The people are fed up
Let me say at the outset that I am tired of articles that try to get people to “understand” Trump’s appeal. If anything, his appeal has been over-understood (and over-analyzed) rather than under.
And yet there’s always more to be said. Even by me.
Commenter Geoffrey Britain offered the following reason for voter anger at the GOP (anger that his been a big part of their motivation for backing Trump):
…[W]hen Obamacare passed, the Republicans were in a minority and because not one republican voted for it, the Democrats own it. However, I suspect that many republicans voted against it because too many of their big donors were happy with the current system. Rather than a vote on principle, it was a vote to maintain the status quo. And the support for that assertion is their behavior since they gained the majority.
I wrote about the passage of Obamacare on pretty much a daily basis for months when it was going on. There are loads of posts on it on this blog chronicling the entire lengthy episode, and I was convinced then and am convinced now that the vast majority of GOP members of Congress were very much against it and did their best to stop it. I’m not sure what those who voted against Obamacare could have done to have convinced people of their sincerity in not wanting Obamacare to pass because of principle, but they certainly convinced me.
That’s not to say that it was entirely principle and that it wasn’t also a vote to maintain the status quo; nothing wrong with that, if the “status quo” is about to be replaced by something far worse. I also think that asking politicians, of all people, to be motivated solely by principle is an unreasonable, unrealistic pipe dream that will never be satisfied.
I also keep reading over and over and hearing over and over—on talk shows and around the blogosphere—that Congress never acted to repeal Obamacare. But that is wrong. The House repealed it many times, and finally the Senate managed to join, too—using reconciliation, which was fitting because that was the process by which Obamacare had been passed in the first place. I wonder whether most people are even aware that it was repealed, because I keep hearing people saying they’re angry at the GOP Congress for not repealing it.
Of course, the repeal couldn’t get past Obama’s veto. That’s the problem when you have a president from the opposite party to the controlling party in Congress.
As an example of the persistence of the idea that Congress never repealed the bill, the other day I happened to hear a clip of a caller to Rush Limbaugh who discussed the topic. Here’s the transcript:
And then what happens? Obama gets elected, and he rams Obamacare down our throats. What were Reid and Pelosi doing? They were locking people out of committee meetings, remember that?
What was our response? Did we fight back? No. We didn’t fight back. So then what did we do? We have a landslide victory. We give them the House. Do they do it? Do they repeal Obamacare? No. They do nothing. They say, “Well, we can’t do anything ’cause we don’t have the Senate.” Okay, we give you the Senate. What do they do? “Oh, you know, we’re not gonna do anything ’cause we’re gonna take our only weapon off the table before we do battle with these people.”
Rush Limbaugh ought to know his political history, right? Did he correct this guy and say they did repeal it? Nope, he let the statement stand. Why? Is he ignorant himself of what actually happened? Or does he want to foster ignorance? And if so, why? Is anger at the GOP good for business, or is there some other reason? Of course, there are reasons to be angry at the GOP and at Congress, but it would be nice if those reasons were based on the facts.
There were actually TWO errors there by the Limbaugh caller. The first was, as I said, that the GOP in Congress never repealed Obamacare. The second was that business of “taking our only weapon off the table” (I’m assuming he’s talking the weapon of impeachment). That is a distortion of what was actually said and the context in which it was said, as I wrote here.
But these memes take off and they become a “truth” that everybody knows is true. So yes, ignorance and propaganda play a very big part of what has led us to this impasse today. And by “impasse,” I’m not just referring to Trump’s successful candidacy. I’m referring more to the civil war in the Republican Party—the war among politicians, the war among voters, and the war between voters and the politicians.
In his comment, Geoffrey Britain added the following on the topic of voter ignorance:
Nor can I agree that Trump’s popularity is simply due to an ignorant electorate. Rather, people are fed up and view nuanced, carefully crafted wording that can be defended against politically correct attacks”¦ as evasion, as just more lip service to get elected. What they want is for someone to ”˜tell it like it is’ without equivocation because they rightly sense that someone who gives even an inch to political correctness has already lost the fight for America’s survival.
I am in total agreement that Trump’s popularity is not “simply due to an ignorant electorate.” But I’m not aware that many anti-Trump pundits are alleging anything as simple or reductionist as that. And in response to the rest of the paragraph, I’ll add that Trump has most definitely given a great deal more than an inch to political correctness (just one example is his reaction to Pam Geller, or this). And as far as “equivocation” goes, Trump has equivocated and walked back at least half of the things he’s said.
Today violence at a Trump rally in CA. The usual rhetoric from the Left: Trump hates blacks, Hispanics and LGBTQ.
Just the thought of the targeted anti-Trump video ads on Facebook makes me sick. The Dems own Big Data. Trump has no clue. It will be a bloodbath. But I have written about it here and on Power Line. Not like you weren’t warned. But the thing that infurariates me is that the dolts on Fox never even mention this.
Hey Sean Hannity. Facebook reaches the whole country. Hillary will blanket it with video ads. Your fellow New Yorker loses. Big time.
