Winning? Harold Meyerson Needs a Consult From Charlie Sheen

Republican zeal runs amok

By Harold Meyerson, Published: July 5

To watch Republicans in action today, in Washington and in legislatures around the country,

It’s not a damn petting zoo.

is to be reminded of Casey Stengel’s amazed query to the 1962 Mets, whom he had the cosmic misfortune to manage: “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

I’m starting to develop some theories about liberal opinion pieces. There are two facets of their writing that are vitally important to them: outrage, and a rhetorical softness to draw away from the harshness and ugliness of the outrage. This is an excellent example. Meyerson swaddles his contempt over the perception of Republican incompetence in the blanket of old-time baseball Americana. Of course, it’s pure bullshit.

Forget, for a moment, that it’s sloppy writing to transpose your own reactions and interpretations universally onto the reader. (I mean really, who the hell is a Mets fan anyways?) It is telling that Meyerson’s first thought is to compare this political showdown to a game. After all, to the commentators and politicians who are intimately involved in it, I could see how it would feel like a game. That’s because they don’t bear the consequences. They argue over tax rates which they don’t pay. They don’t feel the pain of recession or the annoyance of government meddling. When was the last time you heard an elected official describe himself as a fiduciary? It’s easy to feel like you’re playing a game when you’re insulated from the consequences. We bear the consequences of that game. We, the nonplussed reader—onto whom this sloppy hack has transposed his reactions and interpretations—bear the costs.

In California, in Minnesota and here on Capitol Hill,

ROAD TRIP! I’ll bring the Funyuns and Slim Jims.

Republican legislators in divided governments seem incapable of taking half or even three-fourths of a loaf — of recognizing when they’ve won.

Wait a minute. Your premise was that Republicans are the 1962 Mets—the same Mets that won a mere 40 games, whose dismal .250 winning percentage was the worst in the history of the modern game. Now you’re saying that they’ve already won what essentially amounts to a the World Series? This metaphor fell apart before it got started.

By holding out for more when they’ve already attained plenty,

Ah. Not only have Republicans won, (in spite of being compared—for some unfathomable reason—to the 1962 Mets) but they have so badly trounced the Democrats that their victory borders on political avarice. This isn’t about pushing the best interests of the country; this is about Republicans showing poor sportsmanship by continuing to play the starters in the 4^th quarter of a blowout (or stealing second with a 12 run lead in the 8^th, if you want to stick to baseball metaphors.) Remember: it’s just a game.

they run the risk of coming away with nothing for themselves or inflicting avoidable calamity on everyone else.

Theory #2 about liberal opinions: They will always frame the debate by portraying Republicans in a negative light before introducing a single shred of factual evidence. Right now, this article could literally be about anything. Ethanol subsidies, education reform, abortion…what are we even talking about?

As Daniel Bell once said of American socialists, they act as if they’re in but not of the world.

Considering that Bell wrote a book titled The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, it’s not hard to see why his primary objection to socialists was their lack of pragmatism.

But yes, socialists are crazy.

In California, for instance, where Republicans hold just over a third of the seats in each legislative house —

A feat only Charlie Sheen could describe as “winning.”

enough to block any tax increase, which requires two-thirds support — Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown told reporters on June 16 that he was willing to submit to voters proposals to reduce both state pensions and business regulations if Republican lawmakers agreed to let voters also decide whether to extend some tax increases.

Keep in mind that this is California, where people are flat-out insane and even the Republicans are liberal. A woefully underfunded state Republican Party of California, would be fighting a losing battle on two fronts. The vote to reduce pensions and business resolutions would inevitably fail, and the vote to increase taxes would undoubtedly succeed. In Meyerson’s “Republicans win” scenario, Democrats end up getting everything that they asked for, which sounds to me like Republicans not winning.

Brown’s goal was to avoid having to cut more deeply into spending on schools, universities and medical care.

These are not conservative priorities. Indeed we believe that schools, universities, and the medical care system are rife with fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. Budget cuts necessitate the realignment of priorities that is necessary to begin ferreting out this fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.

California businesses, which have complained of overregulation for decades,

Rightfully so. Running a business in California requires a touch of insanity.

were hot for the deal, but the Republicans refused to budge. In consequence, in the state budget passed last week, without the tax extensions, the state’s public universities will have to raise tuition roughly 10 percent (on top of another 10 percent increase that will take effect in September); and the poor will pay more for medical care. Pensions and regulations will remain unrevised.

And yet, there are no new taxes. So Republicans’ intractable bargaining position resulted in a win for everyone. Tax-payers shift the burden of the cost of education to the students, where it belongs. The poor rely on one of ten thousand other government programs to provide healthcare, and the rest of the state avoids a tax hike. And there was much rejoicing!

What makes the California Republicans’ intransigence so loony — “idiotic” is, I think, not too strong a term —

See how he couches a clumsy insult in cutesy language? Fuck off, Herold.

is that they are likely to lose legislative seats as soon as next year as a result of redistricting,

Que sera, sera. Most Republicans—even those that live there—see California as a lost cause anyways. At least they staved off financial ruin for another couple years.

and they are sure to lose legislative seats over the next decade because of their ongoing estrangement of the state’s Latino voters.

Is it just me, or is the demography argument for Hispanics voting Democrat just a little bit racist? At very least it’s presumptive.

When Republicans drop beneath one-third representation in the statehouse, Democrats will be able to raise taxes without their support.

