Stop Being Surprised

Republican obstinance isn't new. Why do Democrats keep getting blindsided by it?

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of Joe Biden’s presidency, and the man is frustrated. “I did not anticipate that there would be such a stalwart effort to make sure that the most important thing was that President Biden didn’t get anything done,” he told reporters in a press conference on Wednesday. That does indeed sound infuriating! But why didn’t he expect it?

Biden was Vice President through the Obama years, when the GOP M.O. was “make sure that the most important thing was that President Obama didn’t get anything done.” That’s why the Affordable Care Act was so difficult to pass, and why the end product was more Heritage Foundation than Medicare for All.

And sure, Joe Biden is a white guy whose very existence didn’t spur the kind of unhinged obstinance that Obama’s did. And he had been in the Senate for a very long time, cultivating relationships and compromising when he needed to.

But look around, Joe. Most Republicans haven’t been willing to compromise with Democrats for more than a decade. Nearly 150 Republican members of Congress voting against certifying the results the free and fair election that put you in office, even after a seditious right-wing mob stormed the Capitol and attempted to take control of the government by force. Are there some Republicans who are reasonable people and willing to compromise? Sure. But that’s simply not true for most of them. It’s not true of the party’s leadership. It’s not true of the general spirit and ethos of the party at the moment.

There are a million reasons to be frustrated with Democrats, but this one nears the top of my list. Why do we keep losing in the same dumb ways? Why do we keep assuming that the other team isn’t going to Lucy the foot ball away from us, when that’s exactly what they’ve done literally every other time?

Compromise is important, and the American system really doesn’t work without it. It’s frustrating and slow and imperfect, but it’s certainly better than the other options, which are authoritarianism or gridlock. Unfortunately, we’re now in the worst of all worlds: A Democratic leader who still thinks he’s playing by an old set of rules, and an opposition that wants one-party rule, and is willing to impose total gridlock until they get it.

The answer isn’t for Biden to cheat or to compromise the basic values that make up a democracy. But it is for Biden and his team to at least tenuously grasp what’s going on, and to stop operating under the assumption of fair play.

xx Jill

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Photo by Guido Jansen on Unsplash