Governing in the Spirit of Revenge

Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post explains how Congressional Republicans have done their best to gridlock the country, interfere with allowing President Obama to even begin to enact his policies and appoint his nominees, which, because he was elected twice by the American people, are what the American people voted for.  Those policies and nominees have been thwarted and even nullified by a vengeful, nihilistic cult within the GOP:



"As we celebrate the Fourth of July, who can argue that our democracy is working the way the Founders intended? And who can deny that most of the blame for dysfunction must fall to the Republican Party? 

George Washington distrusted all political parties. He warned in his farewell address that, as they alternated power, parties would act in “the spirit of revenge” — rather than, presumably, in the best interests of the nation. The “disorders and miseries” that resulted, Washington feared, would inevitably threaten democracy. 

For most of U.S. history, the major parties, even while differing sharply on philosophy and policy, have acted in a spirit of shared enterprise. There are significant exceptions — notably the years leading up to the Civil War. There was no possible compromise on an issue so fundamental as slavery. 

Today, we face no question of such magnitude. Yet Republicans have decided not to collaborate with President Obama in fulfilling the most basic obligations of government, preferring to let “disorders and miseries” fester rather than address them. 

Perhaps the House Republicans who block Obama’s legislative proposals and the Senate Republicans who block his executive and judicial appointments are acting in narrow political self-interest. Perhaps, as much of the overheated GOP rhetoric suggests, they are acting with the vengeful animus that Washington feared.

Whatever the motivation, Republicans have paralyzed our government in a way that would have shocked and depressed the Founders. Compounding the outrage, Republicans have the temerity to criticize Obama for using his executive powers in the national interest. This is dangerously close to nihilism."


Read the rest here.

While the extremists in the GOP busy themselves this weekend celebrating Independence Day, our country is suffering from the bitterness and spite they have spread across this land because they refuse to work with or recognize the legitimacy of our duly elected president, a man the American people, their fellow citizens, elected and re-elected, Barack Hussein Obama.

Their idea of governing is to make the country suffer because its citizens elected a man they hate.

What we are experiencing is the GOP's "spirit of revenge."  And that is not what the Founding Fathers-- whom they venerate but mock with their hostility to and contempt for cooperative governing--that is not what those true patriots hoped for this country when they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor in signing the Declaration of Independence.