Dear America,
Now that the 114th congress is going to be in session, the Democrats once again have an opportunity to do something smart. On Capitol Hill they call it the "Nuclear Option." The Democrats have nothing to lose by advocating it now that they are in the minority in both houses, and if the Republicans decline to effectively eradicate the practice of stalling government by parliamentary maneuver--the filibuster in The Senate and special rules in The House--the Democrats cannot be blamed for using those tactics just as the Republicans did when the Democrats were in the majority. But if the Republicans do eliminate parliamentary inertia by ending the power of the minority to prevent majority action, they will have to take responsibility for what their 114th congress produces, and I can almost guarantee that it won't be much. Will Rogers, the everyman gadfly of the 1930's, used to say, "I'm not a member of any organized party...I'm a Democrat." And that claim to fame--lack of organization--used to be a unique distinction of the party, but no longer is that the case.
Today's Republican Party is at least as fractious as the Democrats, but with a tendency toward internecine, bellicose public discourse that is not only unseemly, but widely destructive. Partisan dogmatists like Raoul Labrador are persistent mad dogs within Republican ranks, and he keeps getting reelected despite his disruptive behavior. And then there's Texan congressman Louie Gohmert, who is not only oblivious to the effect his malapropisms and misstatements of fact have on party politics, he doesn't even know that he's a fool, though everyone else does. He makes the term "buffoon" seem like a compliment. There's Marco Rubio, the Florida senator of Cuban descent who acts like his parents were saintly political refugees from Castro's Cuba even though it has been pointed out quite publicly that they came to the United States while Fulgencio Batista, the tinhorn American-supported dictator, was still in power, and that they didn't even come because they were persecuted; they just wanted a better life. And though Rubio's father came here illegally at first, Rubio wants any immigration reform to eschew amnesty leading to citizenship for undocumented aliens in favor allowing them to go through the process of getting green cards. (He did note in a recent New York Times interview that once you have a green card you are eligible to apply for citizenship, so his opposition to amnesty is really just pandering to the conservative contingent of his party that he needs if he is to fulfill his ambitions to become president: a distinction without a difference, born of political pragmatism.)
The list goes on, including dozens of hyper-conservatives with axes to grind and personal political gains to be pursued. I would estimate that there are probably at least as many rogue Republicans as there were "blue-dog Democrats." But the rogue Democrats constituted a different problem since philosophically and politically they were diametrically opposed to much of what the Democrats have stood for over the course of a century or more, that is, the progressive agenda. They were outliers, and as such, if the Democrats had wanted to disown them--and it would have been smart to do so since the American people blamed the Democrats for the party's near misses and failures, which were largely attributable to the blue dogs--they could have, and Nancy Pelosi should have seen to it, but she didn't. I believe that is why we don't have a single payer healthcare system, or at least why some aspects of the Affordable Care Act never saw the light of the congressional floor: the power to negotiate with drug companies over the prices of medicines and the flexibility to buy drugs from Canadian vendors if it was cost effective to name just two. Her failure to exert the power of the Speaker of the House, her office from 2006 to 2010, explains a great deal, and that failure is attributable to her fear of the party minority that was the key to her retention of the Speaker's gavel, which she lost anyway. John Boehner holds that gavel now, and he is just as pusillanimous in service of his own ambitions as Pelosi was, which is demonstrated by the fact that he didn't even allow a vote on a bi-partisan Senate immigration bill that sat in The House for a year and a half. And more than once beyond that failure, Boehner couldn't manage to muster the majority needed to pass compromise legislation because of a gang of about 85 congressmen who thought that if they just dug in their heals they could turn the nation to the conservative, dark side. Thus, the Republican Party still touts the notion that the American people favor repeal of "Obamacare" though, while they favor amendment, a majority don't favor its repeal.
My point is that it looks as though the Republicans gotten what they wished for, but they weren't careful enough about it. Two years will go by and Congress will accomplish very little, just as has been the case over the past four years of Republican control of the House of Representatives. Someone will be blamed by an electorate that has already demonstrated a disinclination to support Republicans for nationwide offices like the presidency, and the Republicans will try to indict the Democrats for doing just what the Republicans did for four years: sabotage. That is why taking away the power to commit that kind of scorched-earth legislative devastation should be ceded by the Democrats. If they cannot stop the Republicans from doing what they will surely do if they get the absolute power to do so by virtue of repeal of the rules that allow a filibuster in The Senate by as few as 41 senators. I say, give them the reigns and let them go rather than sharing with them the blame that will surely befall them. There's nothing to lose.
Your friend,
Mike
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