If anything, under the presidencies of Clinton and Obama, the Democrats have become more of a status-quo party.This means The Republicans either return to their "me too" ways of the 50s, 70s and 70s or they take a stand. I think the two authors are correct when they say:
The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics.The TV News Staff person who gave the Republicans the color red was prescient.
If the current paradigm is broken, burnishing it doesn't make it any better a solution. Is the debt out of control? Are some of our programs unsustainable? Sadly, yes on both counts. The two authors castigate the Republicans for their slow-rolling the increase in the debt ceiling, but the accompanying downgrade of our national credit was not due to the Republicans, who did finally cut a deal, but to our lack of credit worthiness.
The authors identify two culprits in this Republican Party Problem, Former Speaker Newt Gingrich and Lobbyist Grover Norquist. Then they say Mr Gingrich knows how to cut a deal.♠ That leaves Mr Grover Norquist as the eminence grise, running Washington. Not since the days of Mark Hanna has any single person been so powerful.
One thing that struck me as strange was this part of the article:
The post-McGovern Democratic Party, by contrast, while losing the bulk of its conservative Dixiecrat contingent in the decades after the civil rights revolution, has retained a more diverse base.I don't feel bad about the Dixiecrats going away. They held up equal rights efforts for a century, before President Lyndon Johnson had his way with them. But, if those chaps went away, from where is the great diversity coming? Is it those Socialists Rep Allen West mentioned? Confusing.
Yes, the Republicans are the insurgents, holding their collective hands up and saying "this far and no further". If their analysis of the situation is correct, then good on 'em.
Hat tip to the Instapundit.
Regards — Cliff
♠ They skip over the fact that Mr Gingrich drained the swamp that the Democrats left in place of the US House of Representatives.
Remember the the Grand Bargain?
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, in the end, while both leaders had profound reservations about a grand bargain that would threaten their parties’ priorities, what’s undeniable, despite all the furious efforts to peddle a different story, is that Obama managed to persuade his closest allies to sign off on what he wanted them to do, and Boehner didn’t, or couldn’t. While Democratic leaders were willing to swallow either a deal with more revenue or a deal with less, Boehner’s theoretical counteroffer, which probably reflected what he would have done if empowered to act alone, never even got a hearing from his leadership team.
Of course, you don't have to believe what you read, above. Your side tells you that "The Press" prefers my side.
Sleep well.