So What Have We Learned Today?
We have learned that the Republicans are absolutely incapable of governing.
To be fair, they have long since fallen out of the practice of actual governance.
Years ago they abandoned any anchor in reality and marched off with a wish list of things they wanted and to hell with anybody who points out they won’t work.
You may not be overly fond of the Democratic Party, but at least they listen and triangulate accordingly.
For two years after the election of Barack Obama, things got done. Health care, long an issue in this country (how long? The founding fathers were in favor of some form of public health care but could never work out the details), finally got passed.
Far from perfect, but passed.
The GOP and their big money donors attacked both Obama and Obamacare relentlessly, and for six years blocked all meaningful legislation in the House and Senate.
For six years they did nothing except obstruct.
The purpose of Congress is to provide legislation for the country by negotiating and compromising on key points so that while nobody gets everything they want, everybody gets something.
Reagan, whom I’m not awfully fond of, was savvy enough to observe that if he could get 80% of what he wanted, let the other side have 20%. In many cases he’d settle of 60% if that 60% included the most important items on his agenda.
Today’s GOP will not accept anything except total victory for themselves and the absolute defeat of everyone else.
Like a dense mass of compacted kitchen grease clogging a drain pipe, they could prevent anything from happening.
But with the utter collapse of Trumpcare they have now demonstrated they can’t do anything, either.
Six years they blocked efforts to fix problems with Obamacare.
Six years they could have worked out their own plan in great detail.
They finally get control of the White House and Congress…
…and they choke.
Now they want to simply repeal Obamacare and kick millions of people off health insurance, and bankrupt more families from medical bills, and spread more misery around.
Seriously?
They think that is going to fly?
The GOP cannot even govern themselves. They allowed a carpet bagging poltroon to hijack their candidate selection process not once, not twice, but three times.
When Trump first used the GOP primaries as a stunt to promote his TV show, the GOP should have bared him from further participation.
They didn’t.
They needed him and his birtherism to appeal to their alt-right base.
Lie down with pigs,
get up smelling
like pig shit.
Nixon and Lee Atwater’s infamous southern strategy has now come to a full, pustulant head. Without the alt-right base, the GOP cannot win national elections, but with that base, the GOP is paralyzed and unable to progress in any manner that benefits the majority of Americans.
Lie down with pigs…
The current debacle is further proof of the GOP’s paralysis. They could have altered Obamacare in some meaningful manner that would have gotten them one or two key concessions.
But it would have meant dealing with the Democrats and acknowledging that Obamacare was here to stay.
They couldn’t do that and keep their base.
Much less their donors.
So they have opted instead to collapse into a big puddle of uselessness, unable to lead or guide or legislate despite clear cut national support.
Lie down with pigs…
In the mean time, their lack of principle and character is allowing Trump to destroy this country, both internationally in its standing with other nations, and internally by cooperating with our adversaries at our (but not Trump’s) expense.
Lie down with pigs…
Since the Reagan era, the GOP has permitted no dissent within their ranks: Whatever the current holder of the White House, or the Speaker’s chair, or the president of the Senate says must be adhered to without question by all other members of the GOP -- just like in a cult or a totalitarian nation.
This lack of courage, of honor, of principle, and of personal integrity is what put a stooge for Russian money launderers in the White House -- and now the GOP prevents its own people from honestly acknowledging that not only is the emperor naked, but he’s also betraying our country.
Sooey, GOP.
