Dear America,
I know that I mentioned my feelings about this subject just a week or so ago, but I can't get it out of my head because it's really just an extension of something I have mentioned many times before in different contexts. The Democratic endorsement of the Republican CROMNIBUS--a Republican euphemism for "gimme your lunch--was supposedly a compromise, but it is just one more example of the Democratic Party governing by self-fulfilling prophesy...one more example of doing for the Republicans what they threaten to do based on the assumption that they can, and thus sharing the blame for it with them. The consequence in this case is that the Democratic Party is going to have a tough time campaigning in 2016 against the pro-Wall Street Republican effort to eviscerate the Dodd-Frank Act because the Democrats voted to repeal its most important provision themselves; compromise or no compromise it was a bad idea. If they were afraid that the Republicans were going to do bad things when they assume control of the second house of congress starting in January, they were right...and they still are even with this putative compromise. The Republicans are going to do what they want in a month no matter what the Democrats do, and now the party has made their first effort in that regard a bipartisan one. It all leaves me with a single question: why bother going to the polls so I can vote Democrat when the Democrats are just going to capitulate to the Republicans in the end anyway. Next election day, I'll probably stay home if it's raining. Why get wet?
This spirit of capitulation starts in the White House. That is the only thing I can think of on which I agree with Marco Rubio. Barrack Obama is the weakest negotiator we have had as president in my memory, and my memory goes back to Eisenhower. And the reason that negotiating skill is so important at this time in our history is the Republicans' shameless and proportionally unequaled manipulation of our democratic process through abuse of the rules under which both houses of congress work. The filibuster, which requires sixty votes to break, and the ability of the Speaker of the House to depart from the "regular order" of business and thus prevent a vote on bills in the U.S. Congress, are the instrumentalities of the Republicans' ability to govern from the minority, which has led the American electorate to view the Democrats as "effete, intellectual snobs" to quote Spiro Agnew. The inability of Democrats to both work their collective will and to control the public debate--which Republicans like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner lead as the most prominent Republicans--have allowed those two machiavellian politicians to work their wills by utilizing special rules that require nothing more than a simple majority (for the past two congresses a Republican majority) in The House, and only a minority of 41 in the Democrat controlled 100 vote Senate. The only way to put an end to this is to sacrifice control of congress for the next two years by appealing to the American people to require of the Republicans in both houses that they exercise the "nuclear option," as they started calling it when they last controlled both houses. The filibuster and the ability to pass special rules that vitiate the regular order ability of any congressman to call a vote on a bill must be abolished, and the only way to do that is either with the majority in both houses, which the Democrats had but have now forfeited for failure to use them, or taking the highly publicized high ground from the minority when it is disadvantageous politically to do so. Only leaving the Republicans to exercise their complete control of the Congress will expose them for what they are, and only Democratic opposition to their will can elucidate for the electorate what the Democrats stand for, and more importantly, what they don't. This is a "be careful what you wish for" moment, and only the Democrats can cram it down the Republicans' throat, and the only way to do so is to let them have their head while protesting vocally all the while. And if the Democrats don't do that, I fear that all will be lost for perhaps another generation as the Republicans lead the American people to be their lesser selves.
As a party, the Democrats must decide who they are and what they stand for, and they must then stand for it. The time for craven politicking in the name of compromise is past because compromise is just the Republican euphemism for getting what they want. And whereas six years ago the question for Republicans was will their party continue to exist, that is now the question for the Democrats as the Republicans surge toward political hegemony again. The conversation on the issues has to be loud enough that the voting public hears it clearly, and it has to be lucid enough, the details lurid enough, that the distinctions between the parties are clear. That requires that the Democrats stop living in fear of losing, because it is that fear that has led to betrayal of Democratic principles and loss of the confidence of those who don't seem to understand that what Republicans stand for is inimical to the prosperity of the ordinary working man and woman. And if they want to elect Republicans contrary to their interests, let them. But no matter what, the Democrats must once again be an alternative to the Republicans, not their enablers. Republican outcomes when Democrats are in power only show that the American people can't do better.
Your friend,
Mike
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