If the trump supporters are fed up it is with the polite GOP failing to deal with PC intrusion. The group that always contended that those pesky social conservatives were spoiling the show. Now the Donald is a walking trainwreck as personal integrity goes, but he is willing to push back on lots of PC. The greatest thing helping Donald is the last two years tsunami of PC stuff. BLM, Gay Marriage, Transgender bathrooms, white privilege and others have convinced many (whites and others) that nothing they say matters. This feeling that the system is rigged is tailor made for a bully and demagogue who pretends to want to blow the system up.
Cruz promises to restore the rule of law (which most of these progressive issues fail miserably) but that threatens the government class/contractors/clients. So he is a bigger threat to true government power than Donald.
@Neo – Bravo!
People suspect a huge monolithic conspiracy that just doesn’t exist.
There are many people with many different interests and biases, made worse by a media (main stream and conservative) with agendas and motivations of their own.
Many in conservative media have been quick to blame, but have had little to offer up as solutions, or what a citizen can do to help advance the ball.
However, there is plenty of blame to go ALL around, including with the voters themselves.
It is easier to seek blame rather than objectively understand the facts and chart a course correction. It is especially true in the world of politics where one’s idea of involvement begins and ends at the election poll every four years.
Anyway, there may well be enough around with some sensibility of right and wrong, that may still stop Trump…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-agony-of-a-trump-delegate-1461884907
neo,
“I was convinced then and am convinced now that the vast majority of GOP members of Congress were very much against it and did their best to stop it.”
I agree that “the vast majority of GOP members of Congress were very much against it and did their best to stop it”. I simply think it improbable that for the majority their opposition was primarily one of principled opposition.
I find it naive to imagine that if the vast majority of the GOP’s big donors had been for Obamacare, that unlike illegal immigration, they would have opposed their big donor wishes. To me, it’s ludicrous to imagine that people who vote against the country’s clear interests in facilitating illegal immigration and send Obama a blank check on unlimited Muslim migration and H1-B Visas (all supported by the GOPe) would suddenly and miraculously stiffen their backs and give their big donors the middle finger. Please.
And I too think it ludicrous to posit that principle should be a Congressman’s sole consideration. Nor did I imply that it should be. I do think that on major issues affecting the country’s future and very survival, that personal aggrandizement has no place in a Congressman’s considerations.
I freely acknowledge that Congressional Republicans sent a bill to Obama repealing ObamaCare, that he then vetoed. Since that bill aligned with their donor’s wishes, why would they not?
“ignorance and propaganda play a very big part of what has led us to this impasse today.”
That is indisputable.
“I’m not aware that many anti-Trump pundits are alleging anything as simple or reductionist as that.”
Really? The entire tenor of the mass media’s ‘reportage’ carries the underlying impression that Trump’s supporters are those filled with ignorance. Nor is it by any means limited to the liberal media. Does Kevin Williamson and “Chaos in the Family, Chaos in the State: The White Working Class’s Dysfunction” ring a bell?
Trump has indeed walked back former positions and mightily equivocated and that has been ignored by his supporters. But I was speaking to voter perception of what they desire, not to the consistency of Trump’s bloviating.
I’m happy to clarify and I freely admit to the possibility of being mistaken. I simply remain unpersuaded, as to being mistaken.
The far-left no longer is content to own education, media and the courts. With the riots in Kalifornia being tacitly supported by ALL the left, the thugs want to own all political discourse too.
While we on the right are among their first victims, you can already see evidence that the mob is attacking the-not-far-enough left on college campuses.
This is how civilizations collapse.
Much more comforting to read about it in history books then it is to experience it first hand. This will not end well.
Geoffrey Britain:
Was your discussion of motives re the GOP and Obamacare not a criticism of sorts? Why else would you even make a point of mentioning it? And don’t you think it implies that they should have done it wholly for principle? I would think that if principle AND practicality align in terms of motivating a certain vote for members of Congress, that seems laudable rather than a problem. In this case, they didn’t have to choose between principle and donor interests because they were aligned, so why make a point of this if not to find fault?
As for what reporters are alleging, my point was not that pundits and reporters weren’t alleging ignorance on the part of the voters. It’s that they were not alleging MERELY ignorance as the sole reason for Trump support (I read Williamson’s piece, and he was not alleging ignorance as the only reason). They are alleging ignorance among other things.
Nor did the GOP Congress actually approve the i-squared bill, which I assume you’re referring to when you write about Muslim immigration and visas (you didn’t specify what you were talking about). Congress also passed some visa waiver limits after San Bernadino (that article is just about the House, but I’m almost certain the Senate passed it as well).
You write “personal aggrandizement has no place in a Congressman’s considerations.” And you don’t think you’re naive? Do you actually think that will ever happen? Do you actually think that COULD ever happen, except with a few here and there? Of course it will always be part of the equation, and some of it is even practical rather than corrupt—that people usually need money, and support from moneyed people, in order to win elections.
