Obamacare and the “Governing” Trap -- By streiff, RedState

We do not have a parliamentary system of government; we have a winner take all system. At this point we are the opposition party and even a high school level student of government can readily observe that the Democrats hold the White House, the Executive Branch, a majority of directors in the independent regulatory agencies, and the Senate. This means that all the levers of governance are concentrated in one party. Indeed, a willful president can do much as he pleases even though opposed by the Congress. This is not new. Teddy Roosevelt responded to Congress’s refusal to fund a round the world tour by the Great White Fleet by saying he had enough money to send them half way around the world and Congress could bring them back if it wanted.

The idea that the GOP is a partner in governance is just so profoundly counterfactual as to be dismissed out of hand. While there are always opportunities for mutual cooperation that don’t require compromising core principles, we need to focus on doing what opposition parties do: oppose and obstruct.

The GOP Smart Set is perpetually convinced that in order to defeat the Democrat political agenda you have to have a better alternative. You don’t. As you should learn early in life, doing nothing is actually doing something. In fact, in the case of Obamacare we are learning that doing nothing would have been infinitely preferable to what has been done. Just because the Democrats propose some obscenely stupid idea… like comprehensive immigration reform… doesn’t mean we have to counter with an obscenely stupid idea of our own.

In the case of Obamacare, Erick hits the nail on the head [Follow the Law]:

Republicans should be opposed to any and all fixes of Obamacare. The GOP should not lift even half a finger to accommodate Democrat demands for changes. The Democrats planned and implemented Obamacare without a single Republican vote. They made clear they did not need the votes. They used a budgetary procedure in the Senate to get around a filibuster after the people of Massachusetts sent a Republican in Ted Kennedy’s steed to try to stop it.
So the Democrats can own it. They can own every deleted application, every delayed entry into the website, every denial of insurance, every decline in full time work, and every denial of care that comes from this horrible law.

There is a story that has long been told in military circles and was recently popularized by General H. R. McMaster in his book Dereliction of Duty. This story is this: As the Vietnam War began to escalate the Joint Chiefs of Staff began to realize it was not going to end well. One by one McNamara co-opted the service chiefs until it was Army General Harold K. Johnson standing alone:

General Harold K. Johnson, Army Chief of Staff from July 1964 to July 1968, after his retirement engaged in considerable self-examination about his decision to remain on active duty in spite of his grave objections to the prosecution of the Vietnam War:
I remember the day I was ready to go over to the Oval Office and give my four stars to the President and tell him, “You have refused to tell the country they cannot fight a war without mobilization; you have required me to send men into battle with little hope of their ultimate victory; and you have forced us in the military to violate almost every one of the principles of war in Vietnam. Therefore, I resign and will hold a press conference after I walk out of your door.”

But he didn’t. From Dereliction of Duty, page 318:

 

This is exactly the position the GOP Ruling Class is advocating: “we opposed Obamacare but we will work with you to make it work because WE ARE RESPONSIBLE.”

This shows why we are not called the Stupid Party™ for nothing. Collaborating, and I don’t use this word accidentally, with the Democrats to salvage Obamacare 1) will not fix a law with myriad fatal internal flaws, 2) will not gain acceptance for the GOP with the Washington media, 3) will not serve the interests of the American working class, and 4) will not be remembered kindly by the GOP base in 2014.

As the magnitude of #FAIL in Obamacare becomes patently obvious over the next ninety days, surely as day follows night there will be pressure from within the GOP to work with the Administration to attempt to un**** the meltdown of the health insurance industry.

We will be told it is our responsibility to govern and that the American people will loathe our inaction if we don’t act to make Obamacare better. There is no good served in working to fix a fatally flawed law and assuming joint responsibility for the economic damage this law has done to American families and businesses.

That is not governing, that is the Stockholm Syndrome and a betrayal of the voters who sent Republicans to Congress.

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