It’s almost impossible to tell what Republicans are trying to accomplish with the Republican Shutdown and impending debt limit crisis. As a result, a variety of views have sprung up attempting to explain why. Two of the most popular are Republican hatred of Barack Obama and Republican incompetence to govern, but I just learned a new explanation, which we should also consider. First. let’s look at GOP hate.
The government shutdown is not driven by a Republican desire to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Nor is it about trying to reign in government spending or limit the national debt. It is, at its core, the latest act in an effort by the far right of the Republican Party to delegitimize the presidency of Barack Obama. The ACA is not anathema to the right wing of the Republican Party because it will drive millions of new customers to insurance companies, will force insurers to cover people they might otherwise not want to cover, or even because of the mandate that requires all people who are uninsured to buy insurance. Parenthetically, this last issue is a particularly absurd issue for the Republicans to be so concerned about because for decades millions of young healthy employed people have been forced, as terms of their employment, to have their paychecks docked so that they can be part of a larger health insurance pool. The ACA is anathema to the right wing because it is the signature legislative accomplishment of a president they hate and who they think is an impostor out to destroy the country.
President Obama is, by any rational measure, as legitimate a president as anybody who has occupied that position. He was elected twice in elections that were clearly free and fair, although not particularly close, as Obama trounced both John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. Obama has just as clearly had to confront challenges to his legitimacy that are broader and more enduring than that of any of his predecessors. There is always an extremist fringe challenging the legitimacy of any president, and creating odd conspiracy theories about that president, but for President Obama this has been much more than an extremist fringe; and, more disturbingly, those questioning Obama have enjoyed the tacit support of much of the wing of the Republican Party that seeks to be more respectable and mainstream.
The right wingers who have taken over the Republican Party, and forced the shutdown, have more or less conceded they have no sense of what they are trying to get out of this ill-advised gambit, as evidenced by statements like those of Congressman Marlin Stutzman (R-IND). "We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is."
Republican decisions to do things like call for back pay for furloughed workers once they shutdown are clear indications that those shutting down the government are either completely unaware of what it is they are doing or that they don’t really believe in the consequences of their actions. Last week the Republicans,in what can perhaps best be described as the political equivalent of the child who kills both his parents and then asks the court to have mercy on him because he is an orphan, sought to get publicity by attacking the very government agencies they had forced to shutdown. The most extreme case of this was when a Republican congressman scolded a park ranger over the closing of the World War II memorial... [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Huffington Post>
Note how much blacker Republicans made billboard Obama that Obama actually is.
There can be no doubt that Republican hate for Obama knows no bounds, especially since he has the effrontery to govern while black, but Lawrence O’Donnell proposes that the Republican Party may have the long-term motive to destroy, not just the Obama presidency, but the presidency itself. Howard Dean proposes the incompetence view.
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If O’Donnell is correct, it is because Republicans think they can keep the House, because they have Gerrymandered their ability to main control with a minority of the electorate. I tend to agree more with Howard Dean and the author of the the above article, but Lawrence has thought this out well enough that we should keep it in mind for future reference, just in case. Obama is correct that the Republican meme that he won’t negotiate is a lie. The clean CR is the Republican’s own budget.
27 Responses to “Different Views on Crisis InsaniTEA”
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It has always been about a half-black man in the White House, Cat Daddy. The South cannot abide it, it's aparently in their freaky DNA….as inbred as it is. I find having to live here very hard and has been for the three decades I have been marooned in the heart of it. The South will never abide a person of color in any position of authority over whites. They perpetuate this barbarity (insaniTEA) down through the generations, passing it to their replicants and so on and so on and so on. Disgusting and backwards. Trying to educate them and enlighten them has cost me countless times. I finally gave up trying to talk sense into any of them, especially the rabid kind (Baggers, even before they were Baggers). I have done all the compassion I am going to do with these hopeless, backwoods, inbred, don't-need-no-ejamakashun, bible-thumpin' supply-side Jezus freaks that I am going to do. I am no longer compassionate where they are concerned. Karma help me.