You still haven’t answered my question about whether, when you wrote that original comment that I discussed in the present post, you already knew that Congress had repealed Obamacare and Obama had vetoed it. I ask that not to put you on the spot, but because I think it is a fact that’s not widely known at all. I see you as a well-informed person, and if you didn’t know it, it tells me how little the word ever got out.
Tangentially related, but if you want to hear an example of Rush being deliberately stupid – listen to his rant on Sarah Fluke and her bc pills. He always spoke like you had to take a pill every time you had sex rather than taking your 3 or 4 week supply every month. You know his wife or somebody clued him in but he kept repeating it his way so that he could make her sound like a rabbit swallowing mass quantities of pills.
When Boehner confirms that Trump is his tweet buddy, does that not burnish Trump’s credentials as a member of the corrupt crony capitalist ecosystem? Do Trumpists see paying bribes as somehow less detestable that taking bribes?
Exit polls are said to reveal that Trump’s Muslim ban is attracting his strongest support. Although he only suggested it as a possibility, the public appears so desperate for a more realistic view of Islam that the slightest hint of it is sufficient to swing their votes.
So the PC establishment is more disliked than cronyism.
Neo:
“I also keep reading over and over and hearing over and over–on talk shows and around the blogosphere–that Congress never acted to repeal Obamacare. But that is wrong.
… Rush Limbaugh ought to know his political history, right? Did he correct this guy and say they did repeal it? Nope, he let the statement stand.”
I want an explanation of this phenomenon, too. I’m frustrated by ostensibly fellow travelers on the Right who yet tolerate without correction, or they even stipulate, a demonstrably false narrative with harmful political – and real – consequences.
For me, the phenomenon stands out most with the prevailing demonstrably false narrative of the Iraq intervention that has had giant rippling effects drilling to the foundation of American leadership, both home and abroad, with disastrous real consequences.
Now, I expect our competitors to assert disinformation – propaganda – in the Narrative contest. The Russians especially had been determinedly mischaracterizing the Gulf War ceasefire enforcement and aiding Saddam economically and diplomatically in contravention of Iraq’s ceasefire obligations since at least the mid-1990s, coinciding with Russia’s bitter opposition to our Balkans intervention.
And I am very disappointed and disillusioned by Clinton officials and Democratic Congressmen who worked with Clinton on the Gulf War ceasefire enforcement, during which they refuted the same disinformation on the ceasefire enforcement that Democrats subsequently adopted and directed at President Bush.
However,
Eric:
With talk-show hosts/entertainers like Limbaugh et al, I think it’s a combination of things. Sometimes perhaps they really don’t know the facts. Sometimes they let the truth slide because they don’t want to irritate their listeners, who are their bottom line (ratings). Sometime it’s that anger is good for business, too, and drumming up anger is good for business. Very good for business, actually. Perhaps there are other reasons, too—not wanting to get too lengthy, too pedantic, too nitpicky (or coming across that way). I know that I get tired of saying things or writing things over and over.
I agree about the failure to defend the Iraq War, too.
As far as politicians not defending these things go, though, I’m really not sure about that except that you should substitute the word “votes” for the word “ratings.” Also, once a meme has gotten solidified, it’s hard to challenge people and easier to go with the flow. Maybe it’s that.
There’s also stupidity.
And cowardice.
Oops. I prematurely pressed ‘submit comment’ on my 7:34 pm comment when I meant to press ‘preview’. Finishing my comment:
However, in addition to deep disappointment, I’m also downright perplexed by conservatives and Republicans who – like your Limbaugh example – don’t correct the prevailing demonstrably false narrative of the Iraq intervention despite the clear political (as well as real) harm caused by the false narrative, and despite its cornerstone strategic importance to Democrats, the Left, and the nation’s enemies, and despite a ready explanation with a straightforward set of law, policy, precedent, and facts to set the record straight.
Moreover, such as with the incorrect GOP candidate responses to the Megyn Kelly “knowing what we now know” hypothetical, many on the Right even effectively stipulate the false narrative of the why of OIF, and worse, like your Limbaugh example, implicitly or even explicitly accept the false premise that shifted the burden of proof from Iraq proving it had disarmed in compliance with the UNSC resolutions to the US proving Iraqi possession matched the pre-war intelligence estimates.
Like your Limbaugh example regarding Republicans and Obamacare, the truth of the matter on the Gulf War ceasefire enforcement is public record – headline-news, easily accessed public record – yet the the Right regularly concedes opposing, seemingly obvious disinformation as the prevailing narrative, even when it’s readily demonstrated as false. It’s like an open conspiracy.
neo,
“Was your discussion of motives re the GOP and Obamacare not a criticism of sorts? Why else would you even make a point of mentioning it? And don’t you think it implies that they should have done it wholly for principle? I would think that if principle AND practicality align in terms of motivating a certain vote for members of Congress, that seems laudable rather than a problem. In this case, they didn’t have to choose between principle and donor interests because they were aligned, so why make a point of this if not to find fault?”
