Rs in Tennessee who have the responsibility of governing just discovered that when you "let loose the Kraken" (hint: last of the Titans) you are truly (what a surprise) unable to control the monster whose duty it is to "let no stone stand and no creature crawl."
Americans For Prosperity (AFP) just dumped the two term R governor who is head of the R Governors' Assoc. into the toilet over Medicaid Expansion (see USA Today for 2/26). The AFP supporters vilified the Gov and any R who had a kind word for him and his plan. Everybody (hospitals, health plans, mayors) wanted those Federal bucks. Well almost everybody. R officials were in shock.
The AFP leadership had warned all those Rs who might waver on the path to "economic freedom and individual liberty" that AFP would be watching. They were, and they weren't fooling around. These heavyweight ideological humps cracked the money whip and called out the troops. Rs in the leg. got scared witless and left almost 300k Tennesseans without health care
Everyone R official with half a brain knows that that Rs don't really have a coherent agenda for governance (Just say No does not count as an agenda). They only have a list of catchphrases and buzzwords designed to mobilize their base for elections. Governance is really just that crap you have to wade thru until the next election.
But, these same folks have been happy to suck up to moneybags like AFP. Now, it is a new century. They are discovering that those two greedy dudes with their big media money and the whack jobs who are their grassroots support ( maybe 40,000 in Tennessee) really don't take prisoners. Like the Senate Rs are discovering those rubes in the other body believe all that crazy stuff they spout.
You sly dog Rs who sat back and thought that you are smart enough to take the money and talk the talk, but you never expected to have to walk the walk (hey, who changed the rules and made the majority of the cards in the deck Jokers?). Well, the turkeys have come home to roost, dudes. These guys are in your state, and they will not be happy with whatever you do, just because U are an R. They have this hang-up about ideological purity. So, To badly paraphrase yet another movie classic -- "buckle your seat belts it's going to be a bumpy few years."
The horrible thing is that--as you sink, you mat take the country with you.