I guess my timeline is slightly different from the Speaker’s, because I’d say that it’s been about six weeks since the president made it absolutely clear that he’s done trying to forge compromises with a party that won’t compromise. But let’s take a look at John Boehner’s thinking anyway.
“There is nothing that has disappointed me more over the last eight weeks than to watch the President of the United States basically give up on the economy, and give up on the American people, decide he’s going to quit governing, and spend his entire next 14 months campaigning,” Boehner said.
The lead Republican went on to say that the president should try to find more areas of agreement between the two parties. That notion has been one of contention, with the president maintaining that his jobs proposal consisted entirely of ideas previously supported by Republicans.
“If the president is serious, he ought to be up here working with us to find common ground to solve the issues that the American people want us to solve,” Boehner said.
What John Boehner means is that the Democratically-controlled U.S. Senate and the president of the United States should capitulate to whatever the House of Representatives wants to do, even if what the House wants to do has no relationship to what the Democrats promised their constituents they would fight for. What I find ironic, though, is that nothing has disappointed me more than how the activist left pushed Obama to stop compromising with the Republicans and take his case to the people, and then six weeks ago when the president decided to do exactly that, the activist left decided to pour all their energy into the Occupy Movement. I’ve discussed this before, and my thinking has been evolving. It feels like that the precise moment the president gave up on working with the Republicans, the activist left gave up on the congressional process. It’s like something snapped after the debt ceiling fiasco. I think it destroyed hope all around. And people are reacting differently to it depending on their situation.
The one positive thing I am feeling is that I have the sense that the Republican talking points and arguments seem a little more detached from reality and a little more irrelevant or impertinent than they did before the Occupy Movement got started. It’s just a feeling, but if it’s right it might mean that the debate is moving in a more favorable direction. And the movement gives people a way to stay politically involved instead falling into despondency. So, that’s good, too.
I just worry that the left is splintering at a dangerous time.
I feel compelled to remind you all again that a key component of the McConnell Plan of total obstruction is to frustrate the left so that it turns on itself.
