President Obama's blind spot for Bipartisanship

by: Zappatero

Mon Jan 28, 2013 at 09:56:11 AM MST

Thereisnospoon has a thoughtful analysis of how the president's unquestioned faith in bipartisanship (and by extension that of our senators, who can't say anything without first saying "bipartisan") is really a tragic flaw and, rather than fostering productive democracy, neglects and has enabled Republicans in their historic and malevolent obstructionism:

The President seems to genuinely believe that if a Grand Bargain on taxes, spending and deficits can be reached, then Republicans will be placated enough to be reasonable on other pieces of the Administration's social and economic agenda.

Does anyone, besides the president, believe Republicans would back off teh crazy even after such a Grand Bargain? I think they would actually go more crazy and justify it with the "bipartisan" chits they "earned" on any GB.

Oh, and they'd immediately start producing the political ads blaming Democrats for any cuts to the social safety net approved by Democrats as part of that GB.

This vision presumes an enormous amount of good faith on the part of the Republican Party that is not in evidence. It first presumes that Republicans actually care about cutting deficits instead of simply slashing the safety net and redistributing wealth upward to the obscenely rich. The deficit-ballooning presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush alone are evidence enough to prove otherwise.

The President's assumptions secondarily presume that if Republicans were to see their deficit objectives fulfilled, they would be placated enough to be reasonable when considering the President's other policy goals. That, too, requires a suspension of disbelief. The history of the Republican Party over the last few decades has shown that any giving of ground is considered not a good faith effort at quid pro quo negotiation, but rather weakness to be exploited by further demands.

Anyone who disagrees please say so now.

Significantly, it also presumes that making concessions to Republicans on taxes, deficits and spending is worth their cooperation on other issues such as immigration. Unless Republicans were to play against type by cooperating on significant action against climate change (a highly unlikely scenario), such trades would almost certainly be counterproductive to the overall interests of the American people even if they were possible.

True dat.

And, even though the inaugural address was quite clearly liberal, recent polls show most Americans agree with both the rhetoric and the substance of the most potentially combative lines in the speech. This is one time when both sides do do it: they support the principled agenda enunciated  by Obama. Unfortunately, weak-kneed Democrats, mostly in the US Senate, can't read those polls and are yet to fathom what voters told them this past November. All this plus a 5+Million popular vote advantage and Democrats are still worried about historically irrelevant bipartisanship.

But it appears that despite all evidence, the President believes that political reconciliation is somehow possible, and that a chastened Republican Party will come to the table as a legitimate negotiating partner once the deficit is taken off the table as an issue.

Since his re-election Republicans have threatened, and successfully engaged in the case of Susan Rice - even though she hadn't been nominated and there wasn't any hearing! - to use the filibuster as a continuing weapon against our democracy and the president.

Since his re-election Republicans have gone bonkers over gun control, Banghazi, the budget, and continue to lie on issue after issue. Some elected Republicans are still talking impeachment of this two-time electoral-landslide winning, popular-vote president. These are the guys Obama, and our two Democratic Senators and our anti-Progressive progressive Rep. Polis, want to be bipartisan with!

All evidence to the contrary, Obama still believes there are rational Republicans in DC that he can work with.

This could be the fatal flaw the prevents Obama from enacting policies that lead us to the heightened goals in his plainly progressive inaugural address. The irrational desire for bipartisanship by him and his Democratic legislative partners, with a partner that does not negotiate in good faith and is diametrically opposed to almost every proposal, is far more prevalent in Democratic circles than in Republican circles. It's especially acute in a president who is hated by Republicans.

In this case, both sides don't do it.

And it may prevent Democrats from acting, one again, on the clear mandate of voters.