Today is the day. Pt 2

So why are we here? John Boehner inspired me. Today is the day. Indeed. For me, today is the day I take back up blogging. For him, it was the day he announced he's retiring. You know John, our oompa loompa of a Speaker of the House? I kid. So I'm sure you know that some Republicans, especially the House Freedom Caucus, that are hell-bent on shutting down the federal government in order to defund Planned Parenthood based on incredibly effective propaganda that has a good deal of the legislators, and their constituents, convinced that by providing funding a women's health organization ($0 of which goes to abortion), they're funding abortion. It's like not giving rent money or food to starving kids because their dad has an iPhone 6. Oh, wait, they'd do that too if they could... But come on, you don't starve the kids because some of dad's money might go to something you don't support. And you don't shut down the government in order to defund a women's health organization because you personally don't support 3% of the services they offer, which are LEGAL and YOU DON'T PAY FOR (really can't stress that enough). 99% of sexually active American women at some point in their lives use birth control. The American public, whether it knows it or not, approves of the work PP does with its federal dollars.

So John Boehner has been working on a budget compromise and the far right is apparently sick of him doing his job and attempting to keep the government running and continuing to legislate. As John Avlon put it,"He’s been the adult in the room filled with red-faced tantrums and toddler-esque factional squabbles." These obstinate representatives don't see their jobs as finding the best solution for the largest number of Americans, they see it as refusing to do anything if they can't have their way on everything. So the buzzards have been making buzz about challenging Boehner's Speakership because they want real "leadership" (read: someone who won't compromise ever on anything). Avlon nailed it, saying, "[Boehner's] insistence that governing is more important than grandstanding has made him a punching bag..." Just yesterday the Pope told Congress, “We must move forward together, as one, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.” Somehow I think the exact sort of behavior he meant to criticize was the bullying from the tea party of their own, pretty damn conservative, party leader. As a liberal sane, engaged American, I'm definitely concerned by the rhetoric that lead to and has come in the wake of Boehner's resignation.

Now, Speaker Boehner isn't someone I see eye-to-eye with on almost any of the issues. But today, that's not the point. The point is that this was sad and scary day for American politics. These ultra-conservatives have no interest in compromise or working with others, and they do so at the detriment to the American public. You don't win all the time. And in a pluralistic society, YOU SHOULDN'T! You hear them talk about speaking for the voice of the people, which is the job of congress in our democratic republic. But there are two major parties and nobody here in Washington got elected by 100% of their constituents. The views of the American people are diverse and so our policies and programs have to be too. It's a hard pill to swallow on both sides of the aisle. But government's purpose isn't to inflate egos or make power plays that divert energy from more important issues and resources from real people and households. Real people like the 2,619,000 non-abortion seeking patients PP saw last year (that's 97% of their 2014 Annual Report estimate of 2.7 million). Real Americans like the 2.7 million (yup, same number!) of federal employees that would be affected by a shutdown (not mention their families, or the 46 million whose food stamps could be affected because there's no cash reserve like there was in 2013), and certainly many others. The voice of the people the far-right claims to represent is, in fact, the voice of only one sect of our society. Coercing the resignation of an elected official who hasn't breached his duty to his constituents is a blatant undermining of our system of government. Because of Boehner's respectable, brave, selfless move, a shutdown next week has more than likely been avoided. I give credit where credit is due and my criticism isn't at all of Boehner stepping down, it's of those that drove him to it and more importantly, their reasons.

It seems a good portion of the republicans are defining leadership as simply a refusal to compromise. Obama said in the aftermath Friday, "I think maybe most importantly [Boehner] is somebody who understands that in governance, you don't get 100 percent of what you want, but you have to work with people who you disagree with, sometime strongly, in order to do the people's business." Other republicans like Mitch McConnell have pointed out that the art of compromise was something every republican's hero, Ronald Reagan, understood. Boehner's resignation is a victory for blackmail over pragmatic governance, of which compromise must be a part. Eisenhower (another GOP powerhouse) said, "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." Whereas Caligula is quoted as saying, “I don’t care if they respect me so long as they fear me.” It's pretty clear the latter far more closely aligns to the far right's "leadership" tactics. The irony cannot be ignored as we watch Boehner go out in a touching act of true leadership while extremists call for tyranny that they have the gall to label "leadership."

Peter King (moderate Republican rep) put it simply, "I consider this a victory for the crazies." Indeed. The scary question is, what will their next victory be?