What we've observed these past two years is a political party that knows nothing but scorched earth tactics, cannot begin to see any merits in the other party's arguments, refuses to compromise one inch on anything, and has sought from the very beginning to do nothing but destroy the Obama presidency. I see no other coherent message or strategy since 2008. Just opposition to everything, zero support for a president grappling with a recession their own party did much to precipitate, and facing a fiscal crisis the GOP alone made far worse with their spending in the Bush-Cheney years. There is not a scintilla of responsibility for their past; not a sliver of good will for a duly elected president. Worse, figures like Cantor and McCain actively seek to back foreign governments against the duly elected president of their own country, and seek to repeal the signature policy achievement of Obama's first two years, universal healthcare.
I know it is the opposition's role to oppose. But the sheer scale and absolutism of the opposition, and its continuation in the lame duck session, even over such small but integral reforms such as the new START and DADT repeal, is remarkable.
The two parties are evenly spread in this 50-50 country, but only one can brook no compromise in its accelerating rush to the far right. And that is what it seems we have to contemplate for the next two years - total paralysis in the face of urgent problems as part of a game of cynical partisan brinkmanship. They simply cannot bear that another party might actually have a role to play in government.
It's that last sentence that expertly sums up the modern Republican Party. They literally cannot fathom why, how, and through what means that anyone other than the Republicans themselves be allowed to pass legislation, issue executive orders, or even have a voice in the way this country is run, because these Republicans honestly don't believe that anyone other than hard-core Tea Party Republicans in this country should even have a say in how the country is run.
That's the logical endpoint of all this "we're Real America and you're not" tribalism. If you're not one of them, you don't count. Only their opinions do. They believe they are doing "the country's" work by blockading everything they can and they don't give a pile of elephant dung about what anyone else thinks, because they really do not care. Anyone who's not a Republican voter doesn't exist to these guys, so why should anyone else even get an opinion on how America should operate?
Our way or we all burn together. This is "compromise." If Sully can see it, it has to be evident to the rest of the country.
You don't get to complain about the filibuster when the Democrats used it whenever they were the minority party to block bills they didn't like.
ReplyDeleteJust because the Republicans are using the tactic far more effectively doesn't mean you're not a complete hypocrite.
False equivalency.
ReplyDeleteMinority Democrats filibustered bills with which they had an honest disagreement on the bills' merits, and used it as a policy tool.
Minority Republicans have used the filibuster as a partisan weapon, and don't give a shit about what's in the bill, just that it's a "Democrat Bill." Even when, as on many occasions, the "Democrat Bill" had its basis in proposals originally made by past minority Republicans like John McCain and Newt Gingrich -- you know, evil libruls -- done in an effort to appeal to current minority Republicans on a policy level.
So you can take your spiteful and petulant "but Democrats did it too," to the First National Bank of Bullshit and deposit it there.
False equivalency.
ReplyDeleteBecause the country so hated the idea of Republicans moving to block such obviously liberal, socialist legislation that they lost seats in the House and Senate?
So who won that argument asshole?
Let me address your two sentances in order:
ReplyDelete1 - 20% of the voting age population =/= "the country," (look here, and here, and multiply "VAP Turnout" by "Popular Vote Percentage").
2 - Thank you for illustrating my last point better than I ever could.
Right. And if the rest of "the country" objected to the Republicans blocking legislation that "the country" really wanted, then "the country" would have punished them at the polls last month.
ReplyDeleteSo once again asshole who won in November?
my dear anonymous, you are the biggest asshole in the history of the internet. you respect mandates only when they favor YOUR side. the democrats won in '08. but that's unimportant to you. do you visit conservative websites and remind your fellow lunkheads how uninterested they were in respecting the will of the voters then? you are beyond stupid. you're genuinely fucking pathetic.
ReplyDelete