You know,
like Georgia gun shop owner Jeff Epperson, a rabid Tea Party supporter. Here's a guy who, despite seeing his business cut drastically as he's just outside the now closed Chickamauga Civil War battlefield national historic site, is ready for the park to stay closed as long as necessary and even for the country to go into a disastrous default in order to rid America of the demonic specter of affordable health care.
“If he backs off, then I would say absolutely I’d be inclined to look for someone else,” said Mr. Epperson, whose store flew a Don’t Tread on Me flag.
The Republican insistence in the House on tying financing of the federal government to dismantling the Affordable Care Act is being driven by a deeply conservative caucus from places like Mr. Graves’s 14th Congressional District, newly created by Georgia’s Republican-controlled Legislature.
Even as Republican elders warn that the party is risking a voter backlash that could cost it in future elections, interviews here indicate that hard-liners like Mr. Graves have more to fear, if they waver, from a potential challenger to their right.
Mr. Graves, 43, won 73 percent of the vote in November in a district that is 85 percent white and has a 16.6 percent college graduation rate. A journey through the district, which stretches from the exurbs of Atlanta to the northwest mountains on the Tennessee border, found many voters who, even if they were unfamiliar with Mr. Graves’s biography, strongly supported him.
“He represents the people,” said Tim Ferguson, a forklift operator who was waiting for a haircut at Paul’s Barber Shop in Calhoun. “He’s not going to commit political suicide by backing down.”
Voters here viewed the Washington stalemate just as Mr. Graves and many of his party members in Congress portray it: a tale of Republicans who have repeatedly shown a willingness to compromise, while Democrats petulantly refuse to meet halfway.
“Obama should not be so dogmatic,” said Julia Welch, 82, who runs an antiques store in Dallas, the seat of Paulding County. “He wants his way and no other.”
Jon Tripcony, a surveyor in Dallas, recalled a photograph of Republican leaders in shirt sleeves facing empty seats across a table. The photo, which Mr. Graves posted on Twitter, was staged to dramatize Republicans’ call for Democrats to discuss a budget passed by the House. It may have been dismissed as a publicity stunt by much of the news media, which noted that House Republicans repeatedly refused to join a conference on a budget the Senate passed earlier. But in northwest Georgia it was taken at face value.
“There was not one single Democrat,” Mr. Tripcony said. “They’re just spoiled little kids. I don’t get it.”
Deep in NOBAMA Country, the Foxification of the rural rump continues unabated. It doesn't matter that the law passed, it doesn't matter that the law survived the Supreme Court, it doesn't matter that President Obama and the Democratic Senate were handily re-elected, it's Obama who has to give in to the Tea Party. Even at their own expense and the expense of their kids and neighbors and friends, these fanatics are willing to destroy the country and even themselves in order to prevent Democrats from having a country to govern.
Elections no longer have consequences. It's all about which side is willing to commit political terrorism in order to win that matters in America in 2013, and among Republicans, those who aren't willing to cause trillions of dollars in damage are not ideologically pure enough to deserve to be among the faithful.
These people will never accept Obama as their President, not of their country, so everybody will have to lose. And the warning is clear: if you elect Democrats, these lovely people will continue to destroy America again and again until you stop.
They figure you have no choice but to surrender to them. We'll see very soon if they are right.