Your Zero And One Seventy-Seven Republican Party

As the Dow gives back all of yesterday's gains and then some, John Cole and the guys at Balloon Juice point out that the Republican party is now 100% committed to the failure of the American economy in order to make political gains in 2010.

Let's stop and consider this plan. They have decided that the best way for the GOP to regain their political power is to hope that millions of Americans lose their jobs, their homes, and their livelihoods just so they can blame it on Obama.

Think about that. This means in fact the Republicans are basically convinced that the economy is going to fail so badly that they believe that the risk involved in this bald-faced partisan attempt to sink the President's measure and any hope of rehabilitating the economy is less than the risk of voting for the President's measure.

As tristero puts it over at Hullabaloo:

The rejection of bipartisanship by the Republicans should be perceived in terms of their long term strategy. They know that the depression has just begun. The worse is yet to come. How bad will it be? Far worse than anyone so far has imagined, and we've all imagined it as pretty bad. It will exceed our most extreme fantasies. (In fact, my father, who turns 100 next month (!) said this is shaping up as much worse than the thirties; I think he may be right.) The GOP knows that no feasible stimulus plan, no matter how large or well-crafted, can avert catastrophe. They intend to refuse to go along with anything Obama proposes, wait until disaster hits,and then - counting on the country's short memory span as well as the complicity of the media - blame Obama, Democrats, and liberalism for destroying the economy.

In other words, the GOP is as pessimistic about the economy as I am, if not more so. They are now married to the idea that there will be a Second Great Depression, and that they are washing their hands of the economy and the American worker just so 18 months from now they can say "See, Obama destroyed this country. When the GOP was in charge, this country was wonderful!"

And I fear that tristero is absolutely right. It's one thing for me to predict the gloom and doom of another economic depression. It's quite another thing entirely to see an American political party absolutely counting on one happening in the next two to four years. So tristero continues:

Obama also knows that economic disaster cannot be avoided and that it will be far worse than anything anyone alive - other than centenarians like my Dad - has ever seen; that's why his inaugural address was so grim. He also knows that no stimulus plan will work. And he knows he will be blamed for it when the misery adds up. Therefore, he is trying like hell to get the GOP to sign up, at least partially, for his proposal so he can spread the blame, This is after all, a time-honored political tactic, used by Bush, for example, to claim bipartisan authorization for the invasion of Iraq.

Since the GOP won't ever play - they're not stupid about their self-interest, after all - what is to be done? First, like Duncan, I think the Obama administration must propose the most responsible stimulus package they can, focused entirely on serious efforts to prop up the economy rather than appeasing the Republicans' special interests. Furthermore, they must propose legislation that protects as much as possible the middle class and the poor from the economic tsunami the Bush administration unleashed on this country and that has only begun to be felt. It may not work in staving off an economic collapse, but the crash will be so bad that any amelioration of its effects will be useful.

Naturally, Obama needs to take the high road and continue to call for "bipartisanship." But, as the GOP continuously refuses to go along, the Democratic party, and progressives, must attack on two fronts. First, they must accuse the GOP of lack of patriotism, of refusing to support the president in a time of extreme crisis. Second, they must never, not for a single news cycle, let the country forget that a Republican president, and a Republican legislature is to blame for the dreadful shape of the US economy.

And really, that goes a long way towards explaining why Obama is so keen on bi-partisanship, and why the GOP is so keen on making sure Obama owns the economy over the next four years.

Eventually, somebody's going to have to level with the American people. Whoever does it first, and does it best, will be in charge once the smoke clears. Obama and the Democrats must keep that in mind.

[UPDATE] BooMan reminds us that this vote was meaningless for the GOP as it wasn't the final House vote on the plan. Where tristero opines the GOP is playing no for the long haul and playing long term, BooMan thinks the GOP is playing short ball games strictly in the short term because they have zero long term strategic moves left and are pretty much done for. The bill has to go to the Senate next week where it will be voted on, and then it must be reconciled with the House version, requiring a second House vote on the reconciled bill in February. BooMan is convinced a couple dozen GOP members will go with the Democrats on the reconciled bill, effectively ending the GOP's influence in the House during the Obama era after roughly three weeks, after which John Boehner becomes the biggest joke in Washington.

This theory too has a lot of things going for it. The House vote on the final, reconciled bill will tell us a lot. I just think that vote is going to be zero Republicans.

After all, this is the same House GOP group where all but three of them voted against the Ledbetter Fair Play Act. Maybe they're just insane and enjoy losing.