No, my original purpose was not to offer unsought criticism. It was a response to your offering the vote against Obamacare as proof that they have opposed Obama and that criticism of them lacks perspective, proven in part by their opposition to Obamacare.
I didn’t dispute that they opposed it, I disputed it as proof that they’ve tried mostly as much as they could. So, given the original context, I was neither stating nor implying that they “should have done it wholly for principle”. I was stating that consideration of their big donors interests is their foremost principle because that ensures their continued status, influence, power and wealth.
Of course it’s fortuitous when principle AND practicality align. My point is that we shouldn’t kid ourselves that rather than happenstance, instead it is an indication that, this time “they stood firm”.
“In this case, they didn’t have to choose between principle and donor interests because they were aligned, so why make a point of this if not to find fault?”
Disputing your conclusion (with all due respect) was my point. Finding fault is unavoidable if they do indeed put special interests with the benefits to their position before the welfare of the nation.
“They are alleging ignorance among other things.”
Sure they were but we all know what the primary tone implied.
The i-squared bill evidently never got out of committee, which is always an indication that support at this time for passage is absent. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/153
It’s a ‘hot potato’ right now, so after the election is when they’ll try to push it or another similar bill through again. That’s a virtual certainty because the forces in favor are too numerous for it not to be introduced again. The same dynamic applies to the H1-B Visa issue.
“You write “personal aggrandizement has no place in a Congressman’s considerations.””
You left out an important qualifier. I wrote; “I do think that on major issues affecting the country’s future and very survival, that personal aggrandizement has no place in a Congressman’s considerations.”
Unrestrained illegal immigration and unchecked Muslim migration will destroy this country. Continually rising indebtedness will lead to sovereign bankruptcy and fiscal collapse. Those are mortal threats to the Republic. No Congressman can be unaware of that and so resistance to addressing those issues is an unequivocal act of treason. As there can be no more serious indirect act in aiding America’s enemies.
You are entirely correct, I had missed that a bill repealing Obamacare had been sent and vetoed by Obama. I was not avoiding the question, I thought you were commenting upon it in a general fashion, as I hadn’t previously mentioned Obamacare at all, much less as a failure by the GOP.
Neo:
“I agree about the failure to defend the Iraq War, too.”
See the 2nd half of my comment that I cut off by accident.
Another shared aspect of your Limbaugh example and my example of the same phenomenon of the Right accepting seemingly obvious disinformation as prevailing narrative is that both examples are issues that have been exploited by Trump and the Trump-front alt-Right for very damaging political attacks on the GOP.
Banned Lizard,
There’s no doubt in my mind that Trump is a crony capitalist. He’s a member of America’s emerging Oligarchy. I think his sense of enlightened self-interest has led him to oppose the importation of large numbers of Muslims and to unchecked illegal immigration. He’s also aware that a society without a strong middle class is an inherently unstable society. Not that he can necessarily articulate that rationale but he gets it in his gut.
The PC activists and their supporting establishment are a far greater threat to the country than is cronyism.
Eric,
“I am very disappointed and disillusioned by Clinton officials and Democratic Congressmen who worked with Clinton on the Gulf War ceasefire enforcement, during which they refuted the same disinformation on the ceasefire enforcement that Democrats subsequently adopted and directed at President Bush.”
For such as they, ideology does not stop at the water’s edge. The first sacrifice upon ideology’s altar is truth. Once ‘truth’ is made a servant to ideology, the end sought always justify the means.
Conservatives don’t dispute the left’s narrative “despite a ready explanation with a straightforward set of law, policy, precedent, and facts to set the record straight” because the public’s perception of the Iraq ‘intervention’ is emotion based and emotions are immune to reason, logic and fact UNTIL reality intervenes and makes maintaining that POV a mortal liability. Think England’s pre-WWII pacifism, that was not swept aside until Dunkirk and German air raids upon the public. “The prospect of being hanged in a fortnight, concentrates the mind wonderfully”. Samuel Johnson
I have trumpian fatigue. There is from my POV/IMO nothing more to be discussed. Either you see what is going on or your don’t. DJT has a mission, it is not for the alt-right or about actually occupying the Oval Office (too much work). If you need a road map, you are an example of why the franchise to vote should be restricted.
neo: “……if you didn’t know it, it tells me how little the word ever got out.”
Therein lies much of the problem with the GOP. Why didn’t Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell go on all the Sunday talk shows and make sure everyone who watches those shows knew that the repeal had passed both houses and sent to Obama who vetoed it immediately? Why didn’t Republican or conservative pundits write editorials in newspapers and on blogs talking about the repeal bill, why it was passed and what the Rs proposed to replace it with? IMO, it’s because the GOP doesn’t recognize the value of
seizing the narrative and keeping it in front of their supporters. Also, because many of the beltway pundits pooh pooh’d the effort as being a waste of time. The Congress Critters don’t want to look like fools to the beltway elite. It would also have been good if Limbaugh and other conservative pundits had not advanced the narrative that the Republicans, with majorities in both houses of Congress, could easily block Obama’s agenda. I heard that from Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin and others. I knew it was not going to happen because we still didn’t have enough Senators to override vetoes. The problem has been one of simple math and a determined Harry Reid. (The real Lucifer.)
