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The Education of a Conservative Sucker (a Play in Three Acts)
The Education of a Conservative Sucker by Beckuel Sammet
2009 (Prelude)
Conservative: Wow. Obamacare. Stimulus. What a horrible time.
Republicans: Hey, buddy. At least we all stood against it for you. Can’t blame us. But that’s what happens when you let the Dems control the Presidency and the whole Congress with a Filibuster-proof majority. Get us back in the game and we’ll win it for you.
2010 (Act One)
Conservative: Woo hoo. Teaparty! We got you the House and enabled filibusters in the Senate. Now you can get in there and do some good things.
Republicans: Yeah, well. That’s great and all. But there’s not much we can do when we control one half of one third of the government which sounds like a paltry 1/6 of power.
Conservative: But the Presidency and Judicial Branch are not bipartite branches and Congress is the only one that can spend money so….
Republicans: You’re thinking too hard, boy. The point is that we need more power to do anything. Give us the Presidency and Senate and we’ll get rid of Obamacare for you. We’ve got a great guy next in line to run for President.
Conservative: Didn’t he basically invent the Massachusetts version of Obamacare
Republicans: Again, son. You’re thinking way too hard about this. Just trust us.
2014 (Act Two)
Conservative: Okay. Your guy didn’t do so well in 2012 but we finally got you the Senate as well as the House. Now you guys can finally do something, right?
Republicans: Well, we could. But all we can really do on our own is shut down the government. If we do that, everybody will blame us and we might lose next time.
Conservative: So….
Republicans: So we really need the Presidency too. Then, with all of Congress and the Executive Branch too, all obstacles will be removed and we can finally start to get some things done. And we have a guy in mind that is a slam dunk. He’s the brother of another guy and we think Americans are gonna be really into political dynasties in 2016.
2017 (Act Three)
Conservative: Okay. No way were we going to give you that pathetic candidate. What were you thinking? So, we gave you something very different. We didn’t all necessarily like this guy but, looking back, he was probably the only one who would have beaten Hillary. So, he’s not perfect, but damn he’s got a lot of fight in him and he seems to be doing mostly conservative things so far. So, now you have no reason to hold back. You’ve got the House, the Senate and now the Presidency. So go ahead and repeal Obamacare and then get on with a bunch of other pretty conservative things he wants to do.
Republicans: Well, you would think so. But you see we are gonna have to do things in a certain way to get through the Senate so, we can’t really repeal it. We can do this fancy thing where we do it in three stages. It sounds complicated but trust us. We can get it done. The first stage sounds like keeping Obamacare and tinkering with it. But it has to work this way because we just don’t have quite enough power.
Now, if you could only get us a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate….
(Somber jazz saxophone plays while the lights dim and the curtain comes down)
It certainly looks that way.
However, since I can’t do anything about it, anyway, I’m going to remind myself that it’s possible that the Republicans might figure out how to do something non-damaging.
Despair is not useful. A little optimism can keep me getting out of bed every morning.
This all presumes the Conservative doesn’t understand how our electoral system works. If you’re going to get rid of something that was started with a filibuster proof majority, you need a filibuster proof majority. (That is, unless you drop the filibuster for, say, the repeal of bills.)
This should have all been obvious no matter what the GOP had been saying. It’s funny, I never seem to recall any of these arguments the GOP was supposed to have been making in these intervening years.
@mikeh
The Conservative understands how the Electoral system works (which, strictly speaking, refers to the Presedential elections…we don’t have the Electoral College for House and Senate races). He also understands that he has been fed excuses by a party that is too timid to act on the power that it has. The Obamacare issue is just representative of the entire posture of the Republican party. They seem to need everything lined up just perfectly in order to do anything. That’s the posture of someone who either completely lacks confidence in their own abilities and convictions or who, maybe, has some level of comfort with the status quo that makes the pursuit of their goals something less than balls-to-the-walls urgent.
I have actually been pretty willing to understand that there have been limitations and that Obamacare is like a fish hook – a lot easier to insert than to pull out. But this latest episode, on top of the history that I alluded to (Romney, Jeb!, all the excuses, etc.) convinces me that Republicans do not have the fire in their belly or the cunning to win. Trump is a very imperfect vessel but he represents an immense opportunity and I now fear that the Republicans will be too short-sighted and/or timid to take advantage of what he represents. I feel like a sucker for believing what you still believe.
You never heard the “we only control one half of one third of the government” line? You never heard the complaints that Obama will just veto everything? You never heard the hand-wringing about who will get blamed if the government gets shut down? Really?
Did you mean, “3 failures to act” ?
I ought to have said “A Play in Three Acts”. I will change that.
I was using the word in respect to its standard definition.
e·lec·tor·al
adjective
relating to elections or electors.
Oh, I heard all that, I just never heard anyone in the GOPe claim that they were going to be able to do more than they did with each incremental increase in power.
It is easier if you think of the Democrats and the Republicans as opposing gangs or criminal organizations. Like the Blood and the Crips or maybe the mafia. They are both conning you, both lying to you, both stealing from you. It is always surprising how people get upset when confidence people do not keep their word but instead do what is best for them. Which is to steal from each other and mainly the taxpayer. So, Trump, GOP, Democrats are doing what is natural for them, which is enrich themselves and increase their power. Helping anybody but their cronies is not part of the plan.
