The essential difference between Democrats and Republicans, and the reason why this country drifts ever rightward, no matter who is in nominal control of the government:
Steve Benen wonders who is in charge of the Republican caucus, as the (comparative) grownups, the supposed leaders (Boehner, Cantor and their ilk) have been unable to corral the votes needed to pass legislation and now seem unable to control the budget process.
The answer is simple. Among the Republican caucus, it is the extreme right that is in control, and the rest of the caucus will dance to their tune. If that means doing things that are totally insane, then so be it. The “moderate” Republicans would never think of making common cause with “centrist” Democrats to pass something.
This dynamic is, as we know, precisely the opposite of how things work on the Democratic side. If the left side of the party is unhappy about something, the Democratic leadership takes pride in that fact, and Obama tries to make personal political capital out of it. Witness the latest: taking pride in depriving the poor of heat in the winter, after failing to make the rich pay their fair share of taxes, and, to add that extra bit of insider hypocrisy, calling it “shared sacrifice”.
Better to gain a single Republican maybe than make 60 or 70 liberals happy, particularly because, unlike their Republican counterparts, the more left leaning Democrats can always be counted on to accept reality and go along with whatever ineffective piece of garbage the leadership decides to put together to satisfy Olympia Snowe, who then votes against it anyway.
Democratic congresses and Democratic presidents merely slow the rightward trend. With each year we find that the formerly unthinkable becomes common wisdom. In the weeks ahead we will see plenty of “compromises” dictated by the extreme right of the Republican party, with the Democratic Party and the Democratic Administration serving as enablers.
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