Over this last week, I have not been able to focus on politics and the news as much as has been my habit over the last year. As such I now have a slightly different perspective then I did regarding Congress and the President's obsession with bipartisanship.
Oh, I still think it is a pointless waste of time and in some cases even damaging, that hasn't changed. What has changed is that now I'm beginning to believe that some congressional representatives, and perhaps even the President, are codependent.
Sure it might be easy for the Obama administration to think that the reason they got elected was to change the tone of Washington. Still it should be clear to the dullest observer that civil discourse and negotiation are the exception not the rule the the Republican party. That essentially two decades of success made possible by deriding the Democratic party and its principles are not easily swayed by the failure of that strategy in the last two elections.
Listening to recordings of the President, various Democratic spokespeople, and assorted Congressional representatives from this last week suddenly made sense to me. These people are partners in an abusive relationship. They are, for all intents purposes, battered spouses. They try to make nice, they try to make it better. They give and give hoping that this time it will be different. Thinking if they behave it will change their colleagues' behavior. As in any abusive relationship it doesn't work.
Personally I believe that Democrats were elected to change things, not the tone. Sure, for some voters it wasn't clear even to them what they wanted changed, they just knew that the status quo wasn't working. They have less security, less money, and less opportunity. They want that to change. Start to change that and they won't care diddly about the 'tone' in Washington.
It is essentially time to act like Democrats deserve to be writing the legislation, setting the agenda and steering the country. We should not beg for bipartisanship ever again. We don't need to apologize to Republicans for winning. They lost the presidency and their majorities in Congress because they didn't care, they didn't listen, and they stopped representing the majority of the people of American, if they ever did.
Demand as a group that they apologize when they lie and misrepresent policies and the President, then do not back down until they do. Make jokes that to that to Republicans bipartisan means "my way or the highway". Cut them no slack for not voting for legislation that has been modified for them. If they aren't going to compromise for the end product, there is no point in changing unless their idea is good. If you are going to own the legislation anyway, fill it with the best ideas, and most workable methods, and own something worthwhile. Do not ever praise them for their work on blank unless and until they are standing next to the President while he signs the bill, having actually worked for it. Find good, pithy descriptions of the weakness of their ideas, and have politicians and pundits repeat them over and over. If we had spent the last several decades calling the opposition Credit Card Republicans - they would own their own deficits. IOW, take the power back in the relationship.
As in any abusive relationship, it will take time and practice for our politicians to stop falling into familiar destructive behavior. We have to make them realize that they have our support when they are take the power and present our goals from a position of strength. We want them to be strong, decisive and use the power we, the voters, gave them. And that if that is too much to ask of them, we will give them the time and space they need to get better by voting for their divorce from the abusive relationship and electing someone else.