October 2006 Archives

Via Atrios. Tucker Carlson on this weekend's Chris Matthews show.

CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in...

MATTHEWS: How do you know that? How do you know that?

CARLSON: Because I know them. Because I grew up with them. Because I live with them. They live on my street. Because I live in Washington, and I know that everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals. And the evangelicals know that, and they're beginning to learn that their own leaders sort of look askance at them and don't share their values.

MATTHEWS: So this gay marriage issue and other issues related to the gay lifestyle are simply tools to get elected?

CARLSON: That's exactly right. It's pandering to the base in the most cynical way, and the base is beginning to figure it out

In a rare moment of intellectual honesty, Carlson is confirming the thesis of Thomas Frank's What's The Matter With Kansas. The GOP's electoral strategy is to run on moral issues (gays, abortion, evolution) that they don't necessarily even give a shit about, then once elected pursue a neo-con/freemarket agenda. Thus they get the working class to vote against their own interests.