It seems that the Republican establishment will never learn the lesson of the schoolyard: Act like prey, get treated like prey; Allow a bully to slap a “kick me!” sign on your back, expect his flunkies to line up behind him at the invitation. The Democrats, however, do understand this lesson: both to appease fellow-traveling tyrants and to further their own agenda, they have slapped a “kick me!” sign on America so often that doing so is practically in their party platform. And while the Democrats appease their fellow America haters, the Republicans, while paying lip-service to the dangers of appeasement, insist on “reaching across the aisle” to those same Democrats and slapping a “kick me!” sign on their own backs. The Republicans then they wonder why their base — ungrateful for all their “great work”… work that happens to come with a constant and mocking kick from behind — has abandoned them. Their base understands that a bully emboldened and unchecked seldom stops at just the occasional sadistic kick.

This era of Republican appeasement of Democrats began as soon as Ronald Reagan left office and George H. W. Bush assumed it. It was then that President Bush introduced his policy of a “kinder, gentler conservatism.” And it is this policy, in one form or another, which has informed and advised the Republican establishment ever since: a refusal to even deign to put on a pair of gloves and enter the ring. And with each Republican sniff and refusal to fight, the Democrats have become emboldened. They have not only dropped their gloves, they have left the ring and now hang out in a back alley, brass knuckles and baseball bats at the ready.