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Having been shown beyond any reasonable doubt that they've been utter failures at running government at all levels (be it due to corruption, incompetence, dishonesty, or untenable ideology), the public is abandoning the policies and even ideology of the far right and is shifting back to the left--i.e. the proverbial pendulum swinging back the other way.
What these flabby old corporatist wheezebags are trying to do is stop it somewhere to the right of dead center, where they like to imagine themselves to be, where they think it belongs, where they dishonestly claim that the country wants it to be, and where they hope to control it and make it serve their interests, not that of the country that they claim to love and speak for.
This behavior is motivated by both panic and opportunism.
Panic over the prospect that true progressives might once again control the government (or at least have real power in running it, not only at the presidential level but in congress and the courts) and be able to push forth progressive policies a la FDR, Truman and LBJ, which would obviously (in their minds) hurt their corporatist and neoliberal imperialist interests.
And opportunism in seeing a chance to co-opt the mounting rejection of the right and its ideas and policies and present themselves as the true antidote to the past 7+ years, and not those crazy and irresponsible socialist hippies on the left. I.e. the Chalabis of US politics.
This is all so obvious and transparent to anyone who's really paying attention, that it almost seems redundant and silly to point it out. Of course, not everyone IS paying attention (which is true across the political spectrum given how many cultist supporters of ALL candidates and positions we are seeing right now), which is why, sadly, it does need to be pointed out.
The antidote to 7+ years of far-right neo/social conservative militarist imperial corporatist dominance (and I would argue that it's more like 13 and perhaps even 27 years if you go back to Gingrich and Reagan) is NOT center-right neoliberal corporatist dominance. That's like going from heroin to methodone. But that is precisely what these people are trying to do.
On the one hand they want to prevent progressives from taking over, because they'd obviously try to end policies that benefit these corporatists and promote ones that would hurt them, and on the other hand they want to exploit this transitional and unstable period to get back in power (as opposed to being merely partners in this now crumbling right-wing coalition of the far right and corporatist center-right). Panic and opportunism lie at the cold heart of this "movement".
It's all so transparent, and silly. But since it exists, and not everyone sees what's really going on here and might buy its BS, it warrants a response, and reaction.
