Everyone likes to be a winner, but being a well rewarded loser is not that bad either. The Forty-niners may have lost this year’s Superbowl, but don’t cry for them; they’ll be fine. Then there’s the Washington Generals, the famous opponents of the Harlem Globetrotters. These guys get paid to lose; it’s their job. They’ve only won one game in sixty years, and that was by accident. They occasionally change their name, but it’s the same group of professional losers. I’m sure they’d like to win occasionally, but they’re willing to play their role as long as they get a check every game… it’s theater.
Of late, Senate Republicans have played the role of the Washington Generals in the game of government. They never seem to win any battles, but they play well enough to add some drama. They make a little noise, get their faces on the Sunday morning news shows, but in the end they understand how the game is played, and they have no desire to risk their positions for principles. They don’t mind so much being on the losing end as long as they’re playing in the big game, with the big paychecks, big notoriety, and big power.
In the 2010 election something happened on the Republican team. A faction arose that was tired of losing, tired of looking the other way, tired of maintaining luke warm positions to avoid conflict, tired of compromise, tired of the game itself… ready for war. The revolution was restricted for the most part to the House, but there were some incursions into the Senate as well. Romney’s poor showing for the establishment Republicans in 2012, along with some of the fiascos with Tea Party candidates have widened the divisions between the establishment and the rebel Republicans. What was in 2010 a curiosity, has blossomed into a civil war in the GOP, as the establishment has discovered that these young turks have no desire to “play nice”.
Rand Paul’s filibuster this week may have been the equivalent of the firing on Fort Sumter. For years both parties have been the parties of big government, hence the howling over Sequester as all parts of the Federal hog are introduced to diet and exercise. The worst thing that could happen for both the big government Democrats and Neo-con Republicans would be if life as usual continued after the Sequester. Both like the idea of a big central government, the only controversy has always been the priorities of that big government, and who was running the machine. Enter Rand Paul and his ilk. His filibuster gumming up the smooth running of the Senate, is representative of the way Libertarian and Tea Party Republicans have messed things up for both the Democrats and the establishment Republicans. Here is a group of politicians seeking less to increase the level of their own authority as to decrease the level of Washington’s. Rand’s rant and the support he received from the right and the left, showed a glimmer of new alignments on the political landscape.
The chaos caused by these congressional radicals has not been lost on the President. Fresh from his first failure to influence legislation through campaign style bully pulpit cajoling and coercion, his new tactic seems to be in the forming of alliances with the enemy of his enemies. His dinner date with a group of high power Republican senators (the guest list was set by Lindsey Graham) seems to indicate a strategy of marginalizing the rowdy rebels who have been so uncooperative by increasing the stature of Republicans more willing to play along. The status quo never dies easily; that’s why there is a status quo.
IMHO: American politics is at a fork in the road. Time will tell if we will continue on the track of two parties playing the same game with minor and vanishing distinctions; or will we find another way? The division in the GOP is evidence of a segment of the population trying to find that other way; smaller government, lower taxes, less regulation and control, decentralization, fewer foreign entanglements, more liberty. There are only two viable parties in our country, so they work within the framework of the more amenable of the two. If they are unsuccessful with their coup of the GOP, expect a third party to arise, which would not be good for anyone but the Democrats. Liberty includes freedom for people with whom you disagree, and this new faction might continue to produce strange bedfellows, and alienate a few who like big government when it agrees with them. It’s clear that the establishment can’t tame these rebels, the question remains as to whether the rebels can win the civil war. If they can win the heart and soul of the GOP, there’s still a war on the horizon for the heart and soul of the rest of the nation. Revolutionary fervor has a short shelf life; it may already be dying. The next few years will show if the public can be energized to return to the constitutional principles that inspired its greatness, or if it will turn to the ways of fallen empires. People prefer slumber to work, theater to struggle, and games to war; it remains to be seen if the public will tolerate these principled rabble rousers, or call for the return of the old-school Generals.
