The Cabal Of Stupid Just Can’t Help Itself

by John DeProspo

One of the smartest things ever uttered by Jindal came right after the Republican cabal lost the 2012 presidential race and saw Democrats gain seats in both chambers of Congress. Jindal famously scolded Republicans attending their annual rnc winter meeting, saying, Republicans “must stop being the stupid cabal.”
Fast forward to September 2015, it does not appear the Republican cabal has been able to shake off its simpleton past. Not only is a modern-day P.T. Barnum leading the field of 2016 Republican pretender candidates, but the other two leading prospects, Carson and Fiorina, are political neophytes with the same amount of governing experience as Trump: zero. Could there be a more unmistakable repudiation of the cabal’s establishment candidates as this? Why can’t the cabal learn its lesson?
At that 2013 meeting, which doesn’t seen so long ago, Jindal rightly observed his party needed a complete recalibration. He suggested Republicans, “stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.” Jindal accused his cabal of “looking backwards” and having an obsession with “identity politics.”
A populist-sounding Jindal went on to warn his audience, “We must not be the party that simply protects the well-off so they can keep their toys. We have to be a party that shows all Americans how they can thrive.”
What ever happened to that guy? The 2015 version of the sage Rhodes scholar and Republican governor is nowhere to be found. The 2016 Republican pretender candidate is sounding just as stupid as the rest of the field of wedge-issue addicts.
I believe that Jindal, as do all Republican politicians, does not suffer from a short memory. The truth is that if any Republican pretender candidate wants to become the cabal’s pretender nominee in 2016, he or she must cater and pander to the cabal’s base of low-information, intolerant, religious fundamentalist voters.
If it seems Republicans are on the same suicide mission as before – blocking immigration reform, trying to curtail a woman’s right to choose, defending religious intolerance – you would be right. But it’s the bed they made long ago; they simply can’t help themselves.
While the old Republican playbook may still work well on the state level, as for national elections, you can quote the leading Republican pretender candidate, “fuggedaboutit!”