You Can Lead a Republican to Water but Can't Make it Text-Message

Do Republicans “not get it” that voters rejected their platform by electing a Democratic President with majorities in both houses of Congress? Or do they just not give a damn?

Inured by eight years of the Bush administration’s arrogant and potentially illegal assumption of absolute power, Republicans are obstructing the President’s mandate for change with an impunity that borders on sabotage. If this claim seems exaggerated to some, it certainly doesn’t to Republican Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, who suggested that his party “follow the model of the Taliban” in its legislative battles. "Insurgency,” Sessions continued, “we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban… and that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes.” When asked for much-needed clarification, Sessions said, "I simply said one can see that there's a model out there for insurgency."

One might think that Mr. Sessions and his minority Republican counterparts don’t follow the news… President Obama enjoys a record high approval rating for this early stage of his administration. As of today’s polling, even 30 to 40 percent of Republican identifiers rate him favorably. It doesn’t take Karl Rove’s Bushy brain to deduce from these polling statistics that “insurgency” in today’s political climate is self-defeating.

Why, then, would astute Republican politicians reject the President’s offer to work on a bipartisan basis when, by accepting it, they could turn public opinion in their favor? And why are their attacks on Obama’s stimulus plan so riddled with bitterness and acrimony when their own constituents would benefit from it?

Their reasons are not that they fear the plan won’t work… rather, they fear that the plan will succeed, the economy will rebound, and Democrats will further increase their majorities in the upcoming mid-term elections. Many Republicans, including Rush Limbaugh, already are on record with fears that Democrats will acquire an unbeatable “working poor majority” that will enable them to “socialize America.”

Clearly, that’s a nightmare scenario for privileged and entitled Republicans, who have traditionally maintained their power by disenfranchising the working poor, a socioeconomic class that tripled (and is still growing) under eight years of Republican tax cuts for the rich. The same principles of the Republican platform that resulted in its defeat in the last election now threaten its political future… the GOP lacks experience in championing the interests of the poor, having ignored them for so long.

But like the bank CEOs who testified before Congress yesterday, Republicans need to do a better job of dealing with the new political paradigm. Instead of fomenting an “insurgency” against one of the most popular Presidents in history, they need to stick their old, arthritic toes into warmer political waters… loosen up… take the side of the majority for a change… share some of the wealth they accumulated through unfair taxation… learn to differentiate “progressive” from “socialist,” and pronounce either of those two words without undue spikes in their blood pressure levels.

In short, Republicans should learn to text-message.