{"id":3724,"date":"2011-09-04T12:51:54","date_gmt":"2011-09-04T16:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/?p=3724"},"modified":"2011-09-04T13:23:15","modified_gmt":"2011-09-04T17:23:15","slug":"what-2013-brings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/2011\/09\/what-2013-brings.html","title":{"rendered":"What 2013 Brings…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2013\"<\/a>It seems pretty clear that nothing much useful will happen in Washington until the 2012 elections are over.\u00a0 As Senate Leader Mitch McConnell put it so succinctly, Job 1 for the GOP is to make sure Obama is a one-term President.\u00a0 All legislative actions or inactions up to the elections are dedicated to that goal, irrespective of the implications to the economy or the well-being of the country.\u00a0 If you think that’s not how it’s playing out, then… well… you just aren’t paying attention.<\/p>\n

But what about after the elections?\u00a0 What happens then?\u00a0 On the Congressional side, probably pretty little.\u00a0 It’s highly unlikely either party will take both a House majority and a Senate super majority such that they hold dominion over the whole of Congress.\u00a0 This means that in any scenario, the GOP may at least continue to be the party of “no” if they so choose.<\/p>\n

So it all basically comes down to the race for the White House.\u00a0 Come 2013, either Obama will be a second-term President, or we will experience the administration of Republican President [insert name here].\u00a0 Clearly, if [insert name here] is elected, then the Congressional GOP will be all about getting things done.\u00a0 But should it be Obama again, will the GOP lessen it’s determination to play for politics rather than in the interest of the country?\u00a0 History would suggest they won’t.<\/p>\n

Even though Obama would not be eligible for a third term, a successful second Obama term could reflect well on whatever Democrat runs in 2016.\u00a0 And the GOP will be ever more committed to taking the White House back in 2016.\u00a0 That will be their new Job 1.\u00a0 Recall that the GOP witch hunt against Clinton did not let up during his second term.\u00a0 Hell, they impeached him in the middle of that term.<\/p>\n

For all intents and purposes, since the Clinton administration the GOP acts as if they do not acknowledge the legitimacy of a Democratic President.\u00a0 Under Obama, they have taken it to new levels.\u00a0 Rather than simply attacking the man, which was the primary Clinton-era strategy, they now attack the country.\u00a0 The GOP correctly recognizes that the President is held responsible for the well-being of the country, be it good or bad, and they use that to their advantage.\u00a0 They have demonstrated repeatedly they are willing to take the country hostage for political gain.<\/p>\n

The 2012 elections will be more of the same.\u00a0 Essentially the message is that we can elect Republicans or we can suffer for four more years, and they will see to that.<\/p>\n

This is not an assertion that Democratic policies are good and Republican policies are bad.\u00a0 Nor is this an assertion that Democrats are pure and chaste while Republicans are corrupt and evil.<\/p>\n

We operate in a society governed essentially by the cooperation of two parties who compete, but play amicably with each other.\u00a0 In many ways the game is the thing.\u00a0 For the fans, it’s not about who wins or loses, but that the game goes on.\u00a0 Everyone likes to see their team win, but there is still value to the game even in a loss, and there is always the prospect of the next game.\u00a0 But if one team starts playing outside the conventional rules to rig the outcome. If one team starts saying that if they don’t win, then they’ll take their ball and go home.\u00a0 Then the game loses its value… and we all suffer as a result.<\/p>\n

We have reached a point where as fans we need to force the teams to start playing by the conventional rules.\u00a0 We must demand that while we expect them to play their hearts out, we ultimately expect them to play for the love of the sport, not simply for victory.\u00a0 Or the alternative may be we need to just dump this sport altogether and start playing a new one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Either it will be Obama’s 2nd term, or it will be the administration of Republican President [insert name here]. Should it be Obama, will the GOP still play for politics rather than in the interest of the country?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[118,89,40,23,22,41],"class_list":["post-3724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-2012-elections","tag-democrats","tag-gop","tag-obama","tag-political-ideology","tag-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3724"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3739,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3724\/revisions\/3739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}