Shutdown Battle Isn’t Between GOP and Democrats

Hang on, folks! It’s looking like they’re gonna shut this whole thing down. The question, of course, is who? Who is shutting down the government? Republicans, bless their rotten little hearts, are trying awfully hard to frame this debacle as a failure of Democrats to embrace bipartisan compromise, as in: “Oh, c’mon…we’ve ‘compromised’ from killing Obamacare to just putting it on life support for a year…and Democrats just say ‘no’!”

How successful this framing will be is open to question. As Alan reported this morning, polling shows Americans will blame Republicans more than Democrats by at least 10 points. Still, if you look at the facts, this is a remarkable success of messaging. (Not to mention a GOP benefit of the “he said-she said” reporting that American media gets away with calling journalism.) That Democrats would take any blame at all, or that such a large swath of Americans have no idea who to blame other than “Washington”, is astounding for two reasons.

1) Compromise is not typically part of a hostage situation. And make no mistake, this is definitely a hostage situation. As Lincoln said in his Cooper Union speech (and recently noted by Digby):

A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, “Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer.”

2) The more important reason that it’s crazy for Democrats to take any blame at all is that they aren’t actually a party in this fiasco. This is a fight between the establishment GOP that sort of/kind of still wants to govern, and the suicide party/Cruz caucus. Guess who’s winning?

The Republican base these days holds such extreme positions, embraces such extreme tactics, and wields such out-sized influence within the party, that mainstream Republicans are scared to death to cross them. In this gerrymandered-to-the-point-of-distorting-democracy America, the threat of being ‘primaried’ is the most dangerous threat of all. This has the effect of granting the suicide caucus (a group of 80 House and Senate Republicans identified by The Atlantic’s Philip Bump) with the power to squeeze GOP leadership.

Democrats have been side-lined in this battle. Bump on Boehner’s problem:

He has an until-now third party that he needs to bring along on votes in order to assure a majority. By consistently going sideways or advocating for more conservative measures, the Conservative Party members make Boehner’s job harder. He’s running a coalition government — one that now has a leader. Again, Costa:

Later Thursday, Cruz met again with House conservatives at a venue near the Capitol. According to one House member, the bicameral bloc talked deep into the night about the CR and how to pressure Boehner. At the top of the agenda: making a one-year delay of Obamacare a requirement for government funding, and to accept nothing less, should the defunding effort continue to unravel.

This ad hoc political group could be short-term. But the idea that there exists a block of hard-right Republicans willing to stand in the way of Republican objectives is long-standing, and Cruz has learned this week that his forays into independence will be rewarded.

And this is why we’re headed for a shutdown. The suicide caucus has taken over. If you doubt this, you need look no further than GOP votes this past weekend. Staring down a government shutdown, House Republicans not only voted to pass a continuing resolution to delay the Affordable Care Act by one year, they gleefully piled on — voting to also include a “conscience clause,” essentially stripping women’s reproductive care coverage from the law. Will this be a plus for GOP candidates when it comes time to woo the women’s vote? Who cares! The suicide caucus gets its name for a reason.

By: Sandi Behrns

Sandi Behrns is a noted policy nerd, new media & web developer, and consultant to progressive organizations and campaigns. She is a senior contributor to Liberaland, and the Executive Editor of Progressive Congress News.