The Battle Within

What could be rosier for the Republican Party? Control of the Senate, more solid control of the House and new polls showing GOP candidates who may actually be able to whup any likely Democratic presidential candidate, even Hillary (!), in 2016. Party for the Party! Right? All they have to do to prove how viable this conservative line is would be to get some reasonable legislation on the table, forcing the President to do it their way or make the Democrats look like the obstructionist party that has clearly labeled the Republicans to date.

Every exit and general poll of the American people tells us that they want stuff done, from fixing the underperforming economy to immigration. Nobody seems to believe that the lower paying jobs that fill the employment statistics matter, that the stock market reflects how most people live and most wonder who is going to be able to afford the new home prices when interest rates finally rise. Butt weight, there’s a huge catch. The Republic Party has one mega-obstacle to overcome: the Republican Party. As much as the Democrats seem to be a party with conflicting issues and a leader everyone is mad at, the Republicans may just have it a whole lot worse.

With massive gerrymandering and voter ID laws in southern, Midwestern and some southwestern states, the GOP has too many districts where the real battle is between Republican candidates in the primaries, where Democrats don’t stand a chance in the general elections. Which means that the GOP in these districts have designed themselves to be ultra-right wing social as well as fiscal conservatives, telling their constituents that they will never vote for most of the bills that are likely to please that great middle between right and left.

They will fight to repeal Obamacare (which might find greater acceptance when labeled the Affordable Care Act) – something most Americans are tired of dealing with – and make damned sure that nothing gives “amnesty” to anyone who entered the U.S. illegally (even if they were two years old at the time). They want taxes for the rich reduced and government to butt out of financial and environmental regulations, with too many of these uber-right-wingers still clinging to the rather absurd notion that global climate change is an unproven myth. They had sex education, birth control clinics, text books that teach science that scientists want and oppose abortion. They are anti-GLBT and fight to establish that the United States is a Christian country based on the rural values of traditional white America.

So far the battle that will jar the Republican Party is with itself. Moderate Republicans coming to Washington with mandate for change against right wing Republicans sworn to move the nation back to their old-world definition of Christian, rural America. It is the only silver lining for the Democrats for the disaster they faced from the mid-terms. The Tea Party is emboldened just as the new moderates want to show America how well Republicans can govern… but they just don’t seem to be able to get out of their own way.

As the GOP establishment has promised the American people positive action, which requires containing the Tea Party faction’s proclivity to do whatever it takes to press their right wing vision for America, there’s an ugly war about to take place that will make most Democrats – with their multi-ethnic urban pragmatic values – smile. “As most Republicans were taking a victory lap the morning after the elections, a group of conservatives huddled anxiously in a conference room not far from Capitol Hill and agreed that now is the time for confrontation, not compromise and conciliation.

“Despite Republicans’ ascension to Senate control and an expanded House majority, many conservatives from the party’s activist wing fear that congressional leaders are already being too timid with President Obama… They do not want to hear that government shutdowns are off the table or that repealing the Affordable Care Act is impossible — two things Republican leaders have said in recent days.

“‘If the new Republican leadership in the Senate is only talking about what they can’t do, that’s going to be very demoralizing,’ said Thomas J. Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative advocacy group that convenes a regular gathering called Groundswell. Any sense of triumph at its meeting last week was fleeting… ‘I think the members of the leadership need to decide what they’re willing to shut down the government over,’ Mr. Fitton said…

“Some conservatives believe that the threat of another shutdown is their strongest leverage to demand concessions on the health care law and to stop the president from carrying out immigration reform through executive order. Yet their leadership has dismissed the idea as a suicide mission that could squander the recent gains.

“One thing that will prove popular among the base is a commitment by Senator Mitch McConnell, the presumptive new majority leader, to bring up a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, which he is expected to do next year.” New York Times, November 8^th. Can you hear the Democrats chanting in the background: “War on women.” “Party of white men.” “Party of exclusion.” “Extremists in power.” “The party of no.” “Out of touch with the mainstream.”

If the GOP cannot generate a consensus within their own party, they may be unable to pass the legislation that they promised so many times in these mid-terms. And although the next two years may be living hell for most Democrats, the Republicans are in a position to hand over power to the other side of the aisle in two years if they are dragged to inaction or stupid action by their Tea Party right wingers. And too many in that Tea Party faction have vowed to shut down America to get their way.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we would be a whole lot better off if those we elect were in fact, one-to-one, actually representative of the total constituency we call America.