WaPo - "The shutdown is a Republican civil war" - Why No Point "Negotiating" With Boehner

[TomCADem]

I think the problem that the corporate media repeatedly and intentionally ignores is that there is no point to "negotiating" with the Tea Party, because as we have seen in the past, they can't take yes for an answer. The problem is that for the Tea Party, President Obama and Democrats represent the Great Satan, thus any "compromise" shot of complete capitulation by the other side is represents a deal with the devil. Thus, you have the Boehner repeatedly offering reasonable sounding talking points, while the corporate media ignores the more radical members of his caucus who are undercutting him. They aren't interested in any deal.

This is the farce. The fact that media ignores the fact that not only Democrats are NOT demanding anything, but Boehner has NOTHING that he can offer short of demanding that Democrats accept 100% of the Tea Party agenda. A large contingent of Boehner's caucus will vote for an increase in the debt limit regardless of what "agreement" he reaches. So, what is the point of a negotiation? Boehner has no juice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/05/the-shutdown-is-a-republican-civil-war/?tid=pm_business_pop

The reason the establishment has such trouble with the tea party is that the tea party really, truly means it. They don’t want to cut a deal. They don’t want to get the most that they reasonably can. Most represent extremely safe Republican districts and don’t care about positioning the party as a whole for the next election. Traditional politicians such as Boehner have no playbook for dealing with a powerful faction that’s completely uninterested in strategic or pragmatic concerns.

* * *
The problem for Boehner and the rest of the Republican establishment is that the tea party ethos is now being turned against them. After all, mainstream conservatives will compromise with “evil” (or, if you prefer, “Democrats”). For tea partiers, that makes them suspect, too. In fact, one way tea party Republicans can prove they haven’t sold out to Washington’s ways is by opposing any compromise Boehner proposes.

The conventional wisdom in American politics used to be that Republicans followed their leaders while Democrats were barely unified enough to be considered an organized political party. Today, the reverse is true. Democrats largely follow their leaders while Republicans have splintered into two distinct political groups that uneasily share a single party.

That’s the real challenge complicating the shutdown and the debt ceiling. The problem isn’t that Boehner and Obama can’t reach an agreement. It’s that Boehner and Obama and the tea party can’t.

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. The point is that not all Republicans are citizens of the Republic of Tea.

They are scared shitless of them.

Negotiation speaks to the majority of Republicans who are not in the Tea Party Caucus.

[TheMastersNemesis]

2. Interesting I Got Reamed A Few Times Here For Saying We Were In A Political Civil War.

[MBS]

4. You're right; we are in a political civil war

See Colbert King's oped in today's Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/colbert-king-the-tea-party-resurrects-the-spirit-of-the-old-confederacy/2013/10/04/95b37f6e-2c7b-11e3-97a3-ff2758228523_story.html

(In 1861). .The rebels launched a grisly war against the Union. In his inaugural address, Lincoln warned the Confederacy: “You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.” . . .Federal government as the enemy.

Today there is a New Confederacy, an insurgent political force that has captured the Republican Party and is taking up where the Old Confederacy left off in its efforts to bring down the federal government. No shelling of a Union fort, no bloody battlefield clashes, no Good Friday assassination of a hated president — none of that nauseating, horrendous stuff. But the behavior is, nonetheless, malicious and appalling.

The New Confederacy, as churlish toward President Obama as the Old Confederacy was to Lincoln, has accomplished what its predecessor could not: It has shut down the federal government, and without even firing a weapon or taking 620,000 lives, as did the Old Confederacy’s instigated Civil War. Not stopping there, however, the New Confederacy aims to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States, setting off economic calamity at home and abroad — all in the name of “fiscal sanity.” Its members are as extreme as their ideological forebears. It matters not to them, as it didn’t to the Old Confederacy, whether they ultimately go down in flames. So what? For the moment, they are getting what they want: a federal government in the ditch, restrained from seeking to create a more humane society that extends justice for all. . .

. . But don’t go looking for a group by the name of New Confederacy. They earned that handle from me because of their visceral animosity toward the federal government and their aversion to compassion for those unlike themselves. They respond, however, to the label “tea party.” By thought, word and deed, they must be making Jefferson Davis proud today.

See also my earlier post in this forum for essay by James Fallows: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251328380

[AlinPA]

3. IMO, the problem that the corporate media repeatedly and intentionally ignores is that Boehner is

leading the teabaggers now, not following them or cowering to them.

[TomCADem]

5. Boehner Couldn't Lead A Thirsty Man To A Water Fountain

Boehner is merely an empty figurehead clinging to the speakership. His sole utility is that he does not say blatantly stupid crap when he is in front of a microphone like "I don't know what we want." Thus, his only safe course of action is to recite the Tea Party's poll tested talking points like, "All we want to do is sit down and talk." So long as he dutifully says this inane tripe, he is safe.

[enough]

6. They control from their safe districts, and with the safe money from Kochs, etc.

And the rest of the Republicans cannot say no to that money either.

[Kablooie]

7. A Tea Party rep said they are perfectly willing to compromise...

and their compromise will be to defund Obamacare.

These guys don't even understand the meaning of simple English.