"We're not going to be disrespected"Follow

The American government truly is the greatest of all soap operas.

Here’s a question for conservatives and Republicans: Going into the 2012 Election Day, or even in the last few days before Election Day, did you think Mitt Romney was going to win? A couple of months ago, did you think the strategy of threatening to shut down the government or prevent raising the debt ceiling, to force the outright repeal or defunding of Obamacare, would really work? Romney lost by 4,967,508 votes, 126 Electoral College votes, and 3.85 percentage points. That’s not very close. Obamacare isn’t going to be repealed this year, and it’s not going to be defunded.

So the question is whether conservatives and Republicans should begin to worry if their instincts—specifically, their judgment on matters of politics and policy—are a bit off. Maybe “spectacularly wrong” would be more accurate. Does that worry anyone on the right or in the Republican Party? Are they concerned that continuing to follow such awful political instincts could lead to catastrophic consequences for their movement and their party?

Obviously, not every Republican or conservative thought, up until the end, that Romney would win or that the anti-Obamacare strategies would work. But this increasingly widespread tone deafness should concern party leaders, particularly when it leads to self-destructive decisions, as we are witnessing these days. In politics, it isn’t uncommon to see judgment clouded by emotion, but when hate and contempt predominate, truly awful decisions often result.

My children and I love watching Peter Pan. In fact, we’ve seen the Disney classic so often through the years that we could probably recite most of the movie from memory. Maybe that’s why the opening lines came so easily to my mind earlier this week while watching a far less joyful tale unfold on Capitol Hill.

“This has all happened before and it will happen again” are the first words to that sweet movie about eternal youth. Unfortunately, those lines also fit a bit too snugly on the carcass of a political movement that seems incapable of learning from past mistakes. Chances are good that Republicans will continue getting blindsided by political events until Republican leaders stop cowering to public figures who insist on filtering out all realities that are in conflict with their preexisting worldviews.

If this sounds all too familiar, it’s because Republicans were licking their wounds around this time last year after being blindsided by a presidential election whose outcome they should have seen coming a mile away. But ignorance was bliss as conservative politicians and talkers pushed bogus polls and political fairy tales to angry voters who were once again on the losing side of history. Media outlets that released polls showing President Obama winning were attacked as biased and conservatives who warned of Romney’s weaknesses were rhetorically burned at the stake as heretics.

Barack Obama won again and Republican leaders swore that next time would be different.

Well, next time came one year later, and one year later, way too many conservatives once again found themselves shocked by the obvious.

Elections? Maybe. The people he trusts to run campaigns know how to win elections. The people he trusts to further a legislative agenda @#%^ the dog basically constantly. Winning is not losing the House majority the election before redistricting. Winning is getting your legislation passed quickly. Winning is getting what you want without giving up anything. Obama is a weak president. He'll be remembered for being a weak president. He passed national healthcare...with a SUPERMAJORITY. It took forever, was a weak compromise and he COMPLETELY lost the narrative battle. A "leader" passes that more quickly. A "winner" passes single payer and moves on to other things. A weak president gets run over by the other side and "compromises" when he HAS NO NEED TO because...he's weak.

That's called politeness and trying to put a good public face on complete failure. Boehner did nothing the entire fight and ended it by failing to pass counter-legislation with a stronger GOP bent through his own caucus. The most he did was not take up a bill that could have ended the "fight" two weeks earlier and twenty percent higher in the polls than what they wound up with.

They really don't.

No, they thought Boehner was acting to preserve his Speakership. Which isn't exactly the same thing. What the fiasco really made clear was that no one else would want the job either.