I’m beginning to think that, simply by standing pat, the president really is going to dismantle the modern Republican Party. I agree with Jon Chait that Obama isn’t doing this out of meanness or spite, but I think he knows what he is doing and that it is part of his desire to be a transformative president. He wants new revenues because the government needs new revenues to keep its obligations, but he’s presiding over the total crack-up of the GOP and he isn’t lifting a pinkie to help them out of their dilemma.
I think we are witnessing the end days of the Reagan Revolution, and I didn’t really see it coming, even a couple of weeks ago.
He already gave the Republicans help back in the Q&A with the House GOP caucus in 2010 in Baltimore. He told them then they were painting themselves into a corner politically with their positions.
In retrospect, that was a “Please proceed, Governor.” sort of concern.
And like Romney, the House GOP didn’t take the hint. And upped the venom.
No reason to lift a pinkie at all now.
At this point, lifting a finger to help them would be akin to treason, wouldn’t it? They definitely appear to be the enemies of this country. They have been warned, an intervention has been done. They just refuse to admit to having the dinking problem.
The important thing is to keep the rest of the country safe while they drive into that tree ahead of them.
Hopefully today will be the further nail in that coffin. We are one sick fucking country.
The President’s patience and forbearance over the last four years, which drove many of us nuts, is paying off now. In the current Capitol Hill psychodrama, the President is the level-headed adult and the GOP is a bunch of spoiled brats. Of course it’s always been that way, but his re-election is concrete proof that a majority of Americans have come to see it that way.
.
The War of 1812 is 200 years ago, could we please join the civilized world and put a ban on assault rifles.
Massacre at CT Elementary School Gunman Kills Kids
Developing story, a press conference any minute now. Perhaps asd many as 27 killed.
Ask that question of Wayne LaPierre. He seems to want a lot of blood on his money-tainted hands.
It’s so bad that one wishes for the poetic justice of a few NRA board members feeling the pain. Or Ted Nugent getting knocked on his ass on the road to Damascus. Or something.
Unfortunately, the viewpoint will be that “if only all the adults in the school had been armed”.
That’s always the answer.
You don’t dismantle it by appointing Republicans to the highest posts in the government. It is more that he is enabling the Republican Party and dismantling the Democratic Party.
Actually, you do dismantle it by taking away the sane people and leaving them with the rest.
Yeah, but:
I know they’re friends, but c’mon. There’s no political upside here, and as far as credentials, no way there aren’t a whole list of Dems just as qualified.
So if Hagel was already out, how does appointing him help the GOP?
He’d be another Republican heading the Defense Dep’t, and it reinforces the notion that Republicans are better suited to national defense than Democrats, because it sends the political message that even Democratic Presidents don’t trust Democrats to do the job. That helps Republicans.
You know, I completely agree with what you just said.
But I also look at how much Obama was able to accomplish with Gates at the head that he would not have been able to accomplish with someone else. Others here have outlined the details of that so I won’t repeat them.
President Obama is a practical guy, and if he thought he could accomplish some really important things with Hagel that he couldn’t accomplish if he has to constantly fight with the republicans, I suspect that is a trade-off he would willingly make.
If that’s where this is going, then I’m all for Hagel, too. At the end of the discussion, whichever pick accomplishes the most good gets my full support. I’m just presenting the case for a situation where equally good choices can be made from our own side.
Others have mentioned Leon Panetta as an example of a Democrat we don’t want, and that’s a good point. I’m not for ideological purity at the expense of practicality, just saying, if we can do as well or better with a Democrat, I don’t see why we wouldn’t.
The best person for the job is the best choice, period. If Hagel is that person, then hey, let’s get behind him and drop all the discussion about political ramifications, and who’s drinking whose milkshakes.
As much shit as I like to give him, Andrew Sullivan did call this when he said Obama is a transformative president, the last one being Reagan. He’s played it pretty close to the vest, and as Obama’s politic-ing the last four years reveals itself, he and the democrats have gained the upper hand while the GOP tears itself apart. First in my lifetime experience with the dem’s having the gop by the balls like this.
(long time reader, first time caller)
What’s more delicious is that the GOP didn’t notice Obama was grabbing them by the balls until he started squeezing.
The acceptable result is if taxes go all the way back up to Clinton levels for the rich, the medicare age is not raised, social security is not cut, and the infrastructure is not further gutted.
Yes, Obama could make that happen.
Yes, it would dismantle the Repub. party.
No, he probably won’t do it because every single time it’s come to this (public option, Susan Rice, debt ceiling charade, the under-stimulus, etc.), Obama has unilaterally capitulated and thrown all of us under the bus. And as for the person in the last thread who said “Rice drops out and you want to impeach Obama?” – get a life – calling me a troll and making me a straw dog doesn’t change the fact that Obama is not willing to do what’s right. I donated $3,000 in 2008 and worked in his campaign offices night and day. I’m a troll? No. You are a sheep. I’m a pissed off progressive who sick and tired of getting rolled by crooked democrats and the coward in the White House.
