QOTD: Playing An Endgame

 

The New York Times' op-ed writer Charles Blow warns Dems (again) to stop expecting the unicorn of Republican bipartisanship. It's not happening for some obvious reasons:

"Democrats: Republicans don’t want you to win. It’s that simple. They want no successes on your watch, and they certainly don’t want to participate in said victories. [snip]

It seems to me that this has all been a performance, a going through the motions, a checking of the boxes, so that Democrats could say that they tried, that they extended a hand but were rebuffed. Democrats always seem to want to win the moral advantage, to say that they played the game with honor.

But that is meaningless when Republicans no longer care about that form of morality, when they no longer want to play the game by the established rules at all. Democrats are playing an honor game; Republicans are playing an endgame.

Republicans are in win-at-all-costs mode. They don’t really care how they sound today or will be judged by history. The only thing that matters is winning and retaining power, defending the narrative of America that white people created and protecting the power and wealth they accrued because of it." (our emphasis)

Thinking that the magic number of 10 Republicans will join Senate Dems in passing voting rights laws, infrastructure support, or any measure that will help the broad population is fantasy. Even if they weren't afraid of the wrath of their cult leader in Merde-o'-Lardo, most are just vicious, racist reactionaries (think Sens. Hawley, Cruz, Cotton, etc.) who have no compunction about obstructing popular legislation, as long as Dems propose it. In the meantime, they're playing the ultimately weak hand of culture warfare, and hoping that enough voters buy their gas lighting of the January 6 seditionist insurrection, their lies about the 2020 election being "rigged", and their attempts to actually rig upcoming elections through voter suppression.

Dems need to face it sooner rather than later: without eliminating or drastically curtailing the filibuster rule, the unified Senate Republican minority will sink the Biden agenda with glee, and use that "failure" to run on in coming elections.