So we have a deal. The main elements are: continuing resolution funding through January 15 (maintaining the sequester, as far as I can tell), debt ceiling clear until at least February sometime, and precious little else.
This was important. It was very important that Obama stand solid and that the Democrats stand solid behind him, which they did – every Democrat in Congress backed the bill. This was crucial because what they are trying to do here is delegitimize the tactic of government shutdown and debt-limit brinksmanship as a means of allowing one party in one house to hold the budget – or the full faith and credit of the United States – to ransom for things they could not otherwise obtain through legitimate legislative or electoral means.
Too many people expected Obama would fold. He folded in 2011, for the sake of buying stability until the elections, and in return got a super-committee that failed to produce an official budget (whose chairmen then produced a non-binding statement of opinion that media idiots have since interpreted as the committee’s official report) and some automatic cuts that would take effect if nothing was done. Nothing was, and they took effect, which is the sequestration that’s resulted in blunt-instrument diminished government services in 2013.
And what’s to prevent us going through all this again in February? Nothing. That’s right: nothing at all. Already the mental defectives of the Tea Party are screaming that they were THIS CLOSE to victory before being stabbed in the back by the evil liberal media (you know, like those pinko socialists at the Wall Street Journal) and by people who are Republicans In Name Only (you know, like 2/3 of the elected Republicans in the Senate who voted in favor of this bill and the 85 members in the House who decided enough was enough). And because they feel entitled to their own opinion, their own facts and indeed their own reality, they will almost certainly try again in February, because they represent the True Will Of The American People and will certainly be swept to victory once people realize the truth about the illegitimate Kenyan socialist Muslim atheist dictator.
The thing is, the GOP is like a drug addict. Fifty years ago, they sampled the Confederacy, and it was too much for them to handle – and Goldwater sank like a stone. Then they got a diluted dose thanks to Wallace, and Nixon got into the White House in ’68. Then they started mainlining it in 1972, won 49 states, and by that point, they were addicted to having the South in their column. And they could maintain for a while, but they grew to need more and more of it – especially after 1994, when they could get even purer amounts of South.
And now it’s 2013, and they’re just now looking up and realizing that they’ve been shooting Russian street heroin for the last five years and their flesh is starting to turn to stone and drop off.
The GOP no longer functions without the South, without Southern-style politics. They’ve dug themselves into safe one-party districts, where like the South of old, one gets elected by slinging the shit the loudest and most vociferously. Only instead of throwing around the N-word and defending the flower of Southern womanhood, now they shriek endlessly about death panels and Benghazi and socialism. Thanks to Citizens United, the party no longer has any leverage via campaign money; you just need a Sheldon Adelson or Foster Friess or some other wingnut with more money than sense and you can run your campaign on his largesse without having to rely on the Republican Congressional organizations for campaign support. AM radio and social media will give you all kinds of press and publicity from your true believers without ever having to interact with the hostile inquiries of the lamestream media. And when you get to the House of Representatives, there’s enough of you that you can swing the vote for Speaker of the House – so he’s not going to have anything to threaten you with to get in line.
In short, the teahadists are now a self-propelled, self-replenishing zombie army. And we don’t have the means to win a zombie war right now. The only way this stops is if the GOP can tear the needle out of its arm once and for all and accept that they’re going to have to go cold turkey for a while, wait for the Democrats to over-reach, and then rebuild with the more traditionally-Midwestern approach rather than getting strung out on the strains of Dixie.
And before we go, repeat it over and over until you get people to understand: this is a one-sided problem. The Democrats are pushing the health care bill designed by the Heritage Foundation in 1994 as an alternative to Hillarycare, and implemented in Massachusetts by the most recent Republican candidate for President. Occupy Wall Street has no caucus in the Congress. The problem is coming from one party, and they have to clean it up if we’re ever going to move forward – or else reconcile themselves to a permanent minority.