Time for Tough Love

cross-posted from MNPP:

Revenge….or Rescue? Neither. It’s time for tough love!

I have been participating in both sides of an internal debate, arguing with myself back and forth whether this is the time to remember the lessons of history, like those of the disastrously harsh Versailles Treaty that ended WW I but led to WW II, or the lesson of the Marshal plan that aided and showed such magnanimity and compassion to our former enemies, kindness to our opposition.  Those former enemies who were treated harshly became enemies again; the former enemies treated better became friends and allies, partners.

But the kindness to former enemies only worked, because the old leadership of the opposition, of the enemies, was gone.  It is not gone in the case of the Republicans; the problem individuals are still dictating.  The same bad characters are still in control.

I don’t think that is a reasonable expectation of the current elected Republican members of the House of Representatives or the Senate. Their efforts at re-election require them NOT to be the friends and allies or colleagues and partners across the political aisle.  The Tea Party and other extreme conservatives do not recognize the concept of ‘the loyal opposition’.  They are punished for that, and they embrace that kind of extremism, striving to outdo each other at it.  They must go, they must publicly fail in order for us to be rid of their destructiveness.  They have made it abundantly clear that they will not stop until we make them stop their insanity, their recklessness, their willful ignorance, their racism and Islamo-phobia and homophobia.  They aren’t going to abandon their attacks on government, their efforts to dismantle whole agencies like the EPA or the Dept. of Education, or the social safety net.  They aren’t going to stop being obstructive, or failing to negotiate in good faith.  They aren’t going to quit their hostage taking tactics, if the Democrats throw them a life line.

Or is it time for some well-earned tough love for the Republicans, a time for us to let them experience the full consequences of their actions, their party politics, their alienation of the nation? Is it time for us to let the right understand fully just how “elections have consequences” works?

John McCain was trash talking over the weekend, again.

“Democrats better understand something, what goes around comes around!”

Has it occurred to you, Senator McCain, that THIS is ‘what goes around’ coming around, to Republicans?  Where were you when you should have been saying this to Republicans?  I didn’t hear it.  I didn’t read it. I never saw it.

At least he admits to “being on a fools errand when we say we are going to defund Obamacare.” ,  but it is an extreme understatement to the point of dishonesty.  What he doesn’t admit is that shutting down the government is a great deal more than going on a fool’s errand, which sounds a little silly, but benevolent, harmless.

No. It wasn’t  just “a fools errand”; a ‘fools errand’ doesn’t hurt so many people or make the nation so very angry with your party.  That is arguably an attempt to put remediating the declining power and influence of your party AHEAD of what is best for the nation.  It is putting you and your party ahead of the country, something your party has not been doing when it went along with the shutdown and the debt ceiling threats.  We need to put an end to those tactics;  saving your face, saving your ass doesn’t do that.  We NEED to hear “We’re sorry. We were wrong”,  said OUT LOUD.

That is the first glaring hypocrisy, the attempt to lie, to mischaracterize the Republican tactic. Rambling on with the hysteria words about al-Quaeda, or playing the exploit our veterans card – THAT is on the heads of REPUBLICANS, all of it.  It is No. Wrong. Bad.

“If they try to humiliate Republicans…”

Haven’t REPUBLICANS already done that? THAT is not something on the conscience of Republicans? WHY is the ‘party of responsibility’, once again, NOT TAKING RESPONSIBILITY for what they have done and are doing?  Democrats are not ‘trying to humiliate’ Republicans, we are standing up to them – and about damned time.

Isn’t it the exact opposite of taking responsibility for a failure, a fiasco, to state that what Ted Cruz did was not a bad thing? How has it not been non-stop attempting to humiliate the DemocratIC party and President Obama for the past nearly five years from the right? Why should what goes around comes around NOT come around as well to Republicans?  It is T?HAT thinking that dissuades me from the kinder solution, that leads me to expect more of the same thing again after helping them,  from the extreme right.

“Ted Cruz is entitled to his views, and he’s very articulate, he’s very intelligent, and what we need to do is to have this debate within the Republican party, and it’s going to be a serious debate…and…uh…I respect Senator Cruz, he didn’t make any bones about what he was going to do when he came to Washington. The question is, should we follow that leadership or should we go in other directions, and coalesce the majority of the American people. I guess we can get lower in the polls…”

Um, YES, you CAN get lower in the polls.  NO. Ted Cruz may or may not be intelligent, but he has not demonstrated it since being elected to the senate.  He is NOT articulate; he has been a liar, and a lying propagandist. And NO, YOUR PARTY, Senator McCain, ALREADY CHOSE to follow that flawed and failed leadership, and you need now to throw that leadership, Ted-the-fuse-Cruz and Goofy Louis Gohmert and Crazy Michele Bachmann and the rest UNDER THE BUS. You need to repudiate them and disown them and take away their committee assignments. Your party needs to have that “serious debate” BEFORE any help from the Democrats.

“We’ve got to turn this around, and the Democrats had better help us, rather than do what they’ve done.”

NO Senator, the Democrats had better continue doing what is best for the American people, and YOU, Senator McCain, might best lead by standing up to your modern day Joe McCarthy-like party members and their McCarthy-like tactics regarding Democrats, especially ginning up an unwarranted fear of the ACA, but also the witch hunts like the one against Huma Abedin, or Congressman Keith Ellison, when they were wrongly accused of belonging to or aiding the Muslim brotherhood. Most especially, given the words and deeds by the right, I think you have a he*luva lot of gall to expect President Obama to take the lead in saving the sorry collective a*s of your party after what they have done and attempted to do to him — and to this country as a whole.

Save your own a*s, sir. Your party deserves the consequences of what they have done and are doing. Bailing you and your party out of this mess, will, sadly, only encourage more of the same. The only way to put a stop to your party’s insanity is NOT to bail them out, and to let them continue to humiliate themselves until they decide they’ve hit rock bottom and are ready, sincerely, to change. THEN and only then should the Democrats help your party, because otherwise the entire nation will have to endure the same thing over and over again from YOUR PARTY, Senator. You Senator McCain, are in no position to make threats, nor is it a smart tactic, given your position. It demonstrates the same kind of hubris as that shown by Senator Cruz, and THAT needs to end, and end NOW – or whenever you and the rest of the Republican party are ready. But until you are ready for a major and massive public change, NO. No help, no face-saving, no a*s-saving either.

The right has to have their debate, sort themselves out, and then THEY have to reach across the aisle.  It is not in the interest of the country to compromise with them, not good short term, and  even worse long term.  It won’t be easy for them, but it is the only real way forward possible for their to be workable bi-partisanship again.  They went too far, too often, and show no signs of stopping now.