President Obama really does get it.
It really would be nice to go back to the old days, when the Republican minority represented “the loyal opposition,” but it’s just not going to happen until we push it, and push it hard. The “loyal opposition” concept is foreign to the far right wing that dominates the Republican Party today; if you don’t believe exactly as they do, you’re the enemy; even if 60% of your enemy’s agenda is the same as yours. In fact, that’s what Republicans found so vexing about Bill Clinton back in the day, and what they find so vexing about Obama now. Clinton and Obama are actually quite conservative, ideologically speaking.
The “loyal opposition” concept is how our country was created, it’s how we operated for two centuries, and it’s how we became the most powerful nation on earth. The two major parties, whatever they were, had differences of opinion, held spirited campaigns in which they fought tooth and nail, and sometimes got a little too personal. But in the end, when they took the oath of office, they understood that they work for the people who put them there, and they work for the good of the country above all else.
The way our system is supposed to function is that the majority party directs the agenda with the opposition pulling them a little their way and tacking on some of their own ideas. The end result of that process is supposed to be a bill that includes elements of both sides of the debate. In other words, they are opposing political forces working toward the same goal; a happy, healthy, prosperous nation. Campaign rhetoric used to stop the day after the election, and didn’t start up again until months before the next election, and it rarely made an appearance on the House or Senate chambers, except in the form of a speech. Back in the day, it wasn’t about “stopping” the other party; it was about making the country better, and thinking you had a better way to do so. For modern-day Republicans, that is no longer the case; now, the “Democrat” Party is the enemy, and the enemy can never be coddled.
For those of you unfamiliar with the “loyal opposition” concept, don’t feel bad; for anyone under the age of 40, it’s been missing your entire adult life. Even at 50 (alright, 51 – satisfied?), I’ve had to dig way back to a time when it still existed. I remember I was 14 and doing some work for a liberal Republican (yes, Virginia, there used to be such a thing). We were sitting in his office discussing politics one afternoon, and he explained to me how the Republican Party had changed in recent years.
The way he described it (and I remember this conversation vividly), the Republicans, who were a minority party, registration-wise, adopted a strategy whereby they would seriously depress voter turnout by making people disgusted with politicians in general. This is why they began to appeal to the most disgusting people in our society, and why they seem so backed into a corner right now, politically speaking. They wanted the votes of Southern white trash, but they weren’t just doing that for the extra votes; their intention was to force their Democratic opposition to engage them on their level, which would in turn disgust many voters enough to stay away from the polls, thus effectively ceding power to the idiot horde that makes up their “base.”
And now, they’re stuck. Their most loyal followers are dying off in droves, and their kids are less likely to buy the bullshit. But they have become so dependent on that “base,” they don’t know how to operate without it. If they don’t refer to Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and others as something akin to “un-American enemies,” they’ll lose their “base,” and they cannot figure out how to win without them, even when it becomes clear they can’t win with them.
And make no mistake; they are all about winning and little else. They don’t care what happens to this country; they’re all about power. Listen to how they bitch and whine about how much Democrats “ignore” them. Are they kidding? One of the reasons the health insurance reform bill is so muddled at the moment is because of amendments demanded by Republicans who never had any intention to vote for it, anyway. A large chunk of the stimulus package was a kowtow to them, and they still didn’t vote for it. Have you considered the Republican definition of “bipartisanship”? “Bipartisanship” to the Republicans these days is putting up their own bill, and if the majority doesn’t pass it, they whine about being ignored. They have 41 votes in the Senate and 176 in the House; do they really think they’re entitled to a majority vote on 100% of their agenda? Apparently they do.
When President Obama showed up at the Republican retreat in Baltimore last week, he took on 140 Republicans on their own turf, and kicked their asses. He told them to their faces that they were lying obstructionist assholes (albeit in less-blunt language), and they responded like petulant lying obstructionist assholes. They literally can’t help it. The problem isn’t that they think they’re right; it’s that they know everyone else is wrong. I mean, they stood there in front of him on national television, and demanded to know why their magical health care plans -- to cover everyone with insurance, remove all coverage restrictions and reduce premiums for everyone, all without spending one thin dime of taxpayers’ money -- wasn’t taken seriously. Next, they'll be asking the president to hire David Copperfield to make the deficit disappear because, well, he did so with the Space Shuttle one time...
But at least Obama’s on record kicking their asses. He’s also on record as knowing he has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever getting actual bipartisan support. Now, when we see him making such overtures, we can stop wondering aloud (and I mean very loud at times) why he keeps doing it. He’s doing it because it’s politically necessary. There are still a lot of reasonable people out there who just happen to be registered Republican, and they are just as disgusted with what’s happening to their party as we are, and they need to know we have their back.
We have to fight the right wing, and one way to do that is to support Obama and the Democrats, and make sure they know we have their backs. We have to stop running away from them every time they say or do something we don’t like.
Obama will continue to make overtures to Republicans, because a majority of the American people actually want the two parties working together to fix the nation’s problems, and because we can’t expose the right wing as charlatans without it. And we have to help.
By the way, progressives need to stop referring to themselves “the Democratic base,” because we’re not. Actually, some progressives are, but the ones who are speaking the loudest about the president “losing his base” are most certainly not.
More on that tomorrow…
