Charles Blow has an excellent piece in the Times on the current dysfunctional Congress. In it he outlines what’s not being done and presents data from various studies revealing what most of us know all too well. This is the most useless legislative group in the history of the country.
What he doesn’t do is focus on the deep problem. Blow bitches about nothing getting done but he missed the core element: this is precisely what the GOP wants. Getting absolutely nothing done is what the right wing is aiming for. The mastermind behind this fiasco is Ted Cruz — most of the Tea-Party bozos who traipse along in his wake aren’t smart enough to figure this out. In fact, most of them don’t even recognize the clever, long-term strategy behind Cruz’s campaign.
Do nothing. Let everyone see that congress is dysfunctional. Maintain that this is proof that big government, Federal government, doesn’t work, can’t work. Force it to shrink, undercut efforts to raise revenues, bust up unions, diminish the impact of minorities, work to repeal Federal laws that reduce the role of states.
This move is deeply distressing in its focus and really scary when you contemplate the long-term consequences of it. People like Blow think the problem is a lack of bipartisanship, a failure to find compromise, an inability for the various factions in Congress to work together for the betterment of life for Americans. It’s not. The right wing has no interest in compromise because they have no interest in passing legislation, ever, at all, on anything positive.
If the GOP — this one, the one aligned with the Cruz’s — ever gets control of both houses and the White House we will not see legislation suddenly emerging. It’s not as if there are ideals lurking below the surface that will emerge with a majority. There are no plans for any action from the Federal government. The entire focus is negative. Tear it down. Defund agencies. Undercut legislative action. Deregulate. Strip the last scraps of meat from the DC carcass.
Progressives who understand are horrified. Even middle of the road Democrats are disturbed — though, in truth, most moderates don’t see the deep, dark Cruzian plan. They merely bewail the dysfunctional elements, as Blow has done.
But anyone who thinks that the right wing of the Republican party isn’t pleased as punch over the current legislative slag heap that Congress has become doesn’t see what’s really going on.