They’ve got them where they want them, three scandals all facing the Obama Administration. But Republicans are doing what they did with the advantage they had for the election campaign for 2012, throwing it away.
Ultimately, the American people lose because we’re being governed by a one-party system as the Republicans refuse necessary modification to work within government and to sacrifice ego for representation of people who would like an alternative to the government free-for-all that is this Administration.
For me, the Republicans are in desperate need of a flip-flop, and are, at the very least, in desperate need of showing the ability to flip-flop.
Far from weakness, an ability to consider and modify a viewpoint that has a greater appeal to a larger portion of the population is frequently received by intelligent others as showing evolution, maturity, and the ability to learn. When you’re consistently deemed the loser, sacrificing sense for consistency makes no sense.
Unfortunately, in response to stunning defeats, what we’re shown is that many Republicans become more intractable, less rational and more sweeping in their determination to restore some imagined time of the Founding Fathers with little or no regard to the years that have passed since those perceived glory days. (In all fairness, I have noticed a softening of approach on some networks in some of their programming.)
And of course, peppered into the scandals facing Democrats and the President, the Republicans have managed to generate a little bit of comic relief in the press with their announcement of another planned vote to repeal Obamacare for the thirty-something time.
Beyond the incompetence of doing the same thing, the same way, that didn’t work the first 30-something times, much like the continued efforts to resurrect Paul Ryan’s “plan”, Republicans are again showing their inability to flip-flop, to learn, to modify, to change.
It’s time for Republicans to flip-flop and give up the theatrics that have led them to be the party of ALL or NOTHING which continually ends up being nothing.
There is beginning to be experience with Obamacare, from funding to deadlines to security risks, to the more noteworthy stories about individuals who fall through the cracks of what they thought they got and what is, yet the Republicans don their face paint and prepare for the small audience waiting to hear that they will again try to rid us of Obamacare, all or nothing, and again, nothing will be their reward.
How about instead going after portions of the law that discriminate against the elderly, such as the acceptable premium additions allowed to be charged to smokers and older people. How about talking about the public interest in modifying the premium caps so that they apply to employees and their families instead of merely to employees which will leave some heads of household unable to afford to insure their families on their plans?
This idea would also work well in handling the big scandals facing the Obama administration. Stop assuming that impeachment, jail time and execution (yes, the theatrics of hyperbole are being used here) should be advocated based on the trespasses and use Obamaspeak, about looking into and fixing the problem.
And that is the Achilles heel for Republicans. Absent the ability to propose ALL or NOTHING, and barring the language of hyperbole, “Do away with a department, do away with an agency, repeal everything,” Republicans are stunningly unable to come up with ANYTHING that could reasonably appeal to Americans as workable in the line next to the one identifying a problem (which would be the line identifying a solution). That persistently blank line allows the current Administration to fill in their own. Don’t take my word for it, just look at Benghazi.
We’ve watched Washington money, our money pay for endless hearings, meetings, and conferences about identifying the problem. Done. Yet still, after scoring the point, the Republicans persist, and we all watch more money spent on proving a point already proven.
Now what? The Republicans have left what they will do to help solve the problem out of the equation. Once again, their silence has allowed the President to identify the problem as insufficient funding, with the accompanying solution of providing more funding, oh, and by the way, wouldn’t it be nice if Republicans cooperated.
The President proposed more funding (and cooperation from Congress) TODAY, AFTER testimony yesterday that funding had nothing to do with decisions that led to inadequate security. Why was that possible? Because the Republicans are still flashing timelines, and verbiage instead of coming up with reasonable steps for solution.
Tip of the day for Republicans, it’s summer, don the flip-flops and instead of identifying the problem endlessly start working on gradual, reasonable solutions that will improve the lives of the Americans you represent or hope to represent.