I had hoped the GOP would field a really good candidate in 2016 who would trounce Hillary or whoever the Democrat nominee was and bring us the Senate seats we needed to really get some things done. Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen.
The level of emotion and division I see in the country these days reminds me of the Vietnam War days. The campus unrest, the racial activism, the unlawful/violent demonstrations, the heated political rhetoric, and more remind me very much of those awful days, which I hoped we had put behind us. But they’re back. Buckle up your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. We got through it before. Just hope we don’t stall and spin as a nation this time.
JJ,
Ryan or McConnell? We are way beyond the Ryans and McConnells, That is the vacuum djt has exploited.
parker,
I am seeing a good bit of BDS among Trumpster commenters, who are willing to ignore the priorities Bush had to set after 9/11 and some of the compromises that entailed. They blame Bush’s TARP for Obama’s stimulus. They blame the TSA on Bush while ignoring that Obama had the power to make it more efficient and effective after the dangers could be reassessed. They totally ignore the help we needed from other governments to bring our own intelligence up to snuff. They buy Trump’s line that Iraq was all about nation building, which is like saying WWII was about bringing democracy to Japan. Like Trump, they ignore the fact that history doesn’t always play out like a script on The Apprentice.
I agree with J.J. that Ryan and McConnell should have done more to concentrate their message into a soundbite that even Limbaugh and Coulter couldn’t manipulate. They just haven’t figured out that you can’t get through to people with reasoned positions.
I think we all need to step back a bit…. the almost riots yesterday in California show me that there are going to be forces at work here that may be impossible to predict the outcome. Watching hundreds waving Mexican flags and saying they are going to take back America for Mexico is not going to play well in flyover country. Those rioters are sincere but are pushing more voters to Trump. Reminds me of 1968 and my parents watching the Democratic convention on TV and very quickly making up their minds that the Dems had gone over the edge.
To quote the great Bette Davis, “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!”
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Eric – I noticed the shift between the debates about Obamacare and Common Core. A lot of people did the research on Obamacare. Sure, there was some bad information on the anti-Obamacare side, but a lot of good information, and definitely our side was better defended than the pro-Obamacare side. With Common Core, I saw very little that was accurate.
The vote to repeal is a meaningless gesture and the gop knows it.
According to the Constitution, the house raises funds via taxation. I don’t know for sure if Roberts was being coy when he allowed o-care to be labeled a tax, but from that moment on, the entire thing is unconstitutional because o-care is a senate bill. No veto override is needed, really.
Furthermore, the house controls expenditures, typically referred to “power of the purse”, and when the republican party failed to withhold funding, indeed Paul Ryan’s utter betrayal during the last budget debate being the proverbial straw, they have shown how useless, to put it mildly or, to out it accurately IMO, disdainful they are of the voters who put them there.
Repeal Obamacare? No, they haven’t. Please don’t try to give them credit for it.
As a now former Limbaugh subscriber, it is liberating to break from listening to any talk radio.
I’m in Boston this weekend, and see a banner on the Old South Church: “Love thy (Muslim) neighbor as thyself”, and a big banner on an Episcopal church, “Black Lives Matter”.
I pray for Cruz, but will do anything,even Trump, to stop the present descent into nuttiness.
Dan K’s point about the power of the purse gets to the nub of the matter; the House has the power not to fund Ocare. But Obama was happy to shut the government down if Ocare was not fully funded.
Many big GOP donors [think members of the Chamber of Commerce] now depend on federal checks for a sizeable part of their revenue. The business world and local/state governments have been co-opted by the federal leviathan. They made sure the flow of dollars from D.C. was not interrupted.
Neo,
Since January 2015, the Republican Party has had complete power over the budget bills that get sent to the President’s desk. That they haven’t had even the slightest success in shaping the bills to advance basically any cause for which voters handed them those majorities in November of 2014 strongly suggests that they don’t really support what their supporters want.
“Why didn’t Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell go on all the Sunday talk shows and make sure everyone who watches those shows knew that the repeal had passed both houses and sent to Obama who vetoed it immediately?”
And before them, Boehner and McConnell, and all the way up and down the GOP organizational chain.
They just didn’t (don’t?) have a strategy to deal with the realities they face, given the blockade they effectively face with the MSM, in the daily news cycle, to reach the general public. Even paid time slots would be worthwhile.
I go back to 2008 when Reid wouldn’t even let a budget be proposed in the Senate. The Senate are legally required to come up with a budget (but without consequences). Ultimately, this circumvented the deliberation (negotiation) process that was part of the design and purpose of having a Senate. This move effectively forced a $1T deficit (to the Dems delight) via the default Continuing Resolution.
We heard some in the conservative media, but the GOP themselves didn’t seem to have much to say that made it out to the general public.
Then, when there comes a time to approve a new Debt Level, one of the few levers left to force negotiation, it became the “obstinate” GOP who “wanted to shut down government”. It was believable too, since they didn’t get their message out on the core source issue.
