How is it that 6 years of opposing everything isn't "poisoning the well"?
Excerpt: "If I were President Obama, I would actually find this freeing because you know exactly what the Republican Party is going to do for the next two years. Negotiation attempts are going to be met with obstruction, blame, and finger pointing. If you're going to get the blame anyways, why not do what's right?"
First, according to John Boehner, Obama was "playing with matches" on immigration :
When you play with matches, you take the risk of burning yourself. And [President Obama] is going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path.Then Mitch McConnell warned Obama not to "poison the well".
McConnell then suggested Obama not "wave a red flag in front of a bull".
How is it that 6 years of doing nothing and opposing everything isn't "poisoning the well"?
Listen up national media, let me tell you what Republicans are going to do.
If President Obama moves on immigration, they are going to oppose everything he does.
If President Obama doesn't move on immigration, they are going to oppose everything he does.
Republicans are going to oppose everything President Obama does and accuse him of not working with them no matter what.
I'm not sure what part of this story you don't get. As reporters in the media, you would think you would notice this trend.
Why would anyone who's watched Republicans over the last 6 years think anything different?
Yet you keep highlighting the same ridiculous stories over and over again. Even whenRepublicans tell you that they're going to do nothing but oppose President Obama, you keep insisting that maybe, just maybe, there's something President Obama could do to change this.
Why do reporters so rarely ask Republicans what a compromise might look like?
See? When it happens, Republicans admit that the only way to work with Republicans is to do what Republicans want.
The corporate media then refers to this intransigence as "principled". If you had to work with people whose definition of compromise is getting everything they want, you would probably refer to these people as "assholes".
We know exactly what Republicans are going to do. Especially after winning an election. They're going to start more fires. They're going to poison anything that's left in the well. And the bull(shit) is already flying.
If I were President Obama, I would actually find this freeing because you know exactly what the Republican Party is going to do for the next two years. Negotiation attempts are going to be met with obstruction, blame, and finger pointing. If you're going to get the blame anyways, why not do what's right?
It is amazing though that the media buys this "bull" shit that Republicans want to work together. If the media would ask what Republicans are willing to compromise on or call out Republicans for their strategy of stop, drop and rage, maybe government wouldn't be such a mess.
There's two reasons our government is f*cked up. Many people think these two reasons are Republicans and Democrats. People think this because this is the story that corporate media runs: gridlock. Evil Democrats and principled Republicans locking horns in a battle for America.
The real story looks like this. Democrats look for areas of common ground. Moderate Republicans are able to find some areas of common ground. Ted Cruz (or some other extremist) runs to the media and calls anyone who wants to compromise a communist and proposes destroying the government instead. The media runs with it.
All the politicians in the middle cower in fear of the whipped up fervor of the self-righteous right. Nothing gets done. Republicans blame it on Obama not being willing to compromise.
Our country is f*cked up because of extremist Republicans like Ted Cruz and a cowardly corporate media too afraid to run a story that might somehow offend the delicate sensibilities of a certain segment of their audience.
I guess it's easier to keep running the same story that maybe this time the moderates are in charge. Maybe this time Lucy won't pull the football away.
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David Akadjian is the author of The Little Book of Revolution: A Distributive Strategy for Democracy.
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