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Democrats still not adjusting to DOOM.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  December 15th, 2010 at 01:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Read some of the papers these days and it’s like nobody’s ever - in the history of the world – had a legislature change hands from one political party to the other.  Because the Democrats are certainly not acting like they get the magnitude of what happened to them:

  • You’ve got the New York Times commiserating with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.  The poor woman has to scramble to keep her lucrative Appropriations gig!  The nerve of those awful Republicans.
  • It’s been mentioned before (mostly in passing, to be sure) that it’s apparently noteworthy that Republicans are stopping by various offices in order to measure for drapes, but still.
  • Roll Call mentions rumblings of alarm among rank-and-file House Democrats as they realize that committee heads are following Nancy Pelosi’s lead and not stepping down – and certainly not allowing themselves to be downsized.
  • And over at the Rothenburg Political Report Stu Rothenburg asks the largely rhetorical question “Have Democrats forgotten the election already?” Answer: how do you know that they ever understood the results in the first place?

And, of course, there’s the entire largely ceremonial Democratic angst and anger over Obama’s tax deal. 

I predict that all of this will be as nothing when compared to January, when the 112th Congress convenes and ‘suddenly’ starts cutting, eliminating, stymieing, and generally making life difficult for various Democratic initiatives.  And not just the big things, like earmark reform and general fiscal sanity; in fact, the big things won’t grate the most on Democratic sensibilities.  It’ll be the relatively little items like the elimination of the climate change committee, which is being ritually killed mostly so that Republican legislators can harvest and savor the screams of outrage and despair from that committee’s supporters.  Because that’s what happens when a party loses; which apparently hasn’t really sunk in, yet.  Certainly the Democratic base seems to be having difficulty with understanding the concept.

This myopia on the Democrats’ part won’t last, of course: eventually they’ll come out of their shock and start rebuilding the infrastructure that will let them retake the majority.  And, truth be told, having the Democrats be a credible threat to the GOP’s majority will help keep Republican legislators in line.  But we can enjoy the flailing in the meantime.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

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COMMENTS

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  • harlan

    Democrats behave the way they do, because they know that 43% of the American people are on the take…and too many of the other 57% are MIA.

    And too many Republican pols either suck at politics, are themselves on the take, or are cowards…or all of the above.

  • msctex

    . . .because they can. They either do not or do not recognize that there is anything to fear — some consequence for their actions. I’m not sure exactly what it is that we once had that kept these people from acting on their truest instincts, but we need to get it back in play, and immediately, one way or another.

    And I’m not just talking about the vindictive, childish acting-out of a lame duck on his way out the door. I’m talking about the open corruption of someone like Barney Frank with regard to the Housing fiasco.

    Maybe it is as simple as a non-functional or hopelessly biased Press. If so, never has one element of our society so completely and utterly abdicated its responsibility, in terms of simply performing its role. Entire generations of “newspeople” should be absolutely ashamed.

  • IJB
  • msctex

    Of course they are capable of these things; the question is why are they allowed to get away with it. There was a time easily within living memory where there were impediments to open corruption, and shameless abuse of the system. There was a time they simply would not have dared even try to pass a Bill that no one had read. So what has changed? I say it is due to a non-functional Press.

  • nilram

    There was a time they simply would not have dared even try to pass a Bill that no one had read.

    I distinctly remember Reagan admonishing congress for giving him a bill that stood nearly 2ft. tall. Reagan was not able to read the bill but signed it anyway warning congress that he would not do so again.

    So my question is when would they have not tried to pass a bill that no one had read.

    I’d bet that 90% bills passed in the last 30 years were unread.

  • msctex

    . . .acknowledging the fact, as though it were a cause for pride?

  • Adjoran

    when they are back in the smaller offices with smaller staffs. I predict a higher than usual rate of retirement on the donkey side after two years without power.

    They should be grateful to God they live and serve in America – in most countries in the world, performance as destructively rendered as theirs over the last four years would not be so kindly tolerated.