Sedition, Secession... Right Wing Dogs Are Not Giving Up No Matter What The Polls Say

Please watch the Bill Moyers video above. We're going to talk a little about it in a moment. But before we do, I want to remind you who Paul Ryan is. If you had just landed from Uranus or Neptune and perused the Beltway media, you would come away thinking Ryan is a "serious" and "thoughtful" mainstream political leader. He isn't. He's a phony, a fraud and a film flam man, just like Paul Krugman has been pointing out for years. And now he's leading the House Republicans in a dangerous game of chicken with the economic well-being of the entire world. While Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was acknowledging that “You can blame us [Republicans], we’ve overplayed our hand, that’s for damn sure," Eric Boehlert tweeted that "If you think GOP is unpopular now wait until they default and gut every retirement fund and every college saving plan in America." You may not have to wait long-- not if Ryan and his deranged and desperate colleagues keep up the game-playing. When the House Republicans met in conference Friday, Boehner and Cantor "began the meeting trying to prepare their troops for the likelihood that they would have to adopt a deal cut in the Senate. Both leaders explained that the White House is no longer willing to negotiate with the House, that McConnell and Reid were talking, and that a bipartisan agreement is likely to emerge that will need the House’s approval.

But instead of absorbing this painful reality, some rank-and-file Republicans grew visibly excited about the prospect of opposing such a deal, said one person in the room. This defiance was fed by Ryan, who stood up and railed against the Collins proposal, saying the House could not accept either a debt-limit bill or a government-funding measure that would delay the next fight until the new year.

According to two Republicans familiar with the exchange, Ryan argued that the House would need those deadlines as “leverage” for delaying the health-care law’s individual mandate and adding a “conscience clause”-- allowing employers and insurers to opt out of birth-control coverage if they find it objectionable on moral or religious grounds-- and mentioned tax and entitlement goals Ryan had focused on in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

Ryan’s speech appeared only to further rile up the conservative wing of the GOP conference, which has been agitating the shutdown strategy to try to tear apart the health-care law.

With such fervor still rampant among House Republicans, there was bipartisan agreement in the Senate that Boehner’s House had lost its ability to approve anything that could be signed by Obama into law. Republicans decided the Senate must act first, hoping that the pressure of the Thursday debt deadline would lead to the House passing the measure even if it meant just a small collection of the GOP’s House majority joined with the Democratic minority to approve a deal.

“At this point, they have dealt themselves out of this process. They cannot agree among themselves,” Durbin said. “And that makes it extremely difficult to take them seriously.”

This might be a good time to mention that though Ryan has no opponent yet in his 2016 reelection race-- Rob Zerban is likely to announce he's running again next week-- and though the DCCC gave him immunity last year and is likely to give him immunity again this year (unless Pelosi fires Steve Israel as head of the DCCC), Ryan is more vulnerable to defeat than ever. Even with no opponent, new PPP polling shows him leading an unnamed Democrat 48-46% when voters are made aware that Ryan voted for and backs the Tea Party government shut down. And that brings us back to the ever-prescient Bill Moyers. Did you watch the video?

"Republicans," he reminds us, "have now lost three successive elections to control the Senate, and they've lost the last two presidential elections. Nonetheless, they fought tooth and nail to kill President Obama's health care initiative. They lost that fight, but with the corporate wing of Democrats, they managed to bend it toward private interests… Despite what they say, Obamacare is only one of their targets. Before they will allow the government to reopen, they demand employers be enabled to deny birth control coverage to female employees; they demand Obama cave on the Keystone pipeline; they demand the watchdogs over corporate pollution be muzzled and the big bad regulators of Wall Street sent home. Their ransom list goes on and on. The debt ceiling is next. They would have the government default on its obligations and responsibilities.

When the president refused to buckle to this extortion, they threw their tantrum. Like the die-hards of the racist South a century and a half ago, who would destroy the union before giving up their slaves, so would these people burn down the place, sink the ship. …At least, let's name this for what it is: sabotage of the democratic process. Secession by another means." And Republicans are hearing this kind of seditious and secessionist talk from many of the media outlets they go to for their opinions. Crackpot right-wing blogger and Georgia secessionist, Erick Erickson, sounded on Friday like he's ready to fire on Fort Sumter.

Surrender should not be an option. This fight has been and remains about Obamacare. A Republican Party fretting over polling should consider that polling will rebound in their direction with a victory. The GOP should also consider that some of the negatives in the polls are from their own side angry at their reluctance to actually fight the good fight.

Republican leaders who have never wanted this fight have tried at all costs to avoid fighting it. They have tried to wrap the continuing resolution into the debt ceiling then into a grand bargain.

Conservatives should keep the fight squarely on Obamacare.

What is most eye opening is that the Republican leaders have grown so detatched from their base that they will willingly push a medical device tax repeal on behalf of K Street lobbyists while ignoring the very people who actually vote for them.

Republicans reeling from polls should consider what the reaction of their base will be if they have gone this far and surrender with nothing-- or with only a sop to special interests on K Street.

The path forward is simple. Keep the debt ceiling and continuing resolution separate... The GOP should have this fight and make this case. It is sellable. The only problem is the GOP leadership does not want to sell it. They’d rather surrender and shift blame to conservatives.

Speaker Boehner has previously said he would stop doing back room deals with the White House. He should do as he said. He should keep the government closed until Democrats agree to delay Obamacare.