As far as destroying the country — that has been their agenda since 1865. They want their little private fifedoms within their own Confederate States Of America. I say…..give them what they want. Break off the entire South and let them have it…..then watch them come crawling back with their hands out. Especially when they realize there will be no more Federal money. No more Border Patrol, no more Medicare/Medicaid/SS/WIC/Food Stamps/Military retirement/Military bases/NASA/FBI/CIA/Secret Service/ET AL…ZIP, ZILCH, ZERO, NADA, NUNCA, GONE BABY GONE…(and then have to–GASP–make TREATIES with the New USA and ALL other countries of the world). Watch just how fast there would be a mass exodus of the last sane people who have never agreed with them come running for the new border….and maybe some of their own who defect. I would have to try for it before it happened…even if I were reduced to crawling–literally–to get the Hell out of this wasteland.
So to quote a cliche from one of my favorite movies……"No, Ma'Lynne, I'm not crazy…I've just been in a very bad mood for thirty years!". That ain't no lie.
Thank you Terrie Williams, I for nearly five years now had the not so bright idea that I might change thought and attitudes. You have enlightened me and perhaps saved me 25 years if I have that long…?
You can Lead a man to Knowledge but, you can't make them think… 🙂
Terrie,not all southerners are barbarians. I consider myself a southerner, you are friends with me. I have lived in the norht and the south. I encountered far more prejudice while living in Michigan than I ever have in Kentucky.
Edie! You aren't a barbarian? Really?!!? Dang!!! If you aren't, perhaps we shoudn't be associating with you!! 😉
Thanks, Joanne D. I abhor racism anywhere, but it is time people recognize that it exists everywhere, not just in the south.
YOu are evil!
Moi? 😈
Terrie, I agree with everything you daid with one caveat. Republican racism extends beyond the South. In fact, if memory serves, that blacker Obama sign came from Ohio.
That's what I'm talking about!
I knew that, and I agree with you. 🙂
SHUT DOWN
In a blockbuster story this weekend, The New York Times reported that “the billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall [government shutdown] effort," backing multiple dark-money groups. They even funded the group that ran that horrible ad with a creepy Uncle Sam in the doctor's office.
It's more important than ever that we unite to support President Obama and Harry Reid as they stare down the Republican extremists — we need to make sure that Republicans, and the billionaires behind them, know they can't buy our government.
Boehner said two weeks ago he would not let the nation go into default.
Now he says he thinks the president will yield to the demands of the suicidal Republican majority. No sign anyone is talking just mud slinging. The budget should have been passed and ready to finance the government as of October 1. The president will not yield on Affordable Health Carer which is a law. Much of this goes to 80 members of the House known as Tea Party
gut the government for their rich backer, David Koch. It is not long till some large payments such as Social Security must be paid. The Tea Party members are up for re-election and the president
is not. A clean CR or not? Delay Affordable Health Care for a year or not? The Tea Party members are playing games with the budget. Cutting items that have little to do with decreasing debt. We should attack with revenue increases and balance that budget. The Tea Party is dead set against hurting their very wealthy backers with tax increases yet there is no way to balance the budget without revenue increases. President Obama cut Bush Deficit in half. His 2014 budget projects a 700B deficit while keeping spending below recent years.
Almost everybody is disgusted. Tea Party members celebrate. Let us wake up and do what is right.
Clarence, I think you hit the bottom line on this. The Republicans have to suppor their rich contributors, no matter what they do to the country.
Amen Clarence! But even the Koch Brothers are getting antsy about a debt limit refault. That would hitg them in the wallet.
Oh Terrie you have my sympathy! Living somewhere like that must be so hard – like the only sane person in an asyllum! You have expressed it so well – and so painfully – I wish I could help!
It seems that the Repugolicons are just racist and hate democracy – there seems no other explanation for their lunatic behaviour – and their oft repeated remarks when they ran for office that they were going to shut down the government… lunatics, the lot of them – but lunatics with the power to destroy the world (and a lot of them seem to follow that 'end of days' 'rapture' stuff – and seem to be trying to make it happen…may God help us!).
Pat, not all Rewpublicans are racists, but virtually all racists are Repunlican, because the party leadership have made Racism socially acceptible in Republican social circles.
