Its been a little interesting watching the republicans since their election loss. If there seems to be several personalities embodied in the gop currently, its because there are several personalities.
One interesting personality is Entitlists, who behave as if they have won the election. They still cuss Obama, often with racial slurs…. so you know where that’s coming from. Some even go so far as to appear as if they are arguing economic points, but these points are so illogical and superficial, they break down quickly. Believing their own crap, they still can’t come to the realization that they lost. Its like Karl Rove’s new personality… reality ain’t real.
As I’ve always said, its rich people who have the greatest feelings of entitlement. I asked a white guy who is well off but not really rich, but who claimed that Obama gave the poor handouts, to name those handouts. He couldn’t. When I told him about the handouts that Obama did give, to the banks, to Wall St, to the car companies, he couldn’t comprehend them as handouts.
The same thing happened in Jamaica in the 1970s- 90s. When Michael Manley gave work to poor people so that they could have money in their pockets, the rich decried that as ‘crash program handouts’. Yet in the 1990s the banks and the rich who were affected by the collapse of the banks, were all gathering at the trough for government money, called then ‘bailouts’. Same thing, different people.
Well, this was this guy’s own sense of white entitlement. Its like that Romney advisor, Stuart Stephens, who claimed that because Romney carried the majority of every economic group except those with less than $50,000 year in household income, means that ‘… the party is doing something right’. Really? Well, in truth, Romney was going to do something right for those guys, not for America.
The election is still being fought by those who feel they should have won, because they were entitled to it.
Another personality of the republicans is the Realists. Those who are those ready to deal with the fact that the people have spoken, and that in truth, Obama holds all the cards. These are the guys distancing themselves from the tea party. These are the guys who recognize that the tea party is nothing but a dead weight on the republican party and will sink the party for years to come. These are the guys who are ready to really negotiate and compromise with Obama, but from a point of knowing they have little leverage and compromise is in the country’s best interest.
The Realists know that the party is doomed if they don’t change and realize that the worse attributes of the most extreme sections of the party, is quickly becoming the party’s soul.
And then there are the Smoke and Mirrors guys like Boehner. He actually falls into the latter group but he also realizes that he has to walk a very thin tightrope. He can’t just throw the tea party under the bus because that will leave a long lasting damage to the GOP numbers. But he cannot keep them because that’s even more damage and more long-lasting. So he is playing them, by acting tough, by acting as if he his playing their game, by playing to their sense of entitlements, by keeping their ‘demands’, by playing tough.
Despite all his posturing to the different, Boehner is actually a Realist, and knows that the GOP will have to fold eventually, especially within the next month or so. Why? Because the republicans have no strong cards to play. Obama holds the deck and they find themselves with a very weak hand. Look for them to crumble. They will bargain, gain a few crumbs but eventually fold, while still claiming success.
One of their cards is defense. But wars no longer stimulate the economy. Desert Storm didn’t, and neither have Iraq and Afghanistan… so thats out the window. But they still don’t want defense touched the so-called fiscal cliff’ negotiations. That’s rubbish. Defense wastes more money than any other dept of government. Yet, it’s the one that Obama might give to him… in the spirit of compromise.
There is no way that Boehner is going to sacrifice tens of millions of middle class votes for a couple thousand rich votes. Romney worked those numbers in 2012 and is history. For some stupid reason they expected that because the boss of company X was funding them, then automatically they would have the votes from his employees. That’s actually the way they think. But November 6 was a reality check.
As for plumbing the race card again… well that’s card will be out of the game in 2016. Many of those votes and money that weren’t available to Obama in 2012, will be available to the nice lily-white woman the democrats are likely to run in 2016.
Obstructing Obama now is a fools game and Boehner knows it. There’s only so far that race hatred can carry the GOP. The republicans can’t remain obstructionist for much longer, just long enough to satisfy the tea party, while seeking to destroy them.
