When they know that the Dems will give it away for free?
Today, President Obama said -
"The Senate certainly shouldn't try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated."
http://www.salon.com/...
Three years ago, Nancy Pelosi said –
"I have said it before and I will say it again: Impeachment is off the table."
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Like I said, why should the Goppers compromise?
Here are are a few things that continually irritate progressives:
Why is it that the Republicans can push through their legislation with House majorities of a few and Senate majorities of one, while Democrats cannot get to first base even with supermajorities of 60%?
Why is it that when the Democrats still have 59 seats in the Senate, all the talking heads are talking about how the Democrats are going to have to "temper" their "agenda"?
Why is it that the Democrats always compromise rightwards, even though the entire political spectrum has shifted so far to the right over the past generation that it makes Nixon look like a pinko commie?
Answer – The Democratic Party.
I recall one holiday season about 5 years ago, my sister was asking me in an outraged tone why the Bush administration was doing such and such in Iraq and why the Bush administration was doing this and that with the economy - - because the policies were outwardly so insane. My response was that they wanted the destruction in Iraq. They wanted the destruction of the economy. Certainly, Naomi Klein has stated it more eloquently.
But, could it be that a similar logic might apply to the Democrats? Oh, yes. We often fall back on that old Will Rogers saw, "I am not a member of any organized party – I am a Democrat." But is it as simple as that? Or is it the nature of the Democratic Party to offer up Republican Lite and call it progress?
There are two features of the Democratic Party that will always disappoint progressives. First, there are the Blue Dogs. They may be less numerous and less rabid than in the days of Roosevelt, but they have consistently voted with the Bushites and against progressive policies for most of the past decade. Second, there is the idea – advanced by no less a person than Markos himself – that new blood can remake the party. Crashing the Gate. But the gatekeepers are pretty effective at their jobs. On the one hand, they are able to keep out the vast majority of the hoi polloi – except when political donations are necessary. On the other, for those who make it past the gate, there is a powerful political acculturation process that converts most of the gatecrashers into elites in short order.
I think that it is way past time to ask the fundamental question.
Is the Democratic Party capable of enacting the change that most of us seek?
If not, then what are the options? I would argue that the only way to have progressive policy options on the table is to have a clearly progressive political party. Yes, it would slam the Democrats in the short run. And almost certainly, it would be smaller than the Republicans and the Democrats. But, given the political polarization of the country, it is likely that the Republicans would devolve into an ultra-right party, the Democrats one of centrist accommodationism, and the Progressives the party of real change.
All the talk today – from Joe Lieberman to Jim Webb to Barney Frank – is about a rightward turn. If there were a Progressive bloc, there would be, at least, the possibility of leftward compromise. As long as progressives keep coming back to the Democratic dry well, Rahm Emmanuel will be right.
But at what cost?