Trench Warfare, Or Something
The word monotony speaks to dullness, but it does fit the modern Republican party rather well. It is anything but dull. Were the Republicans developing military strategy they would have a constant response to any situation:
What should we do about the enemy troops storming down the hill?
Dig trenches!
What about those grenades they’re tossing?
Dig trenches!
And the long range artillery?
Dig trenches!
How about those tanks surging around our left flank?
Dig trenches!
And the bombs?
Dig trenches!
The rockets?
Dig trenches?
The cauliflower?
Dig trenches!
The sun seems always to rise in the east. What do we do?
Dig trenches!
You see, inside the right wing world they recognize only problems that their preferred response works to resolve. So when faced with other problems they either ignore them, or they assume they’re not real problems. Sometimes this produces oddities. Sometimes it produces right wing commentary that makes you scratch your head an wonder what they’re talking about.
Take the economy.
All the chatter right now is about the ‘fiscal cliff’. To me the problem the so-called cliff represents is that it is a massive contraction of fiscal policy right when the economy is weak. It results in such a deficit reduction that it threatens growth. We need, therefore, to mitigate the cliff’s impact, not amplify it.
You don’t get this from the right. To them the cliff is all about constraining government. They speak about the rapid growth in government payrolls that threaten the budget. This is despite the huge cuts in those payrolls. They talk about the need to put a cap on government revenues as a percentage of GDP to stop it surging out of control. This is despite the fact that revenues plunged in the crisis. And so on. They’re not actually talking about the deficit, what caused it, and its consequences. They’re talking about what they always want to talk about. Only they’re doing it in the context of the deficit. And, by so doing, they’re displaying an astounding lack of contact with reality. It also drives them into contortions as they retrofit our problems to their preferred solutions. They plan to raise taxes without, umm, raising taxes. They want to get rid of Medicare, without, you know, getting rid of Medicare. They want less government spending, but are opposed to legislation that allows the government to bargain to reduce costs. They want more defense spending, but they don’t want to pay for it from raising taxes. And they don’t want the deficit to go up, but they want more defense spending and don’t want to raise revenues to pay for it …
Ouch.
This makes resolving anything quite difficult. It becomes a parlor game. Those of us who want to make progress have to ask questions that the Republicans can answer without challenging their view of reality. That way we can get their buy in to our solutions.
Questions such as:
What’s a good way to plant potatoes?
Dig trenches!
See?
Now about this cliff …
Addendum:
Right on cue, Mitch McConnell illustrates my point. Today he submitted legislation intended to prove that the Democrats don’t have enough votes to raise the so-called debt ceiling. His bill would have allowed the president to lift the debt ceiling unilaterally unless two-thirds of Congress object. It was legislation he has proposed before. He was trying to make a point – he doesn’t think there are enough votes in the Senate to give such a sweeping power to the president. Initially the Democrats refused to countenance a vote, thus proving McConnell correct. Then they changed their minds and brought his bill up for a vote. It would have passed in a simple majority vote along party lines. Since McConnell is one of those who vehemently opposes giving the president such a power, he was forced to filibuster his own bill to stop it being voted on.
Get that?
