I've been observing politics since the Watergate days, and I've seen a trend at times like this:
-- Republicans lose their asses, usually by going way overboard and trying to trample the fundamental underpinnings of democracy;
-- Democrats pat their heads, give them breath mints, make concessions, and treat them like the favored sons at the family reunion, in the false hope that maybe this time the Republicans will start acting like real Americans who put leadership over vicious political gamesmanship;
-- Republicans sulk, spew excuses and blame, and prepare the next massive onslaught against Democrats and the US system of governance.
Hence the single-term presidency of the well-meaning but ultimately ineffectual Jimmy Carter, during which time Democrats tried their best to reach across the aisles only to have the Republicans piss on their hands. Hence the blighted presidency of Bill Clinton, which began in the wake of the calamitous Reagan-Bush years, lasted through a tsunami of groundless investigations, and ended with a ridiculous, fraudulent impeachment, all of which crippled the campaign of Al Gore and allowed George W. "Nero" Bush to be given the presidency by GOP cronies on the Supreme Court. Hence the hamstrung first term of President Obama, marred by insane accusations of Kenyan citizenship, affiliations with Islamist terrorists, and one thwarted attempt to work in a "bipartisan" fashion with the grinning madmen of the Republican Party after another.
This time it has to be different. This time Democrats have to put the political knife in their throats. But not for the reasons some of us might think. One reason: it will be good for the GOP.
My anti-GOP rhetoric is as caustic and incendiary as anyone's, when I want it to be. I've insulted their sexuality, questioned their parentage, denigrated their humanity, and called out their lack of patriotism, often with the coarsest possible language. I make no bones about it, and I don't intend to stop. They can all go piss up a rope and fuck themselves in the ear. But that's not where I'm coming from at this time.
Barring more sedition and criminal hijackings of the legislative system by Ted Cruz and his band of brownshirts, by the time you read this, we should know whether we're going to resume government functions, and what we're giving up to get that to happen. Then the recriminations, excuses, finger-pointing, and posturing will come. Republicans will try their best to dodge all blame and take credit for "finally getting the Democrats to come together in a bipartisan fashion to end the shutdown and get back to governing," or whatever.
You and I won't go down this road, but a lot of elected Democrats, perhaps including Obama, will be so relieved that this particular nightmare is ending that they will let all of that bullshit go, and heap unwarranted praise on the heads of the same traitors who tried to pull the government apart like Renfield ripping apart horseflies and eating the pieces. It's all for "bipartisanship" and "comity" and all of that monkey spew.
Absolutely not. This is where, to use the irritating and overused Texas hold 'em phrase, double down. This is when we go for the jugular and bleed them out. But not out of vindictiveness, or vengeful glee, or any of that. We do it because we will save the nation by doing so.
We need to pile this on their nasty, traitorous heads, hammer them flat with it, and we need to keep doing so until the Republicans, in their present form, are politically and socially dead. We use this to beat them into an electoral stupor in 2014 and 2016, take back the federal government, take back as many state governorships and legislatures as we can, and end this fucking madness once and for all.
After the 2006 elections, the GOP had a choice. They could have chosen to regroup, figure out how they could be relevant in a post-millennial, multi-ethnic America, and present a face of moderate, common-sense conservatism to the country. Or they could join forces with the wild-ass extremists on the fringes of their party, the Birchers, Oath Keepers, libertarian gun nuts, social Talibaners, and whatever else was over there. After all, those people had a hell of a lot of energy and the backing of some very influential billionaires. The GOP made the same kind of choice in the 1960s when they adopted the "Southern strategy" of barely veiled racism and jingoist hatred. They made it again in 2006, and they even began crafting the "tea party movement" to help codify the whole ugly mess.
But instead of corralling the crazy and using it like a judicious hit of cocaine to pump them up, they found themselves being dominated by the teabagger paradigm. And, truth be told, they liked it, for the most part, even though, like all junkies, they insisted they were in control and could quit whenever it suited them. They were giddy about the teabaggers' "enthusiasm" and "energy," and made excuses for the racism and misogyny and threats to secede or lead armed insurrection. Now the lunatics have taken over the asylum from the only slightly less crazed proprietors, and we find ourselves -- again -- on the brink of deliberately created disaster, yet another one crafted and implemented by the teabaggers, orchestrated by the small number of billionaires feeding the movement, and colluded with by the rank-and-file Republicans.
The GOP needs to go cold turkey. They need to purge themselves of this addiction to the extremists and lunatics if they ever intend to become a force for good in American society again. They need to drive the nutbags out of power in their party and back to the fringes where they belong. They won't do it for themselves. So we have to do it for them.
Think of it as an intervention, if you prefer that metaphor to the more violent ones I've used.
But we will have to be solid. We will have to be relentless. And we will have to be brutal.
It really is for their own good, but if that were the only reason for doing it, I'd say fuck 'em, just give 'em hell because they have so richly earned it. But it is for the good of America, and the good of the world.
(Aside: I'm not the first person to diary about this, by any means. One of the best ones is Delaware Dem's For America to Survive, the Republican Party must Die.)