Keeping waving those pom-poms – I’m waiting for the post when Obama gives away the farm … again.
No opinion here about what happened with Susan Rice… but did you pay no attention at all to what it took to get the PPACA passed? If you think Max Baucus was going to let the public option through I have nice bridge to sell you.
You’re not a troll. You’re merely a brat, totally spoiled by your own expectations. Where’s the appreciation for all this president has done — from health care reform to saving Detroit to killing bin Laden to financial reform to ending DADT to ending the war in Iraq to student loan reform to the Arab Spring to Race to the Top to new CAFE standards and on and on and on.
When has a president ever before accomplished so much that is good and progressive. And to have done so in the face of total obstruction like we’ve never seen before, and yet certain people hate him because he wasn’t able to give us flying monkeys and rainbows and unicorns.
Yes, the GOP is dismantling itself. I’m waiting until February before I decide whether the Democrats are going to be tossing them an anchor or a flotation vest. There are some Democrats who just don’t like to see Republicans hurt.
I’ve thought it was coming and argued as much for going on a decade now, for much the same reason we are all bearing witness to now — their growing rightwingnut extremism in what has long been a center/left country, whether that has been seen in DC and its work product or not.
This may be as Krugman noted recently, the beginning of the end, which I’d call pretty much an arbitrary designation given the aforementioned. The necessary elements of their undoing have been around for quite some time now, like a virus with a long incubation period.
Given how so many of their supporters have so much time and face invested in the many and varied failures they have on their resume as a party and ideology, like cult members, many of them are gonna be resistent to reality, and remain in denial of the collapse no matter how apparent it is — kinda the way so many of them are still in denial of global warming for example.
Speaking of which, if health care, job, etc issues don’t demand it first, I’ve long thought that global warming could well be the catalyst for catastrophic change in their ranks, simply because it is gonna require the use of so much of that dreaded “socialism” be used, whether over food and water issues, population migrations, etc, worldwide. The kinda apathy they hold dear as “rugged individualists” will evaporate once they or theirs are amongst the effected. AGW will inevitably be our real life version of “Independence Day”.
http://www.google.com/search?q=global+warming+affecting+insurance+industry&rls=com.microsoft:en-
us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GGHP_en
http://www.google.com/search?q=health+issues+arising+from+global+warming&rls=com.microsoft:en-us
:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GGHP_en
Given the money they have and are willing to invest into the political arena, and the number of voters they have that are heavily invested personally in the dying host of the current brand of conservatism pursued by the repub party, their ultimate survival in their current form may be in doubt, but they maintain sufficient methods and means to delay the inevitable for some time to come, even if they don’t change their bad habits.
I don’t and haven’t seen them doing so, because in my estimation the whole point of their extremism in service to their monied masters has been to insure their bank accounts are as large as possible before the collapse occurs. They’ve long been aware of all of this, as well as the demographic tsunami that made its presence felt and reached our shores in this last election.
They’re just insuring their (or that of their progeny and pals) place on the Ark, like seen in the movie 2012. When chaos finally arrives, they are gonna be insulated from it by whatever piles of cash they managed to pile up, and whatever “socialism” is required as remedies to the problems before us as outlined here, aren’t likely to make them molehills in this country after the decades of class warfare and the wealth inequality it has produced.
The aristocracy will survive, as will some measure of the “conservatism” that was historically speaking, spawned as their protectors. The repub party as we now know it and its little minions are just sacrificial lambs, as they would make of us all.
An oldie but a goodie:
Hope for the best, and prepare for the worst.
Wouldn’t it be great if this country was able to move forward and to the left?
Unfortunately, I just don’t see it happening all of a sudden, and by all of a sudden, I mean this decade or the next.
Federalism is just about the only thing keeping Republicans in power. If we had a national House and national Senate election, it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as it is now.
And if you pay attention to the people calling for secession, they know it too.
President Obama plays the long game.
Leo Soderman saw this coming a year and a half ago. Few on the left had a clue.
http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20120605093221/http://www.editedforclarity.com/2011/08/01/debt-ceili
ng-deal-the-devil-is-in-the-details/
So did Liberal Gal.
http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20120605093221/http://www.editedforclarity.com/2011/08/01/debt-ceili
ng-deal-the-devil-is-in-the-details/
Sorry, the link for the Liberal Gal piece is:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/01/1001645/-3-Big-Victories-for-Obama-Dems-in-Debt-Ceiling-Fig
ht-Republicans-Just-Trying-to-Save-Face
Blech.
Reading those comments reminded me, so painfully, of why I abandoned DKos after the health care fight. How many of those left-purists calling Obama a two-dollar whore then are now admitting they were wrong?
Huh. Looks like I won’t even have to unclench the other fist, let alone take off my shoes.