Dylan Hales

July 05, 2009

Yesterday I made my return to the Tower and took aim at Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford, without mentioning the latest “mainstreamer” to start talking the anti-federal government talk, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint.  As someone who was living in exile when the good Senator was elected, I missed out on the joy of withholding my vote from DeMint, but it doesn’t mean I can’t take some cheap shots now.

Like the far more principled Mark Sanford before him, Jim DeMint has toyed with the idea of being anti-establishmentarian on the subject of economics.  I have not read his latest book – amazingly this dedicated public servant has managed to pen two utterly meaningless tomes against the excess of liberalism while remaining a Republican Party loyalist – but I am considering it.  His willingness to throw out the dreaded “S word” in the books subtitle suggests the hyperbolic qualities of Ann Coulter, and his token use of the term “Freedom” carries with it a hint of Levinist cognitive dissidence that always makes for unintentionally amusing reading.  At the very least the book might be useful as a case study in pandering political behavior in a post-Bush America.

Of course, DeMint’s self appointed role as leader of the populist anti-Obama brigades in the Senate has resulted in him casting some less than appalling votes, and yes, DeMint is better than most of the men and women that pollute the U.S. Capital (though he is not the best Senator).  But like Sanford before him, he cannot be a leader for any decentralist political movement regardless of the role he is casting for himself nowadays.  In fact, DeMint isn’t even qualified to replace Sanford as the “best of the mainstreamers.” 

“You are either with us or against us.”  I’m sure DeMint remembers that line and in the Fed, the Empire, and in the managerial state it’s a good slogan to live by.