The simple fact that on January 21st, the Congress didn’t have bills stacked up like planes at 5 PM Friday at O’Hare ready to go to Trumps desk for signatures tells you everything you need to know.
Darn those checks and balances! Why is government so hard. We need to stream line things and invest the executive with unbridled power to get things done. All this democracy is just getting in the way of results. If only we were like China.
Hey man the system isn’t designed to easily move everything based on simple majority. It is designed to move things when there is a consensus about what to do. The fact is the Democrats won their super majority in 2008 fair and square. That is what the American people wanted then and they got it. Now the American people have given the Republicans enough of a mandate to kind of fix things but not up end things. But now the conservatives are the revolutionaries looking in trying to break up the system designed to maintain the status quo (a very conservative design). Woops.
Build consensus and you won’t have a problem. Try to ram some half-baked bill through and the system slaps you down as it should. Everything is working fine. This is a feature not a bug.
For the common man (or woman) of the right the bitter narrative of being wronged by “their” party seems more popular than ever. In fact, since the end of the Reagan administration, the long arc of their unhappiness with Republican politicians has incrementally grown, as patience has dwindled.
But I am sure that the narrative, while cathartic, is increasingly warped by populist-conservative frustration with reality. So, I offer another perspective:
The bottom line, until such time as the GOP primary voter nominates (and elects) a movement conservative for President, like Ted Cruz, and populates the House and Senate with movement conservative folks like Gowdy, Sasse and Lee then disappointment will reign.
Sounds like a great excuse. But even if what you suggested happened the GOP would still not do what they promised. They are crooks stealing for themselves. They are the tails to the Democrats heads on the same crooked coin. None of them had any interest in doing what they promised, only in enriching themselves and their gang.
A bad memory is sometimes handy.
A reality check and my advocacy for more real conservatives is not an excuse. You may wish the world flat, but it is not an “excuse” to point out that the world is round and to navigate it you best hire navigators who know it, and are committed to heading in the right direction.
But if, as you say, NONE OF THEM “navigators” have any interest in doing what they promised, and all are nothing more than willing tails to the Democratic dog then perhaps it is you that is making the “excuse” that nothing can be be done?
Would seem so.
Polyphemus, I love your little play, but you are one heckuva slow learner. Remember 2003-7? Republicans had the wheels of power then too and accomplished bupkus.
Republicans are pathetic. There would be no reason whatsoever to elect them, were it not for Democrats.
Good grief! Are you guys still beating this dead horse? We are better off because we won the House. Better off because we won the Senate. Better off because, while we didn’t exactly “win” the Presidency, we at least don’t have Obama or Hillary in the White House. But, we still are not dictators. We can do many things, but we can’t do any damn thing we please. Instead of whining, please, please, learn how many votes it takes to pass the thing you are whining about, and do a little counting. Any junior high school social studies text will explain it for you.
It is actually funny, and maybe ironic, that you guys are complaining that there are anti-leadership, anti-establishment GOP Representatives in the House, who refuse to just go along with whatever Ryan and Trump propose. Because you guys are the ones who put them there.
I was having a little fun and didn’t intend this as a disquisition on Senate Parliamentary procedures and House committee rules. And I wasn’t really just focusing on Obamacare except as emblematic. (Jeesh, some of you are like telling a joke about IRS agents to an accountant who corrects you on amortization schedules. )
I was not a Trump fan but voted for him in the end. Now that he is in, I am of the mind that he represents an incredible opportunity for our side but the window will only be open so long. He is like a herd of war elephants who just opened a huge gap in the enemy lines. Maybe you were against using them because they can often trample your own side (just ask Hannibal and Pyrrhus) and can’t be relied upon. But there it is. It worked. You have an incredible opportunity. Trump may not be a true conservative but he is acting mostly like one. Let’s hop on his back and ride him as far as we can. Yet I still see timidity and squabbling of our side and I despair that anything will ever get done. I think aggressiveness and even brinksmanship could actually work if we had the fire, passion and discipline.
Yes. I am speaking broadly. I’m sure you’re right. The reality of Washington politics means that nothing can be done without complete supermajorities in both houses of Congress. So why risk any thing? Right?
Oh that will be in the Prequel.
Not right. A lot of things can get done. We will get Gorsuch on the Court. We will get a lot of good judges on the lower courts. We will repeal of a lot Obama’s regulations. We probably will get some tax reform. We will get better border enforcement. We will have more deportations, more ICE agents, and more immigration judges. We will have a foreign policy that doesn’t insist on apologizing to our enemies, and stabbing our friends in the back. We will resume energy exploration and expand production. We will rebuild the military. We will get a lot of good results on a lot of stuff.
We won’t replace Obamacare with a system that guarantees coverage to everyone at no cost. We won’t balance the budget, or erase the deficit. We won’t solve the bankruptcy of entitlements. And it is not because someone is afraid to take a risk. It is just because those things can’t be done, or can’t be done in the current political environment.