A Republican and elected official says he regrets endorsing “that idiot” Bobby Jindal. And it isn’t only Jindal Sheriff Newell Normand of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana regrets, but the whole Republican establishment, from elected officials to Grover Norquist.
Speaking at the Metropolitan Crime Commission’s annual awards luncheon on Tuesday, Sheriff Normand unleashed hell on the Republican Party
“What a mess. Bobby Jindal was a better cult leader than Jim Jones. We drank the elixir for eight years. We remained in a conscious state. We walked to the edge of the cliff and we jumped off and he watched us and guess what? Unlike Jim Jones he did not swallow the poison. What a shame.”
Watch courtesy of WVUE Fox8Live:
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He said Jindal is “trying to re-write history,” with himself as the hero of the piece.
“He’s trying to get everybody to believe that he did a phenomenal job. We have to just say no. I’m a Republican. But I’m not a hypocrite. … We did this to ourselves, myself included, because I endorsed that idiot. And now we’re going to try to play partisan politics as it relates to this.”
According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the budget gap is “estimated at $943 million between now and the June 30 end of the fiscal year. The state is also estimated to face a $2 billion shortfall in the 2016-17 budget year.”
Then it was Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) leader Grover Norquist’s turn:
“We better get concerned. We better wake up. We better be honest. We better talk about the issues because we are going to pay the price…We do not need to face the stupidity of our leadership as it relates to how we’re going to face balancing this budget and talking about these silly issues because we’re worried about what Grover Norquist thinks. To hell with Grover Norquist! I don’t care about Grover Norquist! We’re worried about the ATR report card.”
The Republicans in Washington did not escape either, for their ideological attacks on Obama:
“And I have to listen to my Republican counterparts talk about gobbledigook. Blah, blah blah… And I’m so sick and tired of hearing: Obama, Obama, Obama. You know how much intellect it takes to blame something on somebody else? This much! Propose a solution. Work together.”
Normand put his money where his mouth is. According to NOLA, “Normand endorsed Republican Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne for governor in last year’s primary race, and is a member of the Louisiana Sheriffs Association that endorsed Democrat John Bel Edwards before his runoff victory over Republican David Vitter.”
Of course, Republicans are trying to blame Louisiana’s budget woes on Edwards after only some forty days in office, and those attacks on Edwards riled Normand up as well.
It’s no surprise Edwards gets the blame after just 40 days in office. After eight months in office we’re told Bush still wasn’t to blame for 9/11, and though he wasn’t even IN office yet, Obama gets blamed by Republicans for Hurricane Katrina – and even for 9/11.
You see how this works. So too now does Sheriff Normand.
He went on to appeal to his fellow Republicans:
“C’mon folks, we have to wake up. Let us be honest about what we’re doing. Propose a solution. Let’s work together and collaboratively toward an outcome that’s going to make sense for us as a society.”
Of course, what Fox affiliate WVUE of New Orleans got out of this epic shredding of Republican politics is that “JP Sheriff Normand calls Jindal a ‘cult leader’ during speech.” Calling Jindal a ‘cult leader’ was – as you can see – only a small part of what Normand did.
It’s no surprise that Fox News would not advertise Normand’s condemnation of the GOP turning ‘compromise’ into a dirty word, but that’s exactly what he did, and it was that, and not Jindal, that was the focus of his condemnation of the GOP from top to bottom. Jindal is just a symptom of what is wrong with the GOP.
We’ve all been thinking it. Many of us have been saying it. But few Republicans have been willing to really open up on the stupidity and ideological rigidity of their own party. Our warnings have generally fallen on deaf ears.
Jindal himself famously warned that the GOP needs to “stop being the stupid party,” and then embraced that stupidity with both arms, and, as Normand says, led his flock off the cliff. This is happening in Red State after Red State.
Back then (2013) Jindal claimed “We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments,” but he had his own share of appalling statements, including calling the Obama administration “science deniers.”
The reality-free Republican leadership won’t hear Sheriff Normand, but some rank and file Republicans do hear, and change must start at the grass-roots level. Just as Florida mayors are rebelling against GOP climate-change denial, and Indianapolis rejected its state’s attack on religious freedom, so New Orleans and other cities can reject other aspects of Republican politics. The Republican Party is destroying America, and it won’t stop until people like Nomand stand up, speak out against it, and make it stop.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
