Newt Gingrich Explains The Meaning of Scott Brown

Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the house under Bill Clinton and spearhead of the 1994 ‘Republican Revolution,’ just spoke with Big Think about the impact of the Scott Brown’s victory and its implications for the political future of the country.

This moment, believes Gingrich, represents the American people’s official break with the “Obama-Pelosi-Reid political machine,” and brings the profound anxiety felt by Americans at the prospect of such “secular socialist” agenda into the fore. 

That a Republican can win in a state like Massachusetts will serve as a wakeup call to both parties: for Democrats, it signals the grave danger of pushing through such an “aggressive healthcare reform;” for Republicans, it shows that the party’s success need no longer hinge around its appeal to ‘southern and rural’ voters, but can now go after the bi-coastal regions which have been so ardently blue.

If Scott Brown is any sort of bellwether into the 2010 elections and the Democrats lose the house and/or senate, Gingrich believes we’ll witness an even more intense form of political isolationism and impasse. Obama, Gingrich says, is no Clinton, and his lack of discipline will ultimately make him into more a “tone deaf” combination of Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson.