TOPIC:

I know what you mean. One of my ancestors was one of Lincoln's advisors on my old ladies side. When I Googled him, I didn't like what I found. WikiPedia lists this sentence about him "His essays remain among the linchpins of American thinking".

Needless to say, my thinking is not very American.

The best way to capture the essence of the 'tea party right' is to relate the following story:

Michelle Obama is involved in a campaign to reduce the levels of childhood obesity in the USA. You would think that would be a noble and worthwhile objective and the aim would cross the political divide. However, those on the 'tea party right' would support such a program as long as no USA Federal money is used in the campaign. They are so anti-government being used for social programmes that they oppose the above campaign. It doesn't matter that by reducing the levels of childhood obesity the health outcomes would be so much better in the long term and as a consequence the amount of money needed to resolve the long term problems of childhood obesity.

With respect to the latest crisis: Sen Ted Cruz et al would like to cause severe problems with the USA and world economies on an agenda which never had any chance of succeeding. Firstly, their attempts to 'de-fund' Obamacare was never going to pass in their Senate; and secondly, if it had managed to get passed in the Senate President Obama would have vetoed the bill. So they cause all the problems and would gain nothing out of it.