Mr. President, They Hate You and They Do Not Want To Work with You No Matter What

[Yavin4]

There is no compromising with the Republicans. None. There is no third way. There is no bi-partisanship. You will have to lead without them.

Any failure to lead without them will be your downfall.

[DesertFlower]

1. i agree. nt

[TheWraith]

2. People here forget that the world doesn't consist of DUers and freepers.

There are in fact people who are legitimately in between those two sides, and those people can and will change sides now and then.

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. Exactly.

:thumbsup:

[Yavin4]

4. Read Nate Silver's Blog Post

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/washington-is-out-of-touch-how-about-wall-street/#more-13851


There are Republicans who won't vote to raise the debt ceiling no matter what.

[dennis4868]

5. so you are basically saying...

don't raise the debt ceiling....yeah makes alot of sense....hmmmmm.....

[bowens43]

11. the debt ceiling will be raised with or without compromise.

If you think the cons are going to let the banksters and wall street thugs suffer, you're badly mistaken.

[dennis4868]

16. sure they will...

they want the WH!

[CakeGrrl]

6. Contrary to what a lot of DU thinks, he does get that.

But since their numbers are large enough in Congress to be an issue, they can't be ignored.

You can't make them disappear with a snap of the fingers, either.

What one CAN do, however, is show people outside of Washington what kind of damage their attitudes will cause to the country. This debate is a major opportunity to do that. The best way to 1) make these obstructionists accountable; and 2) prevent voters from continuing to send these dangerous people to Washington to determine the fate of the nation is to enlighten the voters.

[polichick]

8. He CAN frame the issues his way instead of buying into their way...

...even adopting their language.

If he had said from Day One that he'd veto anything other than a clean bill - and PROVED that he meant it by talking about jobs and simply repeating his veto line when asked, we wouldn't be in this mess.

[kenny blankenship]

7. There are some weird symmetries and ironic resonances in all this...

The Republicans are the extremists that can't say Yes.
But Obama is the conciliator who can't say No.

Obama came to the White House with a cockamamie plan to break the gridlock in Washington by getting all sides to compromise.

The GOP freshmen came to the Congress with a cockamamie plan to break the gridlock by threatening to blow up the country if their demands aren't met by Aug 2nd.

If Obama has his way, we will enjoy a more or less one party consensus government, typified by the polite upper-middle class, probusiness priorities and concerns of the House of LorUS Senate -the institution historically aligned with and created for the elite, whose natural party is the Republicans.

If the GOP bombthrowers get their way, we will be more or less converted to a unified Parliamentary government in which all budgetary power and veto power will be wielded by the House of Representatives, therefore all policy power will be concentrated with it in the Representatives, which is the chamber historically aligned with and created for the masses, whose natural party is the Democrats.

Too many situations are reversed here and pushed too far into the red zone for this scenario to unravel itself gently and for the normal status quo ante to reassert itself. We would seem to be approaching a kind of national inflection point.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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[bowens43]

10. He should have learned this a long time ago

He should not compromise on any issue. Had he refused to compromise before the 2010 election we wouldn't be in this mess.

[EC]

12. Suggestions on how he could do it on his own?

I can't figure out how he could - except the Amendment 14 procedure. That would end up making it harder to elect Dems I think.

[Yavin4]

14. If They Don't Extend The Debt Ceiling, Order Your Treasury Secy. To Do It

Let the lawyers sort it out. The American people will be on his side. That's how you lead. Decisiveness and strength is what the American people respond to. Obama needs to stop listening to those former Clinton hacks who worship at the alter of the independent swing voter, and fucking lead.

[Cali_Democrat]

13. Agreed

Good post. Straight to the point.

[killbotfactory]

15. That's too bad, because they control the house.

I don't know where the left-wing fantasy that Obama can just talk a good game while being completely uncomprimising and have everything he wants passed comes from, but it's fucking stupid.