Professor Richardson’s summary of the day’s events included something that looks like insanity in regards to the debt ceiling:
And yet, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who had voted to raise or suspend the debt ceiling 32 times in his career, said, “There is no chance, no chance the Republican conference will…help Democrats…resume ramming through partisan socialism.” His stand was in part because it was not clear he had the votes he needed to support an increase, even though establishment Republicans like McConnell were quite aware of the damage a default would create.
It’s, no doubt, partly due to short-term power-grasping. Republicans have little tolerance for being the minority party, and will do literally anything to control the government.
But it’s all a bit crazy, isn’t it? It doesn’t take a political genius to see Democrats evaluating the situation, pushing ahead with their policies, and when the world is collapsing and corporations are reeling and jobs are disappearing, blaming, quite correctly, the extremist and absolutist Republicans. They’ll point out how this endangers military aid to Ukraine, a popular endeavour. It might not be the final doom of the Republican Party, but we’ll be able to see the cliff over which they’re heading, because most independents, and not just a few suddenly jobless Republicans, will agree with the Democrats and abandon the Republicans and what passes for their policies forever.
So what’s going on?
The Republicans may or may not be conscious of it, but they’re discovering the flip side of the Gingrich Doctrine of Win at all costs! – including that of one’s honor. In short, Republicans are irretrievably married to the assertion that Democrats are socialists. Never mind that polls show that most Republicans don’t know the meaning of the word –
Socialism is a left-wing] to far-left economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. [Wikipedia]
I’m certain one or two such folks can be found espousing such a philosophy in the United States – there’s even one named Sanders, I hear – but most Democrats are busily trying to patch the holes in this creaky, leaky system called capitalism, rather than replace it with a system most voters wouldn’t like as a whole.
Not that I have any better ideas offhand.
Back to the point, though, is that in order to exhibit consistency, which voters value, now Republicans have to follow through on their wicked cries that Democrats are socialists. They have to, or the voters will suspect a grift. And it doesn’t help that political amateur, McConnell rival, and former President Trump continues to exert influence on the Party:
Driving the Republican stance was former president Trump, who pushed MAGA Republicans to use the threat of default to get what they want. “The way I look at it,” he wrote, “what the Democrats are proposing, on so many different levels, will destroy our country. Therefore, Republicans have no choice but to do what they have to do, and the Democrats will have no choice but to concede all of the horror they are trying to inflict upon the future of the United States.” Trump was not happy when McConnell backed down [a few months back]. He issued a statement blaming McConnell for “folding” and added, “He’s got all of the cards with the debt ceiling, it’s time to play the hand.”
The hand consists of hand grenades, and Trump wants to pull the pins and then dare the Democrats to not put them back. The Republicans keep holding the grenade, waiting for those pins to be put back in.
All of this driven by their ridiculous lies, their toxic team politics that has led to fourth-rate power-seekers in office, and a general foolish allegiance to the Gingrich Doctrine.
And their bulgy-eyed cries of Let’s destroy government! for no particularly good reason will become another arrow in the quiver of Democratic candidates for office.
