President Barack Obama and his chief of staff, worrying that Republicans might stop their dastardly plot to shut down the government.
So you are a member of the crazy party, and you know that your caucus is pushing the country off a cliff. What do you do? How do you talk them off the ledge? Perhaps try a bit of
reverse psychology?
If the government shuts down, Obama, a Democrat, will use the closure to score political points against Republicans and "stick it to them," [U.S. Rep. Frank] Wolf said.
“I believe the president wants us to shut it down … I think he'll literally come at us,” Wolf, a 30-year incumbent, said.
Aha! It's
Obama who wants government to stop working, because, you know, Democrats are all about shutting down governments! I bet he also wants Obamacare defunded! So, uh, keep funding Obamcare, just to stick it to Obama!
The 2012 elections were litigated in large part over Obamacare, and the American people responded not just with an easy presidential re-election, but with surprise gains in the Senate. Now Republicans are either stuck in 2010, thinking the same playbook will net them victories (even as times change), or they're resorting to hilariously transparent reverse psychology that wouldn't work on a five-year-old to try and bring their unruly rabble in line.
Either way, it's pathetic, but in a very funny way.