I think it’s time to give the Republican Party a new mascot, and I vote for replacing the elephant by the duckling.

Partly, that reflects how big a force I think they are going to be in our politics over the next few years (maybe even a few decades, if they decide to keep heading down the track they are on).

But mostly it reflects what seems to have become the defining characteristic of the Republic Party in the last few years: ugliness. It seems like every single day now, the news brings multiple examples of different kinds of ugly behavior by them and theirs. Bob Herbert, in the NYT, described it as “foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior in its ranks and among its strongest supporters”. Here’s a small selection from yesterday’s crop.

First up: tantrum-ugly:

There is a little-known rule in the Senate stating that hearings can’t happen after 2:00 p.m. each day without unanimous consent. However, every day, at the start of business, the Senate generally agrees, by unanimous consent, to waive this rule and continue with the necessary business of holding hearings.
[...]
Republicans, however, are now refusing to give unanimous consent and are blocking the hearings. Today, during a Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on transparency, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) announced that he had to stop the proceedings because of Republican blocks…
[...]
…The AP also reported today that Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) had a hearing on the bark beetle canceled today “after Republicans angry over the passage of health insurance reform legislation blocked it by using an obscure Senate rule requiring a unanimous consent to hold hearings scheduled after 2 p.m.”

(Didn’t everybody who ever went to kindergarten learn not to behave like this?)

Here’s racist-ugly, and from a sitting senator, no less:

In the days preceding Sunday’s House vote on health reform, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Glenn Beck began referring to the reform effort as akin to a Japanese bombing attack. “Nancy Pelosi, I think, has got them all liquored up on sake and you know, they’re making a suicide run here,” Graham said. Graham tried to justify his remarks, saying they were not racial because his “comments really reflect the fanaticism of the Democratic leadership” and that he could have said moonshine, instead of sake. Today on Newsmax, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) echoed Graham, saying Democrats are putting “red bandanas on their head” to go on a Kamikaze mission:
KIT BOND: I think it may be more accurate to say they put red bandanas on their head, took a drink of sake, and went out on what I believe to be a Kamikaze mission.

Here’s stupid-ass violent-ugly:

The same day a brick crashed through her Niagara Falls office, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D) says her staff discovered an assassination threat aimed at her family members.
[...]
Slaughter has been at the center of the push for reform. Last Thursday she received a chilling recorded message at her campaign office. “Assassinate is the word they used…toward the children of lawmakers who voted yes.”

The FBI is now investigating.

Is the Republican strategy of aggressive self-marginalization really going to fail? Are they really going to pick up seats in the House and the Senate this year even after doing everything they possibly can to shred their credibility, and to frighten the American public about the consequences of voting Republican?