Could the Tea Bagging of Kansas Finally Be Over?

Thursday , 4, August 2016 3 Comments

John Boehner seems to think so. The former Speaker who had an epiphany when the Pope visited and resigned from the House was photographed enjoying a glass of wine with a twist of Cercei Lannister smirk as he watched the whole thing burn.

The crowning moment of the August 2nd primary election in Kansas came at 8:52 PM CDT, when Tim Huelscamp staffers herded the press out of campaign headquarters promising a statement soon. Huelscamp lost his primary bid to Roger Marshall in a landslide after spending six years in Washington DC proving no one could out-tea bag him. His behavior was so repugnant he lost his seat on the House Committee on Agriculture in 2012, a seat held by a Kansas House member for 100 years.

Huelscamp had plenty of company Tuesday night, as Kansas voters fed up with conservative Republican tax cuts for the rich shenanigans removed 11 incumbent legislators from state government. The Kansas Primary was a vote of no-confidence on Governor Brownback’s supply side economic policies, which after six years has turned the state into a third world black hole in the center of U.S. flyover territory.

Since 2011 when several states found themselves strapped with fiscally conservative Republican governors, it felt like a race to the bottom to see which governor could destroy the economy of their state the fastest. Brownback has yet to poison a city of 100,000 people with lead just to save a buck, but his experiment to create the Utopia the Witchita-based Koch Brothers always dreamed of succeeded in doing exactly what Reaganomics could only do – make a state realize Reaganomics only works if everyone is already a billionaire, and likely not even then.

The people of Kansas have come to appreciate having things like roads and schools and politicians who support farmers in a state where farming is the backbone of the economy, and that maybe making rich people help pay for those things wouldn’t be a bad idea. The wave of moderate Republicans running for office in Kansas could be what’s needed to banish Brownbackistan from America for good. Hopefully, Kansas is a wake up call for the rest of us to realize tea party-fueled radical conservative terrorism needs to be eradicated from local, state and national government as soon as possible.

Good job, Kansas voters. On to November.

3 thoughts on “ : Could the Tea Bagging of Kansas Finally Be Over?”
  • Mark Dobias says:

    I would love to see Thomas Frank’s take on this development. He wrote “What’s the Matter with Kansas” about ten years ago and what he said has come true. It may be too late for Kansas as it has fiscally starved itself. Michigan had better wake up.

  • MIprogressive says:

    Ousting Tea Party Republicans in favor of “real” Republicans won’t actually make anything better. Two sides of the same, stupid coin.

    • Up North Progressive says:

      Kansas is a deep red state, and the possibility of conservative Democrats winning is slim. Like the DeVos family in Michigan, the Koch brothers in Kansas are the driving force behind the Republicans in that state. Kansas easing up on the trickle down is the only way they will revive the economy, and more moderate Republicans are a step in the right direction.

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