Second Time Around

We witnessed history yesterday as Barack Obama was sworn in for his second term as President of the United States of America.  While everyone was very honorable in their demeanor yesterday, you and see once again the party lines being drawn.

Republicans, your shtick is getting old.  I heard Fox News pundit Bill O'Reilly saying last night that the Republican party is not yet done.  Well, I would agree Bill, but it is on life support if you look at it objectively.  Let's review:  For the past four years, during one of the deepest recessions since the great depression, the Republican Congress has obstructed more proposals and passed the fewest bills of any of its modern day predecessors.  Now they are trying a new strategy:  The President is a bully...he won't work with us.  He refuses to socialize with us. 

Here is some advice to the Republicans.  You need to treat the American citizen with a bit more intelligence than you have been treating them for the past five or so years.  They remember what you say and what is reported in the press. 

For example, when the Minority Leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell says that their number one priority is to make Barack Obama a one term president, people remember that.  They also know that when their house is under water and they don't have a job, cannot make their house payment and have difficulty putting food on the table, Republican gamesmanship is the last thing they want to hear.  When the debt ceiling has been raised unceremoniously for as long as anyone can remember and Republicans put the country's debt in jeopardy and threaten a government shutdown, people remember that.  When the President is dogged by extremists who say he is a Muslim and not born in this country and the Republican party or leadership does not forcefully dismiss these unsubstantiated allegations, people remember that too.

It is also time to come back into the mainstream.  Women's reproductive rights, for example, is already settled law.  Supporting allowing companies to dictate the type of health care services they want to provide employees because it interferes with the employers' religious beliefs is not a way to win over the majority of the citizens of this country.  Demanding that benefits we already have paid for need to be cut back because the government borrowed money from the account is also not the way to win over the electorate.  Finally, taking a hard line stance against restricting weapons that are just designed to do the maximum amount of damage is not a way to win over most rational thinking people.

The Republicans have a built in contradiction to their party.  They have always been for fiscal responsibility, smaller government and less regulation letting the private sector dictate the direction of the country.  There is nothing wrong with this philosophy.  But somewhere along the line the message got turned around.  Under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush deficits skyrocketed.  Government became much bigger.  Under President G.W. Bush two wars were started without any way to pay them off.  He put it on the country's credit card.  On top of that he told everyone that they were getting a tax refund!  Does this sound like the Republican party that is fiscally responsible and a strong advocate for smaller government?

Then from left field the party that believes in personal responsibility for business has told people how they expect to live their lives; women in particular.  They want to limit a woman's right to choose, they want doctors doing ultrasounds for women who want to consider aborting their fetus'.  Some of their party members proudly proclaimed that rape should be redefined calling it "legitmate rape."  So while they are all for deregulating business, saying that environmental protection is too strict and letting the banks run wild again, socially they are willing to regulate woman's health care issues to those that existed 100 years ago.  There is just a huge contradiction between their party ideology and their practice.  This is what is holding the party back and the American people see it.

It is there for all to see. These are just some of the issues that the right has taken and for lack of a better term, perverted it.  They are largely led by Fox News, their media arm or from lobbyists like Grover Norquist or the NRA.  If the Republicans want to have a place on the national stage in years to come, they need to have a better vision and see where the country is going.