This is but one of a long list of things that created the “gap” that parker mentioned above.
When Congress was dominated by the Dems and Obama was President (2009 – 2013) no budgets were ever passed. Once they passed the Porkulus spending bill, that became the new normal for spending. The Repubs were helpless to stop it even after they got a majority in the House because Harry Reid would refuse to take up their budget bills in the Senate.
When the government was shutdown from Oct 1 to Oct 16, 2013 it was over the House’s attempts to defund Obamacare. How many remember that?
Here’s what wiki says about it:
“A “funding-gap” was created when the two chambers of Congress failed to agree to an appropriations continuing resolution. The Republican-led House of Representatives, in part pressured by conservative senators such as Ted Cruz[5] and conservative groups such as Heritage Action,[6][7][8] offered several continuing resolutions with language delaying or defunding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly known as “Obamacare”). The Democratic-led Senate passed several amended continuing resolutions for maintaining funding at then-current sequestration levels with no additional conditions. Political fights over this and other issues between the House on one side and President Barack Obama and the Senate on the other led to a budget impasse which threatened massive disruption.[9][10][11]
The deadlock centered on the Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014, which was passed by the House of Representatives on September 20, 2013.[12] The Senate stripped the bill of the measures related to the Affordable Care Act, and passed it in revised form on September 27, 2013.[12] The House reinstated the Senate-removed measures, and passed it again in the early morning hours on September 29.[12] The Senate declined to pass the bill with measures to delay the Affordable Care Act, and the two legislative houses did not develop a compromise bill by the end of September 30, 2013, causing the federal government to shut down due to a lack of appropriated funds at the start of the new 2014 federal fiscal year. Late in the evening of October 16, 2013, Congress passed the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014, and the President signed it shortly after midnight on October 17, ending the government shutdown and suspending the debt limit until February 7, 2014.[16]
According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted several months following the shutdown, 81% of Americans disapproved of the shutdown, 86% felt it had damaged the United States’ image in the world, and 53% held Republicans accountable for the shutdown.”
Is it any wonder the Rs are afraid to shut the government down again?
So, to say that the Republicans have done nothing and that they have the “power of the purse,” is to ignore the realities of the situation. You need three things to overcome entrenched Democrat opposition – sufficient majorities in both houses of Congress and a Republican President. A tall order. But that’s just the way the government works – by design.
The Democrats have three advantages:
1. They always stick together and vote together. No one strays off the reservation.
2. The MSM is in their corner and does their propaganda work for them.
3. They are without conscience as to how they amass power. All of their activities are disguised as being for the “people” or the “children.”
They have been very effective at using these tools even when they are not in the majority.
The Republicans need to be much smarter and more pro-active in getting out the message of freedom, free enterprise, self reliance, and the fact that the government has no money except what it takes from the citizens in taxes. Prager University makes very effective videos arguing the conservative position. Who watches them? No one except other conservatives. The Republicans need to consult Madison Ave. to learn how to advertise and sell their philosophy more successfully.
We have to face the facts that the progressive game plan is far ahead of the Conservative game plan. Time to revamp it and maybe win a few..
Who watches them? No one except other conservatives.
Who wants to be like Jesus Christ other than Christians?
The point isn’t to change the world, especially if your own people need to be destroyed first because they refuse to self improve.
The Republicans need to consult Madison Ave. to learn how to advertise and sell their philosophy more successfully.
Maybe you should talk to Hollywood about how to use propaganda to destroy a culture and get money at the same time. Because that’s the kind of campaign you’ll need to wage. Of course, by then, it’ll already be too late for you.
“JJ” quotes wikipedia:
“According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted several months following the shutdown, 81% of Americans disapproved of the shutdown, 86% felt it had damaged the United States’ image in the world, and 53% held Republicans accountable for the shutdown.”
Then “JJ” comments:
“Is it any wonder the Rs are afraid to shut the government down again?”
The quoted polls were manipulated by the media after they had done their damnedest to tar the Republicans.
The only poll that matters was held about a year later in Nov. 2014 and we all know what happened: a blowout of historic proportions of the Democrats. How did this happen if the shutdown was so unpopular?
The anti-shutdown right wing pundits like Steve Hayward at Powerline among others try to refute this by saying that the polls only changed in the fall of 2014 because of the hiccups in the Ocare implementation. IMHO that’s reaching-correlation is not causation . Equally valid is that the voters finally started paying attention and realized that the shutdown was a good thing.
The professional politicians in Washington I am sure realize this but they are unwilling to take any risk whatsoever. They figure where else are the conservatives going to go? Well now we know where they have gone and the rest of us are reaping the whirlwind that they sowed.
Neo, where do you stand on this? Do you think the shutdown damaged Republicans?
Bob_CA:
I think the shutdown damaged Republicans, although I don’t think there was any love lost for Democrats either in 2014. The damage done by the shutdown was not large, though, and GOP voters were more motivated in 2014 than Democrats, which accounted for their win.
