THE PUBLIC EYE: Zombie Politics: 2013 Republicans
By Bob Burnett
Friday January 11, 2013 - 01:36:00 PM
Originally a “zombie” was a reanimated corpse, but recently the term has expanded to signify a person under a spell without consciousness and self-awareness. A contemporary Republican politician.
Writing in The American Prospect, John Sides defined “Zombie Politics” as politics based upon ideas that are dead but live on. That capsulizes the 2013 Republican Party.
While there are many examples of Republican zombie politics, the two most recent have been the GOP responses to the end-of-year fiscal cliff and relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy. In the fiscal cliff negotiations, House Republicans stuck to their position of no tax increases until the supposed 12/31 deadline passed. Then a minority of Republicans agreed to the Obama plan, enough so it passed given overwhelming Democratic support.
Of course, no tax increases is a core Republican position based upon their belief that low rates grow the economy; it’s a fundamental tenet of Reaganomics, the trickle-down theory that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” It’s been widely discredited but nonetheless lives on as the cornerstone of zombie politics.
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