Typical

The modern Republican Party always puts extremist ideology over sound public policy. Always. Virginia Foxx (pictured—on the right, of course) is a perfect example of that.

The far–right Republican US Representative from North Carolina is far from being a bright bulb on her best days, but she’s surpassed ever her usual brand of idiocy: She authored an amendment (later adopted by the Republican-controlled US House) to forbid teaching health centres from providing training in abortion techniques. To rigid theocratic ideologues like Virginia, it’s better that doctors be ignorant than be able to effectively treat female patients. Where does she get this lunacy?

The answer is that, like most Republican politicians, Virginia is determined to impose extremist religious views on everyone else. Far from being traditional conservatives, these modern Republicans want to use the power of government to tell people how to live every single detail of their lives.

The Republican Party has abandoned the idea of “small government”, except when it comes to protecting ordinary, mainstream Americans, of course—they get out of the way of the rich and the corporate elites. Instead, the Republican Party has become the party of Big Government Conservatives, trying to create a theocracy in which they can dictate to the majority of Americans.

Conventional wisdom has it that Republicans have over-reached. They were elected in 2010 to deal with jobs and the economy, but instead they’ve been using their power only to wage culture wars, destroy Medicaid and bust unions—none of which is what American voters wanted or thought they were getting.

If American voters want a poster child for everything that’s wrong with the Republican Party, Virginia is as good an example as any other, albeit one of the dumber ones. With luck, in November 2012 American voters will remember how awful the Republican Party has become. With politicians like Virginia providing typical examples of modern Republicans, it’ll be hard for them to forget.