The problem with shutdowns is that they are unwinnable if the other side wants to stonewall, too. The Democrats were willing to do that. If the GOP had followed up with shutdown after shutdown, post-2014-election, the public would have gotten angrier and angrier. The GOP would have turned into a one-trick pony, and fed into the “obstructionist” meme. They decided not to do that after 2014, and I can’t blame them; I think it would have heavily backfired.
Of course, no one foresaw that the resultant anger of the base would somehow spread to more than just the most extreme wing of the party. It is now at least a third to a half of the party who are reacting to their rage by backing a lying con man who is a RINO extraordinaire. Go figure.
Bob_CA” “The quoted polls were manipulated by the media after they had done their damnedest to tar the Republicans.”
True dat. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make any difference because the LIVs don’t know it. They get their info from the MSM, not Limbaugh, Fox, or conservative blogs.
The Republican sweep in the 2014 election was the result of the crappy economy and the obvious drift toward weakness in our military and foreign policy. Even LIVs sense that there’s something not working right. They joined conservative and RINO leaning voters because they hoped things would change. The bad news is that the blue states still re-elected enough progressive Senators to thwart the will of those who wanted to see something new tried.
For the first time since 2006 Paul Ryan is doing the budget as it used to be done. He’s trying to do separate appropriations bills for each part of government and send them over to the Senate one piece at a time. He hopes to keep the Democrats from forcing last minute negotiations on an omnibus type bill as was done last year. The omnibus bills, passed at the last minute, are a pork barrel spender’s dream. Whether he will be successful remains to be seen, as the House Freedom Caucus is determined to pass appropriations bills that will be blocked by Harry Reid and the Dems. That is just the reality of the math in the Senate. If you don’t send over appropriations bills that have some shot at getting to the floor of the Senate, you are setting yourself up for another last minute scramble to pass an omnibus bill or close down the government. A lot of conservatives, who haven’t taken the time to understand this, have misplaced their anger.
Suppose the government shuts down again over a budget impasse. How long do you think it would be before the public (stirred up by the MSM and Democrats) would demand it be opened again? If you remember, the Obama administration was ready for the last shutdown. They closed parts of the government that were very obvious and irritating to the public. And they blamed it all on the Republicans. Do you think they would do less, or maybe even more, to stir up public opinion against the nasty Republicans during another shutdown?
Shutting down the government with the odds stacked against you is a fool’s game. The Republicans have to be far more active and smart in promoting the reasons for limiting the size of government and why government regulations stifle business activity. What do we see on TV? We see people marching for BLM, the $15 minimum wage, anti-Trump, anti free enterprise protests and demonstrations. All progressive causes. We need people to take to the streets again as the TEA Party did demanding limited government, demanding less regulation of business, demanding repeal of Obamacare, etc. Why don’t we get it? Because most conservatives have lives and other interests outside of politics. Politics is not a religion to us. (At least not for me.) Why don’t the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson put some money into getting demonstrators into the streets? Because they believe they are above such tactics. But George Soros, Tom Steyer, Mark Zuckerberg, and other progressives fund propaganda and pressure groups all the time. hey have no compunctions about the tactics they use.
JJ:
“Why don’t we get it? Because most conservatives have lives and other interests outside of politics. Politics is not a religion to us. (At least not for me.)”
You may not be interested in
warthe activist game, butwarthe activist game is interested in you. It’s the only social cultural/political game there is. If war is politics by other means, then activism is war by political means.This comment thread is about the determinative influence of the political ecosystem that surrounds and infuses government, which is the realm of activism across the spectrum.
JJ:
“We need people to take to the streets again as the TEA Party did demanding limited government, demanding less regulation of business, demanding repeal of Obamacare, etc.”
Indeed. See my comment here at Neo’s advising same in the wake of Obama’s 2012 re-election.
This time around, they must fundamentally re-conceive their collective efforts as a social activist movement that’s a primary end in its own right and that they are engaged in a permanent, full spectrum, utterly critical competition with zealously competitive social activist movements, rather than the Tea Party as only a temporary grassroots ad campaign, an ad hoc appeal to elected officials, and/or a quasi-alternative path to enter electoral politics.
At this point, if conservatives still don’t collectively embrace the primacy of activism – and recognize participatory politics subsume electoral politics – even after the loud and clear wake-up call of the Trump-front alt-Right insurgency, it means that conservatives have reached their political evolutionary dead-end.
parker:
“DJT has a mission, it is not for the alt-right or about actually occupying the Oval Office (too much work). If you need a road map, you are an example of why the franchise to vote should be restricted.”
Whether or not Trump is “for” the alt-Right in their practical alliance, the alt-Right has a mission that’s a greater threat to conservatives than the Democrats and a Hillary Clinton presidency. The alt-Right is targeting conservatives in an essential way that Clinton and the Democrats are not.
