I’ve seen 18 year-olds organize protests better than this sorry-ass Teapublican attempt to kill Obamacare. They had no strategy, no tactics, just bluster. And they just shot themselves in the foot, perhaps fatally. They are now paper tigers.
Ten takeaways from The Great G.O.P. Cave-in
1. President Obama won. For once, he held firm, and it worked.
5. Republicans need remedial lessons in game theory. If you aren’t willing to go over the cliff, and your opponent knows that, there’s no point in engaging in brinkmanship.
10. We get to do it all again in January and February. But next time, we’ll all be aware in advance that the G.O.P.’s threats to force a debt default are empty.
Another takeaway. The faction in Congress most willing to crash the country will write our laws.
Exactly – extremism ultimately prevails. The Tea Party failed because they weren’t extreme enough. That’s scary.
Meanwhile, the Obama extremists are crashing the country just fine in their own way. On this, the Tea Party has a point: we cannot continue to spend 50% more than our revenues, year after year, and expect our currency to maintain its value. Our debt ratios are now far beyond any healthy industrial democracy, more in line with Italy and moving toward Greece and Spain.
A reasonable approach would be to cut excessive spending, reform programs, and raise taxes… but apparently in the age of extremism, the only thing that can stop the spending juggernaut is an extreme right-wing slash-and-burn approach.
I’ll say it again: The Tea Party failed because they weren’t extreme enough. That’s scary.
I’ve noticed sometimes those in politics sometimes fancy themselves to be as ruthless as Lenin. They aren’t. Which is a good thing.