The shutdown of the federal government by congressional failure to fund the government for the next six weeks and the impending default on federal debt from threatened refusal to raise the debt ceiling may be traced to the ascendancy of the Tea Party in the 2010 midterm elections and its effect on the Republican Party.
Two years after the high-turnout 2008 election that swept President Obama into office and gave Democrats the majority in both houses of Congress, the low-turnout 2010 elections saw the rise of the Tea Party and the Republican seizure of control of the House of Representatives. More significantly, it gave the Republicans control of many state governments in a year of the United States Census which allowed the new statehouse majorities to gerrymander congressional districts to insulate the newly elected Republican congressman from defeat in the high-turnout 2012 race. President Obama was re-elected in an electoral landslide 332-206 with 52.1% to 47.2 % of the popular vote and a 5 million vote edge at the polls. In 2012 Democrats retained control of the Senate but Republicans, despite a net loss of 8 seats, held the house by 234 to 201. The effect of gerrymandering may be seen if you consider 1.4 million more voters voted for Democrats than Republican congressional candidates in the 2012 election yet Republicans held on to the majority in the House.
The 2014 midterm elections loom large in the politics of the government shut-down. Although opinion polls suggest the shut-down is unpopular and that a majority blame Republicans, the Republican faithful who will make up the electorate in any Republican primary think quite differently and support their party 78-13 %. The Tea Party faction appears driven by the shibboleth that "big" government is "bad" and exists to take away their treasure and freedom. The Affordable Health Act, passed by both houses of Congress, signed by the President and upheld by the Supreme Court is anathema to them.
Why anyone would get so exorcised over a law designed to extend healthcare to millions of uninsured Americans is beyond me, but I began to see their "logic" at a Tea Party demonstration in 2010 where a protester help up a sign that said "Government Keep Your Hands Off My Medicare." I looked around at the many elderly protesters and it occurred to me that they looked like people who benefit from Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Veterans Benefits but were stirred up to believe that "Obamacare" would take something away from them. Their passions fuel the government shutdown by emboldening the true believers and the demagogues to radical action while cowing the moderates and conservatives in the House Republican Caucus who otherwise might allow the government to keep operating while the normal legislative process played out.
The political benefits to aspiring leaders like Ted Cruz, who so publicly engaged in a fake filibuster and basked in the media attention it brought, is reflected in the poll numbers that now have vaulted him, a first term U.S. Senator, to the lead in public opinion polls among Republican candidates for President in 2016. Although the polls favor generic Democrats over Republicans for Congress in 2014 the right-wing Congressmen must feel safe and secure in their gerrymandered districts so long as they toe the Tea Party line. Republican congressional leaders like John Boehner realize that their power depends on keeping the support of their caucus and so invoke the so-called Hastert Rule to prevent measures from coming up for a vote in the House unless a majority of Republicans support it. Surely, the continuing resolution to maintain government funding has 218 votes in favor if the Speaker were to permit a vote on a clean bill.
Government by manufactured crisis is a new phenomenon and one that must be countered by firm resolve from the President and the Senate to stand their ground. This would surely be assisted by more candid coverage by the media which should abandon "horse race" coverage (i.e. who's winning and losing) and false equivalencies between the parties to expose the raw politics and subversion of the democratic process lurking behind the rhetoric and posturing of the radical right.
