The Audacity of Nope

The recent debates and, more to the point, the reaction to them, have been the entirety of the GOP/Democrat dynamic in microcosm.

On the one hand, there’s the GOP. The party that launched a bold, “We don’t give a damn what you think of us” initiative in October 2010, or at least articulated it baldly enough to attract notice: Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell declaring, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” Not pass laws, not help the downtrodden, not serve the people. Their energies were to be devoted to preventing the president (and by extension the Democrats) from accomplishing anything. During the Bush years, any Democrat making such a statement would have been pilloried as unpatriotic and even treasonous.

Romney’s declaration that he was going to “reach across the aisle” carried with it the implication that Obama had failed to do so; a galling assertion considering that the GOP had effectively declared Obama public enemy number one. Even previously standard actions, such as raising the debt ceiling, were blocked by the GOP in order to damage Obama’s record. Using filibusters in record numbers and blocking 375 Democratic bills (including the Vision Care for Kids Act, the Veterans Training Act, and the Elder Abuse Victims Act) Republicans have not only aggressively stonewalled both the Obama administration and the needs of the electorate, but they now have the audacity to act as the peacemakers. Kind of like an abusive husband telling his wife that he promises not to beat her anymore if she’ll just avoid pissing him off.

And yet when President Obama had the opportunity to highlight this in face-to-face conflict with Romney, he backed off. When Romney spoke in smooth, conciliatory language, Obama let him off the hook. I mean, if someone’s party spends four years—four years—doing everything within their power to ignore their oaths of service and block all that you try to accomplish, that’s got to make you mad. People need to see that it makes you mad, because otherwise they assume that you’re okay with it. Or worse, afraid to stand up to it.



Biden, he got mad. He covered it in a smile and a chuckle, but there was an iron core of impatience with the crap cloaked in velvet that is the standard GOP message. Biden got into the face of not only Ryan, but the entire GOP lie and bully machine. And oooooh, did the GOP not like it. Ooooohhh, did the party that applauded Romney’s display of arrogance and rudeness suddenly turn around and accuse Biden of being arrogant and rude.

And why shouldn’t they? It broke the mold of the standard role of politics: the GOP as the bullies who control the direction of the debate—all debates—and the Democrats are supposed to be the hapless victims who take it.

This perception was deftly summed up by Aaron Sorkin in an episode of “West Wing,” entitled “Gone Quiet.” There, political operative Bruno Gianelli, doubtlessly acting as Sorkin’s mouthpiece, declares in a speech redolent with frustration for Democrats, “We all need some therapy because somebody came along and said liberal means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on Communism, soft on defense. And we’re going to tax you back to the stone age because people shouldn’t have to work if they don’t want to. And instead of saying ‘Well, excuse me, you right-wing reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun Leave it to Beaver trip back to the ’50s’, we cowered in the corner and said, ‘Please. Don’t. Hurt. Me.’…”

If a Democrat gets up into the grill of the GOP…if a Democrat mirrors the GOP’s conduct…then the GOP declares they’ve been ill-used and Fox News cries foul. Meanwhile the so-called liberal media pontificates how the Democrats may have hurt themselves adopting such tactics. How dare Democrats not be punching bags? How dare Democrats act in a manner that suggests they don’t give a crap what people think of them? That’s the GOP’s job. That’s their role.

When I was in elementary school, there was a school bully named Raymond. That was his role: school bully. Everyone knew that. I attempted to fly below his radar, but one day he took notice of me and tried to attack me during recess. I put him in a headlock (a full nelson, to be specific) and that was that. But after that he went to the teacher and complained that I’d beaten him up. The teacher, displaying more wisdom than most modern pundits, simply smiled and said, “I’m sure he had a good reason.”

Romney beat up Obama. He was lauded as looking strong in doing so; even Democrats said so in polls. Biden beat up Ryan. He was condemned by pundits as looking rude in doing so, in snide commentary mixed with blatantly ageist attitudes. How dare an old man so thoroughly trash a young guy? Youth is king in this country, after all, while old is synonymous with impotence and addle-mindedness. And a CNN poll that had a disproportionate GOP skew in its sample (a fact mentioned by no one whenever the poll was quoted), indicated that Ryan had won. Why? Because Democrats are honest enough to admit when their guy came out looking weak, while the GOP will be damned if they admit the reverse.

It runs contrary to the narrative: Democrats are weak. Blame the Democrats. The GOP endeavors to sell the notion that their own obfuscation and wall-building is entirely the fault of the Democrats even though their own words (that their priority is to make Obama a one term president) and their own actions (the record number of filibusters) tilts the scale of responsibility almost entirely toward them.

The audacity of blaming their stone-walling agenda on the Democrats! To blame their 200+ filibusters on Obama, and then suddenly claim that they’re going to cooperate with the opposition…once they’ve gotten everything they wanted. It’s astounding. It’s amazing. And according to polls, it’s actually working. And why not? It’s the oldest excuse in the world: “The bitch had it coming.”

And there’s Obama, now at war with not only his own ultra-cool nature, but also the trifecta of preconceptions: He’s a President and should behave in a certain way. He’s a Democrat and should behave in a certain way. And, let’s face it, he’s black and should behave in a certain way. God forbid he should be perceived as an angry black man, because that’s threatening. As much as it would thrill a lot of people (including me) to see him go completely street on Romney’s white ass, that would play directly into the GOP’s in general (and Tea Baggers in particular) insistence on painting him as “other.”

But, to at least some degree, that’s what he has to do. He’s from Chicago; he needs to take a crash course in the Chicago Way. Last time he brought a knife to a gunfight. Hell, he brought a spork to a gunfight. As antithetical as it may be, a different approach is required.

The game has changed. When we were children, we were taught that the best way to deal with bullies was to ignore them. That training continued into adulthood. We were told that airplane passengers should cooperate with hijackers and offer no resistance. Women were told that the best way to deal with a rapist was to submit so that at least they could survive. Like it or not, the same lesson was enforced: submit to strength and let the bully win.

Those lessons have been set aside. Airplane passengers are much less likely to sit around and let hijackers decide their fate. Women are armed with mace, alarms, and take self-defense classes so they can beat the crap out of potential assailants. And Democrats…

…continue to submit. Continue to roll over. And are excoriated and condemned when they push back.

Despite the fact that Romney lied and lied and lied some more, Obama was perceived as the loser not because of the facts, but because society has outgrown the notion that bullies are to be ignored or submitted to. Bullies are to be met head on. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. Romney lies through his teeth, you kick his teeth in.

And you sure as hell—you sure as hell—don’t stand there and let him blame four years of Republican obstructionism on you. You don’t let him get away with blaming you for his party being the party of No. Because that’s just too much audacity, even for Obama.

PAD