I’m so sick of the pundits blaming Democrats for not being bipartisan enough. It’s even infected some of the party as well. To my mind, bipartisanship is code for requiring Democrats to give up on their values and goals. Its completely pointless, the Republican Party is a bunch of extremist loons for whom no amount of bending over is far enough.
- It was “bipartisan” when Obama didn’t prosecute the torturers in the Bush Administration, letting bygones be bygones rather than making an example of this terrible behavior. Now of course, the Republican Party is back promoting it.
- It was “bipartisan” when Obama didn’t prosecute a single banker who nearly destroyed the American financial system with their greed and corruption. They even got bailed out so they could support the GOP with even more campaign contributions.
- It was “bipartisan” when Obama tried to get votes for the ACA — so we got the watered-down system rather than single-payer.
- It was “bipartisan” when the Senate leadership under the Democrats kept the filibuster so that they couldn’t get anything passed.
- Pelosi wasn’t being “bipartisan” enough to let the GOP defund the Post Office, give immunity to businesses operating dangerously during the pandemic, unravel Social Security by stopping payroll contributions, all for a single measly payment.
Journalists in this country give the GOP a pass for voter suppression, for stealing a SCOTUS seat, for robbing the poor to pay the rich with their tax cut and so on, and so on. Democrats can’t win with this stacked system of public opinion — the GOP will never come around. Now is the time for brass-knuckle politics and putting the criminal class of the GOP in jail. We are experiencing the effects of moral hazard right now — if you don’t punish illegal behavior it just encourages them to be worse in the future.