Whether Trump is a Clinton-planted foil to sabotage the 2016 conservative GOP threat or an alt-Right tool to displace conservatives like the Left displaced liberals and take over the GOP like the Left took over the Democrats, the necessary counter-measure is the same – a competitive social activist movement.
expat:
“They buy Trump’s line that Iraq was all about nation building, which is like saying WWII was about bringing democracy to Japan.”
Answers to “What were President Bush’s alternatives with Iraq?” & “Why did Bush leave the ‘containment’ (status quo)?” & “Why not free a noncompliant Saddam?”;
Answers to “Did Iraq failing its compliance test justify the regime change?” & “Was Operation Iraqi Freedom about WMD or democracy?” & “Was the invasion of Iraq perceived to be a nation-building effort?”.
The kernel of truth is that the post-Saddam peace operations with Iraq were anticipated.
However, the peace operations were “expected” (section 4, 2002 AUMF) based on the anticipation that after a decade-plus of noncompliance, Saddam would not deviate from breach of the Gulf War ceasefire with the mandated “full and immediate compliance by Iraq without conditions or restrictions with its obligations under resolution 687 (1991) and other relevant resolutions” in his “final opportunity to comply” (UNSCR 1441). And generally, from the 20th-21st century American experience as leader of the free world that winning a war requires securing the peace post-war.
The basis of the Iraq intervention was always to “bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations” (P.L. 105-235). From August 1990 onward, Presidents HW Bush, Clinton, and Bush made clear that if Saddam proved the mandated compliance, then enforcement would be switched off, whereas Iraq’s noncompliance triggered enforcement.
The UNSC decision “Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions, including resolution 687” … the UN-mandated “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” (UNSCR 1441) enforced by the US mandate to “enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq” (Public Law 107-243) … the determinative fact findings that confirmed Iraq’s breach of ceasefire, including “about 100 unresolved disarmament issues” (UNMOVIC), which triggered enforcement in Saddam’s “final opportunity to comply” (UNSCR 1441) … the operative enforcement procedure for OIF was simple and straightforward.
Yet the linchpin of Trump’s foreign policy speech is a fundamental misrepresentation of the basis of the Iraq intervention. That places him on the same side of the line as the Saddam regime and Russians who also assiduously obfuscated the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” enforced by the US.
Iraq Survey Group:
The weapon the caller was probably referring to was not impeachment but the power of the purse. Even without the Senate, the House could have disrupted Obamacare and/or brokered better policy. Yet, instead of breaking up spending into smaller bills that would make it harder to not pass (funding politically hot items that even the President would hesitate to veto), the GOP in congress dithered and waited and negotiated omnibus spending bills that *had* to pass or the government would be shut down. Then they told the press and democrats that they would never shutdown the government while negotiating these spending bills. It would be the equivalent of walking into a car dealership and announcing that you are able to pay 10% over sticker price and won’t walk out without buying a car.
wrt the Repubs and right in general accepting lies as CW:
If, in an enemy camp–classroom, for example–some one might say in tones of incredulity–“You deny global warming?”
Of course, if you admit you do, all hell will come down on you in a beautiful example of “four legs good, four legs bad” until you quit and there has been no useful discussion.
neo writes:
“Of course, no one foresaw that the resultant anger of the base would somehow spread to more than just the most extreme wing of the party. It is now at least a third to a half of the party who are reacting to their rage by backing a lying con man who is a RINO extraordinaire. Go figure.”
I think it was and is pretty easy to figure. The Tea Party movement was a clear indicator of the feelings of the Republican base. They were ignored and insulted by the republican leadership. Count me among the “most extreme wing of the party.” I am filled with rage at the actions of the Republican leadership culminating in the last so-called Omnibus budget bill that totally capitulated to the Democrats and as a bonus paid off the Republican cronies with goodies like breaking the sequester and funding the Export-Import bank.
As you know I am absolutely not a Trumper but I place the blame for the destruction of the Republican party squarely on the Republican leadership and the majority of the Republican Senators and Representatives who support them and not on Trump.
The Republican elected officials were so full of themselves that they thought the base had no where else to go. The most unfortunate part of the 2014 election was that the Tea Party was not able to knock off any of the old bulls from the Senate. The totally corrupt victory of Thad Cochran in Mississippi was perhaps the most demoralizing single factor in the whole election cycle.
I hope that like Mark Twain’s famous quip rumors of the Republican Party’s death are grossly exaggerated but I am afraid the odds are not with us.
Bob_CA:
I strongly suggest that if you haven’t already done so, you read this thread and its comments, particularly this, this, this, and this.
“Trump has equivocated and walked back at least half of the things he’s said”
Haven’t kept track, but my guess is that a careful analysis would prove that Trump has said something that would convey he is softening his position, if not taking the opposite position on nearly EVERY SINGLE ISSUE he has staked an initial position on. (Neo, you had a great article on how most anything Trump says is “mutable”).
And that is since he announced his run, not including various points in his prior life of holding positions opposite, which brings into question his sincerity on his initial campaign positions to begin with.
With all that being the case, no voter can (honestly) understand what Trump will be doing to “Make America Great Again”.
Most end up projecting their wishes.
Great article, as usual, neo!