Crazy like a Fox…?
Perhaps, Richard.
Well said Terrie once again the hammer hits home.
That dawg lady sure can wing it, huh?
The SHUTDOWN is the 'because we can' "pseudo goal". And shortly, the DEBT CEILING AND DEFAULT will be the 'because we can' "pseudo goal". The question comes down to "Why?". Why such extremes and to what end? There are consequences for these actions, dire consequences both nationally and globally.
Personally, I think that the shutdown is a tactic to create chaos, and it is working to a degree. Add to that the debt default and all its implications, the advertising, or should I say the propagandising, by the Republicanus/Teabaggers around it, and the total lack of knowledge by those forcing the default, there definitely are forces at work to destroy. But what?
In his Daily Kos article "GOP wants to default for a very logical reason",
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/09/1245709/-GOP-wants-to-default-for-a-very-logical-reason Fenris Hero articulates:
Pure politics and political survival trying to kick into high gear. And as Hero later says:
To me, this sounds more in line with what Lawrence O'Donnell is talking about in the video.
In a very short article, Paul Krugman says: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/hitting-the-ceiling-disastrous-or-utterly-disastrous/?_r=1
If the debt default comes close to the brink or over the brink, you and I, nor the US government will come out unscathed. Look at the Daily Kos article "Billionaires for Default"
If the US government defaults, the US credit rating is sure to fall and the cost of borrowing will go up. The cost of borrowing is the interest that the US government has to pay when people invest in US treasury bills. Think about your own savings account, if you're lucky enough to have one. You like it when the bank raises the interest rate on your account because then you get more, right? Well millionaires and billionaires are just like you, they want to earn more. But unlike you, they have a whole lot more money to invest. And the bigger the investment, often the higher the rate. So you will pay these billionaires to keep their money in US treasury bills and they will get even richer. Is it any wonder that these leaches are promoting debt ceiling default? To them it is all about money, greed and control. Their mantra PROFIT before PEOPLE!
And politicians are nothing but their whores . . . bought and paid for!
"Billionaires for Default" http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/08/1245232/-Billionaires-for-Default .
Good foir banksters, but bad for business.
They may be tryiong to adopt a new end game. It's their old end game: privativing Social Security and cutting Medicare.
TC, I think you are correct, that if Obama were not half black many of these problems would not be happening. However, I am starting to feel like an island here, since I am apparently the only person from the south, and getting a little tired of the south being beat up every night. I have lived in many places, and racism is alive and well all over this country. I think Clarence is right, most of our problems are being caused by the Koch Bros and Norquist, who basically own the House of Representatives.
Edie, that was just one Southerner's fristration over the Republican Southern Strategy. The deep South, which does not include you, has a long history of racism. When people talk about the south, it's the deep south they mean, not your state.
Edie is right that there is racism all over the country. I would also grant that it can be worse in the north, particularly the Republican north, because people have not been called on it as much and aren't as good at concealing it or making it socially acceptable. But Southern or Northern, Republicans are playing it for all it is worth.
Even whites of good will are not really able to analyze their own feelings accurately always. I asked a professional woman friend of about my age to consider meeting a younger friend of mine with a view to mentoring or referring to a mentor. When I hadn't heard from her in about a week and a half, I emailed again, and said she was probably wondering why, since i am educated and not an idiot, I didn't mentor her myself. But the simple answer was [my age in years] of white privilege. I heard back the same day. I didn't go into detail that I didn't feel competent to navigate that particular career path with its potential pitfalls because I had not been on it. She understood that perfectly.
If you can stand one more story, I knew a woman once who was mixed race African-Native-Hispanic American and married to a lily white blond from Minnesota. She went with him to a lily white blond family reunion in Minnesota, and was quite nervous at the sea of lily white all around her. In the ladies' room a couple of lily white blondes approached her and she thought, "Well, here it comes," and braced herself. Turns out they admired her gorgeous tan so much they wanted to ask for tanning tips. At least that incident relaxed her! And, as a lily white blonde myself, I admit to pride that she shared it with me.
Thanks, Joanne.