pointing back at you…Look in the mirror…
Reactionaries could not ever do a thing without centrist collusion.
Mr. Boehner the Republi-Cons will annihilate themselves becaus of their insensitiveness, their backbiting and lying; their attacks and because they have done nothing for this country. In the midst of trying to destroy President Obama administration they are trying to destroy this country and the people in. We are a country of versatility and we don’t believe in the Republi-Cons thought pattern. It eliminates most of the country and only include the rich getting richer and every one else on their own to fin for themselves with the droppings from the table of the rich, maybe.
He keep saying they know what the people want. First of all the people voted for President Obama. The peoPle did not vote for Mr. Boehner. His caucus put him In as theIr leader and he has done a poor freaking job. He should have been fired the second day. Mr. Boehner you DO NOT talk for me, nor any of your Republicans. When we voted for President Obama, the people spoke. You nothing about us because we didn’t vote for you. You would not have been the one we voted for. You have been a waste of precious time…. So SHUT UP…
Mr. Boehner the Republi-Cons will annihilate themselves becaus of their insensitiveness, their backbiting and lying; their attacks and because they have done nothing for this country. In the midst of trying to destroy President Obama administration they are trying to destroy this country and the people in. We are a country of versatility and we don’t believe in the Republi-Cons thought pattern. It eliminates most of the country and only include the rich getting richer and every one else on their own to fin for themselves with the droppings from the table of the rich, maybe.
He keep saying they know what the people want. First of all the people voted for President Obama. The peole did not vote for Mr. Boehner. His caucus put himn as there leader and he has done a poor @4$$ freaking job. He should have been fired the second day. Mr. Boehner you talk for me, nor any of your Republicans. When we voted for President Obama, the people spoke. You nothing about us because we didn’t vote for you. You would not have been the one we voted for. You have been a waste of precious time…. So ;dro
Their fear is misplaced. They should fear what they are, and how they are destroying themselves. Like tragic werewolves, they cannot change who and what they are.
This article must have been written before Harry Reid failed us on the filibuster and turned control of the Senate over to McConnell.
Senator Tom Harkin put it best. He says in an article published today that he told Obama last August that if he won the election, and if filibuster reform isn’t done, he might as well go on a four year vacation.
We now know that both conditions for a four-year hiatus in national governance are now in place.
Heck of a job, Barry.
It seems Reid and the Senate Democrats can’t wait to be in the minority. Obama seems to want the same thing. He doesn’t take an advantage even when it is stuffed into his pants. My wife says that’s because he is Javanese. She means that in a good way. I think he just doesn’t know what he wants, and is prepared to accept and defend whatever decision is made for him. That’s called pragmatism.
I hope that president Obama will use his acknowledged advantage to quickly initiate his progressive agenda and stand firm.We the people should demand it as well by millions of letters,calls to Congress,talk shows,marches.On to the spirit of a collective democracy.
The material reality is that neither calling congress nor million of letters nor talking to talk shows nor marches would do us any good. Doing all the above is nothing but waste of time and blowing off our steam. They do what would serve the interest of their owner–the master class. The have never given a rat what the people want nor they would give a rat what the people want.
The GOP better get its act together swiftly.
Articles like this are very revealing and only adds to the possibility of completely obliterating the Party. How can a man like Obama accept all the accolades? The Republicans are allowing it, that is why. Reform, Reform, Reform Republicans.
The Dems won’t have destroy the GOP..”leaders” like Boehner..are quite able to do it all by themselves.
Robert Parry speaks of Obama’s “progressive agenda”. Does this include his personal kill list, assisting NATO in the illegal invasion of Libya, increase use of predatory drones by the hundreds? Since becoming president, Obama has:
Signed the NDAA into law – making it legal to assassinate Americans w/o charge or trial.
Initiated, and personally oversees a ‘Secret Kill List’.
Waged war on Libya without congressional approval.
Started a covert, drone war in Yemen.
Escalated the proxy war in Somalia.
Escalated the CIA drone war in Pakistan.
Maintained a presence in Iraq even after “ending” the war.
Sharply escalated the war in Afghanistan.
Secretly deployed US special forces to 75 countries.
Sold $30 billion of weapons to the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia.
Signed an agreement for 7 military bases in Colombia.
Opened a military base in Chile.
Touted nuclear power, even after the disaster in Japan.
Opened up deepwater oil drilling, even after the BP disaster.
Did a TV commercial promoting “clean coal”.
Defended body scans and pat-downs at airports.
Signed the Patriot Act extension into law.
Deported a modern-record 1.5 million immigrants.
Continued Bush’s rendition program.
#####
Is this the new progressive agenda?
Exactly. Who needs Repugs when you have a POTUS whose plans match anything they could wish for.
I think all of the republican ridiculousness is a elaborate ruse designed to give Obama cover for all of this. How is it that they can have knock down drag out fight over all manner of domestic issues and never utter a word in opposition about this? They’re covering for him and if that’s not the intention, that’s the effect.
This could be such a teachable moment for “real” Republicans. Eisenhower-Republicans could expel the greedy Tea-Bagging Neocons and form a true Loyal Opposition (the kind of thing that would make a Democrat like Obama fairly blossom), but NOOOOOOO! The Koch Bros will crank their free-lance racketeering; the Pentagon will pull a few triggers; the Mad Men will tell all sorts of lies . . . and in 2016, the tattered, snarling remains of the GOP will mount another appalling spectacle and pretend they have any governing chops whatsoever.
BARBARABF
what is your point? What you wrote is the same dribble we have been hearing since 2001. Yeah, the President will continue these practices. Is it ethical or moral? I really do not know because I am not privy to the level on security that the President has, therefore, I would just be jabberwocking, in other words, yara yara yara.
Mamerto: If you continue to be content that “I really do not know because…” then you are failing as a citizen and a voter. It is the voters’ job to ensure that elected officials do their jobs properly which requires, among other things, ethically and morally proper behaviour. If you do not know and cannot be bothered to find out whether or not your elected representative is acting morally and ethically, then you cannot do your job at the polling booth.
Now, that’s “drivel”
So speaks the low information voter.
The point is that you should get off of this left web site Grover. Go count whats left of your Dan Quail postureing. “Read my lips, no new taxes,” Bush and Quail decades old rhetoric precipitating Bush II off the books two wars, global bank fraud, and Wall St crash for the $26 Trillion transfer of wealth to the 1 per cent ie Rockefeller’s, Walton’s, Koch’s.
“Real Republicans” was just a comic book that was made into a movie – there never were any – just racists and reactionaries willing to put their stupid ideology before the safety and well being of Americans.
Well, Barb: Your list is chock full of stuff the Pentagon insists upon, no matter what the President wants. Do you really not know it is they who rule? What happened to politicians and others who defied them?