Home » Congress, Republicans, and history: can they play offense?

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Congress, Republicans, and history: can they play offense? — 13 Comments

  1. I too hope they use this opportunity wisely. It’ll be a pleasant surprise if they do. The GOP’s new proposed budget, which would add 8.8 TRILLION $$$$$ to the debt over the next 10 yrs. argues otherwise.

    Business as usual (example: attaching repeal of Obamacare to that obscene budget bill) and passive-aggressive obstruction on any issue they oppose (illegal immigration) is what I expect.

  2. Nuking the filibuster is THE decisive change.

    It’s what stopped W in his tracks.

    Trump is in a UNIQUE position as a Republican president because of Reid’s nuking.

  3. I think one big difference between now and 30 to 40 years ago is that back then the Dems actually cared about the country, while today they seem to want it’s destruction in favor of their utopian vision. While they had majorities I don’t recall them doing what they did with obamacare.

  4. After W’s reelection he made the fateful decision to work on entitlement reform, I.e. Social security, on the theory that he had political capital and was going to spend it on a great domestic issue. It was a colossal failure. Very much matters how you use your capital.

    First hundred days will set the tone. Let’s see what the Donald can do. He has his supporters, but also angry opponents, and that anger is not going to go away. Twill be interesting to watch.

  5. This election cycle has presented an opportunity, but that opportunity has an expiry date on it.

    Strategically, the GOP Congress needs to flood the first 100 days with the legislation they’ve long been looking to implement, while trump still “needs” them, and before the dems reorganize themselves.
    .

    Re: trump’s appointments… remains to be seen how much leeway he gives them, or if he undermines them via contrary tweets and phone in interviews.

    In this regard, pence could be the most consequential VP, or the least.
    .

    We’ll see, over the first 100 days how all this is likely to pan out.

  6. Out in the boonies, the rest of the non-left population may be encouraged to speak up, having had an example of how to tell the PC folks they don’t count any longer and can’t censor by shame. Nobody’s buying.

  7. It is the narcissism of the Democrats that cause them to call narrow Republican majorities “control” of House, Senate, or SCOTUS, but not to use that term for themselves even at much higher majorities. 60% is what they are due, you see. It’s where the centerpoint should be. It’s normal. If they got used to that then 70% would be normal, of course, and they would complain about the unfairness of not having that. (That’s how dictators eventually get up to expecting 99-100% of the vote, BTW. It happens gradually.)

    The Republicans have not controlled the Congress in a real sense for almost a hundred years, and I don’t just mean the presence of some RINO’s.

  8. Assistant Village Idiot:

    But don’t you think a lot of people on the right are not aware of the extreme difference in the history of right and left in Congress? I think that’s one of the reasons there is so much complaining about how wimpy the GOP is and how little the conservative agenda has been advanced.

    I think if you were to quiz people on the right, an awful lot of folks would be very very surprised at how few times the GOP has even had a bare majority in addition to the presidency, and how many times the Democrats have had enormous majorities and the presidency.

  9. Republicans will always suck on offense. Fighters like Trump are the exception, not the rule.

    It’s because people may make plans based on what they know, but they only can act on what they believe in. And a plan without action is as useful as a wagon without wheels.

  10. The final warp and woof of Moscow’s strategic tapestry is now coming into view. As John Dziak pointed out in his essay, “Soviet Deception: The Organizational and Operational Tradition,” the key Russian strategic concepts include: Proniknovenniye (Penetration), Provokatsiya (Provocation), Fabrikatsiya (Fabrication), Diversiya (Diversion), agent po vliyaniyu/agent vliyaniye (agent of influence), Dezinformatsiya (Disinformation), Kombinatsiya (Combination).

    The weave is thus translated if we juxtapose the following proper and improper nouns: Barack Obama (Proniknovenniye), Aleppo, Syria (Provokatsiya), Donald Trump/Russian stooge (Fabrikatsiya), Russian hackers (Diversiya), Hillary Clinton (agent po vliyaniyu/agent vliyaniye), CNN/New York Times/Washington Post, et alia (Dezinformatsiya), the result of the 2016 presidential election in all the above (Kombinatsiya).

    The weave itself may be grasped with reference to scandal and counter-scandal. But do not mistake the tertiary diversiya for the primary provokatsiya. Next, interject the prospect of nuclear war into the mix. Friday’s ABC News headline says, Russian television Warns of Nuclear War Amid US Tensions. The Sunday Express says, Nuclear war ‘IMMINENT’ as Russia tells citizens to find out where the closest bunkers are. A few days ago the governor of St. Petersburg announced a possible bread ration of 300 grams per person for 20 days (while sheltered underground) in the event of war with America.

    Can we take any of this seriously? – JJR (john jay ray)

  11. Count me in the abysmal offense camp. Look at the T. Roosevelt/Progressive Party platform. It was wildly left at the time. Now we have it all and more.

    More recently, we had GOP speakers Newt Gingrich, Denny Hastert, and John Boehner. Newt was great (IMHO) but I recall that my liberal friends at the time were livid in their hatred of him. In short, the agit-prop media campaign against him worked like a charm.

    Hastert was the “accidental” speaker because the Bob Livingston got caught in an extramarital affair. BL may have been perfectly fine as a politician, but he resigned. And for many years nothing got done under Hastert. Apparently, he was too busy paying off the victim of his past pederasty to effectively run a GOP house.

    And remember one of Livingston’s house colleagues by the name of Billy Tauzin. Hillarycare was killed in the cradle because the healthcare industry decided to run a big ad campaign (Harry & Louise ads) against it. But with Obamacare, healthcare lobbyist Billy Tauzin told all his clients, “Either help choose what’s on the (Obamacare) menu, or you will be ON the menu.” Thanks Billy! As Stalin said, “The capitalists will sell us the rope we use to hang them.”

    So now in the markets we see a widespread slump in bricks and mortar retailers. Resturants, apparel, and malls in general are going down. Everyone blames Amazon, which is substantially true; but they overlook the massive economic blight caused by Obamacare. Small business labor costs have gone way up, but more importantly most disposable income has been sucked out of middle class bank accounts.

  12. On a related point, will someone (Neo?) explain to us how and why the Dems can pass Obamacare with 50+VP senate votes, and Republicans say they need a filibuster proof majority to pass a replacement of it?? Is it correct that Obamacare was a reconciliation bill and that a separate Republican replacement bill can’t be one for some reason?

    Isn’t this type of thing one of the cruxes of the argument that Dems get things done, and Republicans are ineffectual?

    I recall that Republicans were too lazy to fight the 16th Amendment (income tax) in congress, so they passed it through both houses believing that the states would never ratify it. Ha!

  13. Tommy Jay:

    I explained it already in this comment.

    It’s a somewhat technical issue, but not so very hard to understand.

    The GOP, by the way, have already passed a repeal of Obamacare through reconciliation (see this post).

    The Republicans are understandably reluctant to jettison the filibuster entirely, which is what they would need to do to replace (not repeal, but replace) Obamacare because that would require passage of a new bill, not a reconciliation bill. But they might do it anyway.

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