How small are you willing to make the bubble?
On Saturday, the Alabama Republican Party’s executive committee voted to shrink it significantly, again, by passing a resolution that calls for expelling any Republican who appoints a Democrat to any position.
Bye bye, Kay Ivey.
A lifetime of service and popularity mean little, it seems, in the face of the Idiot Mob more concerned with blind loyalty to the brand than actually serving the entirety of the constituency.
Ivey, like Democratic and Republican governors before her, has appointed a number of Democrats to judgeships and other positions, typically to replace other Democrats in heavy Democratic districts. Silly her, actually giving a damn what voters might want.
This is so silly and childish. Actual grownups would be embarrassed to behave this way and think this way.
But that’s not what we’re dealing with here—not in Alabama’s Republican Party. Where the executive committee is busy excluding faceless Democrats while turning a blind eye to the fact the party chairman is basically a walking enigma, there are bunches of questions about the use of party money, and there’s growing concern about the involvement of party leaders in a Georgia Ponzi scheme.
But yes, appointing a Dem to a judgeship in Montgomery County is the real problem here.
This is all part of the steady closing of ranks within Alabama’s supermajority party. It started a few years ago with the law banning crossover voting in primaries, continued with rules making it easier for a handful of members to keep candidates off the ballot and will most certainly lead to a law in coming years that closes primaries, shutting hundreds of thousands of Alabama voters out of the election process.
It’s not hard to understand why it’s happening. It happened in the state’s old Democratic Party, when it dominated the state. A handful of powerful leaders who wanted to cling to power and shut down any dissension (or even questions about management decisions) consistently proposed new rules and laws that shut out any threats.
So, I get why the John Wahls of this tiny political kingdom want to shrink this bubble. I don’t get why so many others are so willing to go along with it, so willing to participate in a process that belittles longtime party leaders like Ivey, so willing to cede power to what is—let’s be honest—a small but vocal portion of the party that is increasingly embracing far-right, insane ideas.
But most of all, I don’t get why the voting public is OK with this. Especially after the last few months. Especially after the Epstein debacle.
This hyper-partisan nonsense is how political parties end up resembling cults, where basic questions about financial responsibility, accurate bookkeeping, conflicts of interest and fairness of processes are met with ostracization, punitive acts and even public expulsion. Where seeking to hold candidates to the promises they made are met with hostility.
It is the opposite of the democratic process. It is opposite of the American way.
In fact, there has never been a time in this country’s history where placing loyalty to a party or an individual above loyalty to the law and the process has not resulted in corruption, abuse and severe consequences. Not to mention a whole bunch looking pretty stupid.
You can see it coming like a freight train for ALGOP. All the signs of a debacle are there: a handful of people abusing power and influence; rules and laws being changed or altered to appease one person or a small group of people; widespread ignoring of norms and rules; and an unwillingness of the majority to take a stand even when they know they should.
But it won’t matter in the long run, because these things typically don’t end with the general members staging a coup (although it did recently with ADP). It usually ends with men and women with badges and windbreakers carrying warrants and subpoenas. And there are signs, and lots of talk, of that being the case for ALGOP currently.
Still, it’s concerning to me—even as someone who clearly identifies more with one party than the other, and readily admits as much—that so many fail to see the value of compromise and a diversity of ideas and people. It’s concerning that someone like Kay Ivey could be held up as a cautionary tale by the extremists, and so many accept it. It’s concerning that so many fail to understand the purpose of the basic construct of American government.
A few months ago, I wrote about the problems within ALGOP and said then that it appeared destined for a fate similar to ADP. A Republican friend called to correct me, saying that I was dead wrong.
“The Democrats at least have people who are willing to stand up and raise hell about the wrong they see,” the person said.
True enough. And one hell of a commentary.
