For the purpose of debate and discussion only.
After watching, grinding teeth, and posting angry or distraught comments for two years, I've decided that being critical of President Obama and Democrats in Congress is getting Liberals exactly nowhere.
Therefore, I've come up with an alternate plan to achieve at least some progress on a Liberal agenda:
We must emulate President Obama.
We've been watching him for two years, so we know how to do this.
First, we ignore and bypass President Obama, lobbyists, most Democrats in Congress, and the Democratic Party entirely and go straight to the Republicans in Congress and begin making deals.
With so many of us out here, we'll probably have to teleconference and won't be able to do the behind-closed-doors bit, but that's a mere bagatelle.
Second, we have to surrender to the Republican Party, of course. And give away our bargaining positions before negotiations begin. But I see a vast new arena for political participation opening up for us as a de-facto minority party.
For example:
On credit card rates, we could offer to send (pledge, since of course this is not a bribe) directly to Republican politicians' campaign committees a cut of of every dollar they lop off credit card rates and fees. Say the rate is currently 18% (or more?). We can concede in advance that if Republicans knock that down to, say 5% or 6%, we could offer them 2%. Then we let them win the negotiations and settle for 8% and 4%. Win-win.
On health care, we point out that the health care, pharma, and health insurance industries are greedy for not sharing more of their take with the Republicans who have so staunchly enabled them. But if Republicans voted for a Public Option and reduced health care and drug costs, we would be in a position to gratefully share a percentage of that savings directly with them. Which would doubtless be a huge amount of money. Maybe we could sweeten the deal with an in-house tanning salon, just for Boehner. Again, win-win.
I'm sure, with a little discussion, we can come up with excellent, mutually beneficial offers for ending the wars (offering Republicans a cut on the savings on munitions?), enacting Wall Street reform (some big bucks to play with there), ending DADT, increasing infrastructure spending, and funding public education as well.
The biggest question would be, would we have to incorporate, Liberals Inc., to get away with contributing so lavishly to Republicans?