A Question of Disbelief?

Florida man, angry over losing
arm-wrestling contest, attempts
to run over four people.

Remember when John Kerry was running for the Presidency and was attacked by the Swift-boaters? And remember how he was criticized for not responding to them quickly enough? President Obama has been similarly criticized because of his repeated attempts to enlist Republican support for his various proposals. And remember how it took so very long to get any legislation passed having to do with health care? The Obama attempt to bail out the auto industry was similarly held up for a long time because of Republican opposition, the stimulus bill as well, and now there is this problem with the Bush tax cuts that are about to expire. There have been many other instances where things have had to be delayed or postponed or dropped altogether because of Republican opposition. Democrats have been soundly chastised for not moving faster or more confidently on many issues. Why is this so?

I believe I have figured out part or even most of the problem of why Democrats have often been so slow to act without trying for bipartisan support. I think it is a question of disbelief. I think much of the problem is the inability of Democrats to even believe Republicans can be serious about various things, and not being able to believe what was happening simply believed (wrongly) that if they worked at it they could get common sense or common decency to prevail. Take the health care issue, for example, I think Democrats found it impossible to believe that Republicans (at least all of them) would be opposed to universal health care. How on earth could any decent citizens of the only “civilized” nation on earth without universal health care be opposed to it? I confess that even now I find this hard to believe. As Democrats must have thought at first Republicans were just holding out for some kind of negotiations they didn’t take this irrational, even almost insane opposition to health care seriously enough. Similarly, on all the attempts to extend unemployment benefits I think Democrats did not believe anyone could or would seriously oppose such legislation. The same thing has been true of virtually everything Obama has tried to do to get us out of recession and back to work, Republicans have been opposed to everything. Who would have thought such a thing was possible? It seems that Democrats still have at least some concern with the middle class, getting us out of the recession, and improving the lives of ordinary citizens, and they have been slow to understand that Republicans simply do not share these goals. I know, it is hard to understand, but it seems to be true. Republicans truly want Obama (and by implication the nation) to fail. Basically this is nothing but politics, but they sometimes want to claim it is “ideological,” apparently believing that makes their inhuman opposition to basic human rights more palatable, more philosophically respectable, as it were. I, too, have had much trouble believing Republicans could possibly be as stupid, ignorant, short-sighted, stubborn, and greedy as they apparently are.

We are now witnessing this disbelief being played out with the issue of the Bush tax cuts. These tax cuts were designed purely for the obscenely wealthy in the first place, and knowing they could not get them through Congress without putting a time limit on them (they had to do it through reconciliation), they designed them to end at the end of ten years. These absurd tax cuts should not have been allowed in the first place and they are supposed to expire next year. Unless some specific action is taken to extend them they will expire as planned. If they are to continue it is estimated they will add more than 2 trillion dollars to the deficit. Republicans are violently opposed to the deficit but insist on renewing the tax cuts anyway, claiming they do not have to be paid for in any way. This is an argument so patently absurd, so illogical, so fantastically bizarre, so insane, it should be dismissed without any further comment. But the Republicans still insist on it. I suspect that it is so obviously absurd most Democrats cannot even believe it, but for some strange reason I cannot fathom they seem to take the argument for the tax cuts as having some kind of merit and worthy of consideration. Democrats have been far too slow to learn that you cannot deal with the insane, and far too slow to understand their right to disbelief, to dismiss crazy ideas for what they are, crazy. Their disbelief that Republicans could be so insane has cost them much valuable time, they need to get over it soon and stop Republican insanity before it does irreparable damage to our nation. They have certainly done more than enough damage already.

LKBIQ:

They were so strong in their beliefs that there came a time when it hardly mattered what exactly those beliefs were; they all fused into a single stubbornness.
Louise Erdrich

TILT:
A group of baboons is called a troop or a congress.