Sometimes when you find yourself in a disconcerting and unfamiliar place, it can be beneficial to stop, look back and understand just how we ended up in this terrain. The professional DC consultant class are benefiting from the current climate of chaos, and they certainly don’t want anyone to review the consequential and intentional steps it took to get here.
When the Tea Party rose up in opposition to President Obama’s indulgent spending programs in 2009 many were under the mistaken assumption the opposing party, the republicans, were against the progressive agenda based on principle.
However, there were a few voices on our side saying be wary of the UniParty nature of DC, the republican party is not our friend.
Money always fuels their motives, and so long as there are millions available to the ‘loyal opposition’, the republican political intentions should not be regarded as altruistic and they damned well have never been ‘conservative’.
At the time our concerns were dispatched by a louder voices demanding strategic unity and instructions for the Tea Party alliances to work within the DC-based GOPe system.
However, those of us who broke free from the cycle of battered conservative syndrome immediately knew the warning signs. What benefit is within unity if the end result is just as destructive as the problem? An awakened electorate was just as dangerous to the republican side of the UniParty as it was the Democrat side.
It was from this basic framework The Conservative Tree House was born. A “last refuge” where common sense approaches still mattered.
Unfortunately almost all of the predictable outcomes came to fruition. The GOPe were given control, nothing changed, no fiscal restraint was deployed, and the Obama agenda continued unabated by, and in many cases facilitated by, all entities within the UniParty.
An easily referenced example is the lack of a federal budget, and -due to baseline budgeting- the spending and re-spending of the trillion dollar “’09 stimulus” in all of the following fiscal years.
Further evidence in that regard surfaced with the DOJ inspired IRS targeting of the Tea Party. In reality the elimination of DC opposition was as beneficial to republicans as it was to democrats. The IRS issue highlighted a singular, self-serving, protectionist weaponization that targeted opposition to The UniParty.
Exiting the mid-term race outcomes of 2010, the lack of control over the electorate became the paramount issue for the DC politburo. The political strategy sessions in 2011, 2012, and throughout 2013 were focused on how to control election outcomes to benefit the republican party in DC and work around the demands of the voter.
By November of 2013 the DC strategy was no longer planning; they had now successfully recruited all the tools needed to position their defenses. After successfully testing out their modified attack approach in the 2012 primary election cycle, the republican leadership now had a basic road-map for how to defeat the base of the party.
We began writing about the issues beyond their scheme and looking further downstream at the predictable consequences. – EXAMPLE –
Simultaneous to the DC strategy, and entirely because they needed to control anyone who opposed their intents, there was also a shift in the “conservative media messaging” – entirely by design.
Corporate financial interests began purchasing smaller conservative newer-aged media outlets who were the source of much antagonism and frustration for the DC class. –EXAMPLE– Again, this was December 2013.
Almost no-one was paying attention to what all of this corporate media purchasing was going to mean in the larger picture later on.
The ‘conservative’ opposition to the DC Beltway was being corrupted by financial interests, what came next was again entirely predictable. On December 28th, 2013 we wrote the following:
[…] The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is heavily invested in two legislative constructs. First, immigration reform. Second, maintaining Obamacare.
John Boehner has promised to deliver immigration reform next year. Nancy Pelosi openly admitted as such and it is widely expected to be the platform for President Obama’s entire State of The Union speech.
Bottom line – Establishment Republicans are going to deliver Amnesty legislation on behalf of the CoC request.
As predicted in June of 2014 John Boehner took up the amnesty legislative construct known as the ‘Gang-of-Eight’ bill which passed the Senate a year earlier. Fortunately, two days before the vote, Eric Cantor was defeated in his primary by challenger David Brat. The Cantor defeat reverberated instantaneously thought DC and the legislation died.
However, the republican party hatred for their own electorate only amplified with the Cantor defeat. Those who control the money flow would not be deterred.
Summer 2014 […] The Mississippi runoff was a signal moment for the Chamber in what’s quickly becoming the most aggressive political cycle in its 102-year history.
The conservative-leaning outfit [U.S. Chamber of Commerce], known mainly for its heavyweight policy and lobbying practices — it spent $74 million on lobbying in 2013, according to the Center For Responsive Politics — has emerged as one of the most powerful actors in American political campaigns, with roughly $17 million spent so far on Senate and House races, all of it on behalf of Republicans friendly to the business community.
In doing so, the Chamber has planted itself firmly on the front line of the GOP establishment’s push to extinguish tea party ideologues wherever they threaten business-backed candidates — in Mississippi, Alabama, Ohio, Kentucky, and elsewhere.
“The crowd that wants to come to Washington and blow the place up and shut the place down, that’s a threshold issue for us,” Reed says. “We care about governing.”
The world’s largest business federation spent roughly $50 million on behalf of candidates in 2012 — and officials say they plan to blow past that total this year. The spending doesn’t quite rival the midterm budget of other political entities like the conservative Koch brothers network, which reportedly plans to spend almost $300 million this election year, or even the $100 million being wielded by Tom Steyer, the San Francisco-based billionaire environmentalist.
But the Chamber’s campaign footprint in 2014 represents a huge strategic shift. (more)
There are two parts to the Summer 2014 GOPe Mitch McConnell success story. PART I and PART II – It was from those victories the presidential road map was spawned.
Having full financial control over any oppositional media, and with the wind at their back, the Wall Street financial class moved to their next goal, the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal (TPP):
[…] Lobbying expenditures by members of a pro-TPP coalition increased to $135 million in the second quarter of 2015, up from $126 million in the first quarter and $118 million in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to Senate Office of Public Records reports reviewed by Reuters.
The spending surge occurred among members of the U.S. Business Coalition for TPP, a group that hopes a final TPP deal can be completed by the end of 2015. (more)
There are trillions of dollars at stake for the Wall Street financial class, and the K-Street lobbyists have been enlisted to do everything possible to ensure victory. Almost no substantive opposition exists except for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
Meanwhile the electorate have again been hoodwinked by a three year scheme right out of the previously designed 2013 play-book. Proving once again…
….Sometimes Conspiracies are not Just Theory
