“Think tank” and Allen West are not words you might expect to find in a sentence together. But it has come to this.
On the heels of urging our troops to refuse to follow President Obama’s orders and trying to con followers into donating to his PAC so that he could impeach the President even though he was summarily shown the exit door by voters and has no power or authority, former Congressman Allen West is running away from Florida.
The Fox News pundit is taking refuge in Texas – land of the less than rational conservative movement that worships government shutdown artist Senator Ted Cruz (-TX).
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Anthony Man at the Sun Sentinel reported that Allen West is leaving Florid to become the CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis, which Wikipedia describes as “a non-profit neoliberal American think tank whose goals are to develop and promote private alternatives to government regulation and control.”
“The truth is, he had used up his welcome in Florida. He wasn’t going to get elected to anything here. So there was no real political benefit to him staying here,” said Charles Zelden, a professor of history and legal studies who specializes in politics and voting at Nova Southeastern University. “What happens to politicians when they’ve used up their welcome is they go on to get jobs either on TV or in think tanks.”
The NCP seeks to justify “alternatives” to regulation, as in, no regulation. This is reinforced by the fact that it was founded by a libertarian. CorpWatch describes how the New Deal and its social safety nets and government as part of the solution (e.g., creating jobs in times of economic hardship) was in part a response to neoliberal economic theory:
Economic liberalism prevailed in the United States through the 1800s and early 1900s. Then the Great Depression of the 1930s led an economist named John Maynard Keynes to a theory that challenged liberalism as the best policy for capitalists. He said, in essence, that full employment is necessary for capitalism to grow and it can be achieved only if governments and central banks intervene to increase employment. These ideas had much influence on President Roosevelt’s New Deal — which did improve life for many people. The belief that government should advance the common good became widely accepted.
If anyone can destroy the idea that government can do some good, it’s Allen West as a former Congressman.
Wikipedia says that the “topics” addressed by the National Center for Policy Analysis “include reforms in health care, taxes, Social Security, welfare, education and environmental regulation.” Wherein to “reform” means to destroy. Sounds perfect for the man whose words further ignited the already permanently inflamed rhetoric at Fox News.
For two long years, West represented Broward and Palm Beach counties, ticking off constituents with his Tea Party zealotry – the same zealotry that had him accusing the Democratic Party of having dozens (plural) of Communists in the House. Yes, West ran on creating jobs and then created zero jobs. He was busy with his anti-women agenda and hunting down paranoid visions of boogeymen from another century.
In the end, West found a total of 80 alleged “Communists” in the Democratic Party but refused to name any names, so if you’re hungry and looking for work, that’s helpful.
At one time, when he was actually employed by government, West claimed to believe that the President of the United States was afraid to talk to him. If Obama side-stepped the one term West, it probably wasn’t out of fear but pragmatism. Nothing will get done with a person like West – he’s in it like Palin — a cash grab and some spotlight please.
West’s kind of emotional hyperbole and hysteria is better suited to Texas, where Republican elitists often pose as populists in order to better prime their followers for the Big Grift.
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