'That's why when my dad lost re-election, the Bush family quietly went away, never to be heard from again.'
It appears Republicans are not happy with last night's State of the Union address; the president, you see, was very divisive and did not recognize that Republicans winning recent elections—not the presidential election, mind you, but
other elections—means that he is now
supposed to do whatever Republicans want.
“More intent on winning elections than on winning progress, he ignores the fact that the country has elected a Congress that favors smaller government and lower taxes,” Mitt Romney, the failed 2012 Republican nominee, who is moving toward another run, wrote on Facebook.
And yet Barack Obama is sitting in the White House, and you're writing your responses on Facebook. We've gotten to the point where even the losers of elections claim they've been given a mandate.
Please read below the fold for more on the response of the Republicans.
“The president had an opportunity…to recognize that the American people voted to reject the current path we’re on,” [Sen. Ted Cruz] said on Fox News. “The president could have said, ‘I hear you and I will get back to where we should be focusing.’ He didn’t listen to the voters who are hurting right now. Instead, he just doubled down on the same failed policies as he has in the last six years.”
"And that's why we are focusing the lion's share of our attention to the Keystone XL pipeline and will probably be passing at least a dozen new votes demanding the repeal of healthcare reform," he did not need to add. Because if Canada can't export tar sands to other nations via our southern ports and over the objections of any American farmers who might be in the way, the voters will be sad.
“I hope President Obama will be mindful of the strong message American voters sent in November and will work with our new Congressional majority on achieving solutions we know have broad-based appeal,” [Jeb Bush] wrote.
That would be lovely. Name one you'd support, please, so we can all watch your presidential dreams spiral down the drain after the rest of the party declares that you have betrayed the cause of True Conservatism.
The real problem, mind you, is this:
National Republicans have expressed increasing frustration that Obama has not been more chastened since the November results, when Republicans took control of the Senate and expanded their House majority.
Because when Republicans get hammered in elections they properly respond by bowing to Democratic ideas as the voters intended.
You know what politics needs, more than any other thing? Politics needs fewer politicians who presume their listeners are complete idiots. Maybe telling "the American people" what "the American people" really want works well among some subset of the people that Mitt and Jeb and Ted Cruz need to appeal to, but most of "the American people" can tell pretty well for themselves what they want, and Barack Obama is doing just fine there. No, each and every election is not a mandate to do The Republican Thing, win or lose. I realize modern Republicanism does not recognize the legitimacy of the two-party system or the legitimacy of Democrats to partake in that system, but the opposing party still exists and still gets to pipe up with ideas. So sorry. Take deep breaths and try to cope.