Rage, Rage

According to most objective accounts, about 250,000 zanies showed up at the Fox News-fanned "Tea Bag" rallies across the nation yesterday, protesting, well, Income Tax day, the existence of Obama and probably the Round Earth theories of Copernicus. Now a quarter million is not as slight a number as liberal bloggers might have liked, although it is a very minor distillation of the 50 million or so who voted against Obama in November, sort of the cream of the crap. And oh, what a moronic show they put on, with little tea bags hanging from their hats and waving signs reminiscent of those branished by studio audiences on "Let's Make a Deal."

While Fox commentators acclaimed this as the symbolic start of the Second American Revolution they were out-crazied by some of the spokesmen, including Texas governor Rick Perry, who hinted darkly of potential secession of his state. (That is actually a rather welcome idea, for then we would never have to cope with their politicians again, but I digress). As to any actual meaning in the protest, it does represent the core of anti-tax, states right/libertarian leanings of a sliver of our population. Sure, most people hate to pay taxes, though ironically, about 98% of the protesters would get their taxes lowered according to Obama's economic plan. Also ironic is the fact that, as Rachel Maddow pointed out, most of the protests took place in municipal parks, and the peace was upheld by local police forces, all of which are paid for by those insidious taxes.

None of this, of course, is going to alter the trajectory of Obama's programs, and the stock market has responded lately by recovering most of its losses for the year. That the economy appears to be bottoming out thanks to confidence in Obama's thoughtful, measured approach has torpedoed some of the rhetoric of the Tea Baggers. And now that Obama has struck a very receptive chord on his international travels so far, and won a spectacular symbolic victory when the Navy brilliantly, Jack Bauer-like, saved an American captain from Somali pirates, the Loco Opposition has been driven into a state of near madness.

The clearest evidence of this is Rush Limbaugh's unbelievable contortions to try to wring criticism out of Obama's handling of the Somali hostage situation. At first he predictably lambasted Obama as a lily-livered weak faggotty no-guts President who would never stand up to the slightest foreign threat. Then, when Obama proved his mettle, Limbaugh not only castigated any conservative spokesman honest enough to give Obama the limited credit he deserved, but he actually came to the defense of the pirates themselves, calling them poor black teenagers who were starving and desperate and about to surrender when they were brutishly attacked by the Americans under the savage order of our Commander in Chief. For unbelievable, Bizarro-world hypocritical chutzpah, this declamation will probably never be matched. That is, until he starts accusing Obama of killing Vince Foster.

So until the Obama administration actually--and inevitably--commits a misstep, the Republicans will be getting more and more desperate in their attacks, to the point (which I believe has already been reached) of clinical insanity. Rudderless, meaningless and powerless, they are reduced to raging against the elements, like a woebegone King Lear on the heath screaming at the thunderstorm.

But there are more parallels between the current Republican Party and Shakespeare's cranky old King. Having aged out of a power position, Lear found his kingdom divided by his greedy and hypocritical daughters with their own agendas, to the point that his realm is totally undermined. Lear does not understand the truths around him, and, like his friend Gloucester, is blind to the nature of his reality. So he rails and whines and eventually destroys the only honest member of his entourage, Cordelia, who will not give in to his vanity and short-sightedness.

Thoughtful, clear-thinking members of the Republican party do exist, but they are now being shouted down by the extremists who are as dangerous to the party's long-term health as Regan and Goneril were to Lear. The Republicans even have their own "fool"--the only clear-headed representative who knows the truth but is shouted down, Michael Steele succumbing to the bombastic Boss Limbaugh.

Sadly, any comparison of the Republican status to that of a Shakespearean character will be lost on 99.9% of the Tea Baggers, who certainly have never read or probably heard of King Lear. But it's not likely that their minds would be changed or assuaged in any way. Literacy, after all, is one of those insidious values that effete Democrats champion in their desire to destroy our democracy.