by Patrick Appel
Timothy Egan applies prohibition-era politics to contemporary issues:
The coalition against drink was hardly a majority. The Anti-Saloon League played an outsized role at the margins, killing off moderates at the primary level, or in legislative deals, and forcing politicians to pledge to their cause.
Sound familiar? Today, virtually every Republican in national office, and a majority of those seeking the presidency, has taken a pledge to an unelected, single-issue advocate named Grover Norquist. His goal is to never allow a net tax increase — under any circumstances — and in the process reduce government to a size where he can “drown it in the bathtub,” in his well-known statement of mortal intentions.
Norquist is no where near as powerful as he pretends to be. Journalists like citing him because he's a personification of anti-tax ideology, and it's easier to write about people than it is to write about issues in the abstract. Anti-tax fervor would be ubiquitous in the GOP with or without him. But the point about prohibitionists being a minority is worth pointing out.
Map: Price of marijuana by county from Flowing Data by Floating Sheep.
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