Ungovernable II

What the Republican Party has done to this country is despicable. What the Democratic Party, including the President, has done in allowing the Republican Party to get away with its agenda is as despicable. Both parties are equally responsible for damaging if not outright ruining the lives of millions of Americans and should be held accountable. The Republican agenda is clear and quite publicly stated by many including most notably Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority leader. Regardless of the damage inflicted, they have made clear that they will not permit the President to succeed. To that end, taking advantage of Senate rules that somehow, in clear denigration of the Constitution, did away with the filibuster rules, Republicans took turns announcing their intention to filibuster virtually every piece of legislation advanced by the Obama administration. For their part, rather than demanding that the Senator at issue actually filibuster in public by tying up Senate business spending days reading from a telephone book, Senate Democrats simply put their collective tails between their legs, looked at the numbers and concluded that were the threat to filibuster actually carried out they wouldn't have enough votes to end the strategy. Consequently with the threat alone,  in the comfort of their offices and out of public purview, Republicans, seemingly engaged in a macabre tag team wrestling match, took turns announcing their intention to filibuster thus ending any chance of any Obama-sponsored legislation getting passed  without ever having to carry through on their threat. Having barred Obama at the barn door, like a schoolyard bully, Republicans now blame Obama for failing to fulfill his promises. How many times during the recently completed convention did Republican speakers castigate the President for failing to fulfill his promises without once acknowledging not only that they were complicit in the failure but that it was central to their strategy. Meanwhile, despite their laughter at the conundrum they have successfully created for the President, millions of Americans suffer as pawns in a sick game of chicken. In any event, so goes the strategy which they have executed to horrific effect.

For their part, Democrats, at least until recently, had as big a set of balls as a Roman Eunuch when it came to pushing back against the Republican strategy. Recall that they were the party in power in 2008 having seized both houses as well as the White House and with a clear mandate to implement the policies which the public endorsed in the voting booth. What did we get instead? A President so intent to avoid any criticism that he was not making an effort to work with the Republican minority that he never realized until it was too late that the Repbulicans had no intention of cooperating on anything advocated by this President. The President's intentions, however good, nevertheless doomed much of what he hoped to accomplish (though he was able to accomplish much despite the Republican strategy) and set him on the a path toward possibly being a one-term President. For their part, House Democrats literally ran against many of Obama's policies, fearful that a stand with the President would result in their losing in the coming election. What they didn't realize or seem to understand is that the electorate, at least that part which actually demands facts and principles, does not and will not favor an elected official who doesn't have the guts to stand by his or her principles. Regrettably, Democrats never realized that the only thing they should have feared was their own loss of principle and for that transgression they were punished by an electorate that, at the time, was becoming enamored with the violent rhetoric of the Tea Party. The Democrats, and the President, fearful of taking a stand and telling Republicans to get on board or get out of the way, lost their way, leaving in their wake the disaster which masquerades as the federal government. 

If Mitt Romney is elected the Democrats will have no one to blame but themselves.