I found this on reddit andit resounded so much that I wanted to put it here; I want to have access to this forever.
As Drum points out in the linked piece, any grand bargain would leave the Republicans with no big issue and the Democrats could pound away on them with the wedge issues that they don't poll so well on. They need the current situation with debts/deficits/revenue to be an ongoing controversy in order to keep themselves temporarily if artificially relevant.
[–]enjo13 89 points 45 minutes ago*
While there may very likely be a kernel (or more) of truth in that, I prefer the far less cynical version.
The current crop of Republicans are ideologues. They were elected because they are ideologues. Their constituents want representation that is unbending and principled. They got it.
The problem with ideologues, however, is that they tend to have the mental capacity of a peanut. After all, smart people (as they mature) begin to see the world as a prism. Full of subtlety and complexity. These people simply don't. They see only that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Everyone has tried to argue with an ideologue (often about religion) and the results are rarely fruitful.
For me, the whole thing isn't a grand political maneuver. It's a symptom of a much larger issue. Something anyone who has lived in the rural south (or similar rural communities throughout the country) can really appreciate. Fixing it requires fixing culture, and history shows that is a slow process indeed.
warning, wall of text ahead
disclaimer: I'm going to be painting with a broad brush here. Focused on one type of voter in a larger party. People vote Republican for a lot of reasons, and many of them are perfectly reasonable. I'm not talking about them, I'm going to be talking about a voter that makes up the most passionate part of their base... the ones who elect so many of the obstructionists in congress today. If you're a GOP voter and you hate what's going on, then this doesn't apply to you:)
The folks in those places are fighting a culture war, and "war" really is the best term. You see, these people are living in a world where they face increasing irrelevance. Society, over the past few decades, has begun to value knowledge and education over brute strength. We've begun to rely on technology instead of simple work ethic. We've begun to engage other countries and cultures, and the whole thing feels very far removed from the experience of these people. They see the writing on the wall, a world in which they are quite simply irrelevant.
Now this runs very counter to the narrative they've grown up with. I remember when I moved to the south (first Georgia and then Arkansas) as a teenager. The rhetoric was confounding! The kids (reflections of their parents) clearly had very different values. Physical strength trumped smart in the hierarchy. School never seemed particularly important. There was real pride in the simplicity of their community. Go to church, play football, and if someone challenged your pride.. beat the hell out of them. The narrative these kids grow up with was radically different from anything I had experienced before.
So now put yourself in their place. You've grown up being taught that all that really matters is god, family, and hard-work (in the physical sense). The music you listen to, the sermons you hear, and the society you live in during your high school years all exist to 100% reinforce this idea. Then the real world happens. I went to college in Arkansas, and it was amazing to see. For kids who go to college, their faith is almost immediately put to the test as they delve into biology and science. If they don't go to college, they find themselves in a world that doesn't have a lot of use for their muscle. They begin to get the sense that everyone on the coasts looks down on them. The Internet and that connection to the world beyond their little town just serves to drive home the point: everything interesting is happening, and no one gives a damn about what they're bringing to the table. Worse yet, their culture is something of a joke to everyone too.
Then you think about the historical context. The civil war, civil rights, women's rights, integration... they've been on the wrong side of it all. Hell those coastal elitists sent TROOPS into their backyard to integrate the schools. How incredibly humiliating is that? Then factories began to close, and all of a sudden popular culture shifted. Leave it to Beaver and Archie Bunker gave way to programs that focused on the coasts and city life. Magazines were filled with images of the city. Technology boomed, and none of it did much for the south. Now to succeed you needed to know things. There was (and is) a real sense that it was hard working country boys who won WWII and built this country into what it is today, and what thanks did they get? Sky high unemployment, and even worse... irrelevance.
Enter Ronald Reagan. You know why he's such a hero to the right? Because he saw this, and he understood it. He did something liberals have never done. He engaged them. He said "you know what, I think you're awesome and I'm going to fight for what you believe in". Think about how that resonates! Their pride had been insulted for so long, and here comes Reagan to put them back on top. They began to engage in politics not in terms of issues, but in terms of culture. The GOP leadership saw this as a golden opportunity. All they had to do was engage that culture and they could institute almost anything want! Cut taxes for the rich! Deregulate! It was like Christmas for rich people.
Then a funny thing happened. That same group of voters, motivated by wounded pride, started to define their culture in terms of their politics. Deficits, welfare reform, and taxes became symbols. I always roll my eyes when someone makes a condescending comment about how GOP voters all think they're going to be millionaires one day. To hell they do. They DO know, however, that giving ground on those issues means a return to irrelevance. They yell and scream not because they understand macro economics, but because they just know that when Democrats win, they lose. By extension, they come face to face with the fear that they might not matter any more at all.
So now here we are in 2013. The process has more or less completely backfired on the GOP leadership. Anyone, from these districts, that even attempts to compromise finds themselves facing incredible opposition from the people who view compromise as an affront to their way of life. Look at the case of Bob Inglis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Inglis) from South Carolina. He was one of the most conservative representatives during his time in Congress. Yet he opposed a troop surge and broke ranks on energy policy. He looked like a shaky vanguard for the real cause (restoring pride) and so they rallied against him. Look it up on Youtube, the seething hatred you'll see during his town-hall meetings in 2010 come not from disagreeing on issues, but a much more basic place. Wounded pride is really the most destructive force in human history.
The tea-party wave in 2010 was full of this stuff. These voters don't want compromise, they want their pride back. They don't want to work with anyone. They want to win. There are enough of them (thanks to heavily gerrymandered districts) that they can get their guy elected. They are SO motivated that they actually vote in state elections, so they take over state houses. It's just a huge mess.
So now we have representatives who are unable to compromise. Both because they believe their own bullshit, but also because compromising means political death. It's going to take a massive change in attitude to fix it. As culture grows and changes (gay rights for one...) it's not going to get any better. Every progressive advance drives home that George Strait may not have been right.
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