And they’ll be able to raise taxes regardless of a voter referendum to the contrary. And they’ll be able to reverse all the rules regarding business regulation (which wouldn’t require a supermajority anyways.) One legislature can not bind the next. Short of an amendment to the state constitution, there’s nothing the Republicans can do to avoid whatever the Democrats will do when (/if) the gain a 2/3 majority of the House.

In other words, this may well have been Republicans’ last chance to extract concessions they considered vital. And they blew it off.

In other words, if electoral losses are a fait accompli, as you insist that it is, then it doesn’t matter what Republicans do now, because Democrats will simply reverse it later.

What we have here is an extreme world view — let’s call it Norquistism —

Let’s not. Ever since last week’s little guest spot from Deval Patrick,  (http://www.washingtonpost.com/how-grover-norquist-hypnotized-the-gop/2011/06/30/AGYOUlsH_story.html) Grover Norquist has somehow become the focus of liberal ire. It’s like he’s the new Karl Rove. Stop trying to create a boogeyman and actually refute his arguments that tax hikes cripple innovation and stifle growth.

that ensures impasse, paralysis or perverse outcomes whenever control of government is divided.

It’s called principled governance. The reason that this is an issue is that it’s new for Republicans.

It’s the doctrine preached by GOP activist and lobbyist Grover Norquist,

I don’t know Grover Norquist, but somehow I doubt that he’s out on the road “preaching” that we should have perverse outcomes in government.

who trots around the country

Again, he’s a conservative thinker, not a show pony.

collecting pledges from GOP candidates and elected officials that commit them to never, ever raise taxes, no matter what they may be offered in return.

This isn’t very complicated. Nor is it new. Similar pledges have been collected from the left and right about abortion. The right signs pledges on taxes, the left signs pledges on unionization. Like I said, the novel concept is that Republicans are actually sticking to their guns. Lo and behold, the American electorate agrees with them! And that’s what this is all about, isn’t it. That’s where you’re afraid Republicans are winning.

In Minnesota, a state with a Democratic governor and a Republican legislature, Gov. Mark Dayton sought to raise taxes on only the relative handful of Minnesotans with annual incomes in excess of $1 million.

First they came for the millionaires and I did nothing…

The legislature opposed that, insisting on cuts (including to services for those with disabilities) that Dayton wouldn’t countenance.

In other words, Dayton was stubborn.

Absent a budget, most state services in Minnesota closed down on July 1; it’s not clear when, or how, some compromise can be reached to reopen the state.

So this is the second example where Republicans were neither offered nor received anything that they wanted? Wait, what was the point of this article again? Honestly, probably to bring demagogue Grover Norquist again.

In the nation’s capital, Republicans also seem to have lost their capacity for compromise — even when that compromise looks to be a GOP victory.

Clearly, Harold, you don’t have a good grasp of what a GOP victory actually looks like.

Senate Republicans, for instance, have been urging President Obama since before he took office to finalize three trade accords — with South Korea, Colombia and Panama — and bring them before Congress.

Which should obviously be a no-brainer.

Obama has now done so, asking in return only that Republicans approve the renewal of Trade Adjustment Assistance, a program that aids workers who lose their jobs as a result of these kinds of trade deals.

In other words, Republicans get something that ought to be part of the regular operation of the government, and Democrats get a poorly defined, infinitely expandable pork boondoggle? (We’ve all seen how poorly the White House tallies job gains and losses.) How exactly is this a Republican win?

But Republicans are balking — boycotting last week’s meeting of the Senate Finance Committee at which these treaties were to be taken up — because they don’t like TAA.

Rightly so. This is like asking to attach an appropriations amendment for dairy subsidies to the confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice.

This is hardly a major program, mind you, but the GOP’s loathing of any program that provides government assistance to workers (who really shouldn’t need any assistance, as free trade is good for us all)

Whoa whoa whoa…in one tiny parenthetical you just undermined the entire justification for the Trade Adjustment Assistance. You’re absolutely right. The TAA is not needed. So the President is wrong for suggesting it. You’re also right that free trade is good for us all. So the President is wrong for holding up free trade deals with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama.

He’s so close to coming to a rational conclusion. Yet Harold thinks the problem is that Republicans are being intractable, despite being right on both issues. Meanwhile, the President, who is wrong on both issues and whose Party has controlled the processes in the Senate, bare none of the blame?

has eclipsed its long-term commitment to American corporate priorities.

No, it’s a commitment to fighting for what’s right as opposed to what’s politically expedient.

When zeal runs amok, the sense of proportion suffers.

Put that in a fucking fortune cookie; it doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously.

Today’s Republicans remind me of some leaders of the American Communist Party

The 1962 Mets were Communists? Scandalous!

whom I got to know decades ago,

Being a socialist and all…

after they’d left the fold. “We believed in the party line, in its infallibility, so completely,” one ex-commie told me, “that we’d forget the larger strategy for the momentary tactic.”

I don’t think you know the larger strategy of the Republican Party. It’s not complicated: lower taxes, smaller government, personal responsibility.  

So it was with Communists of yore; so it is with Republicans today.

It’s a novel tact, I’ll give you that. Base and entire article on faulty logic. Add a healthy dose of disdain. Make wild allegations, and end up comparing one group to its polar opposite. Frankly, it all just makes me wonder how this hack got a job as a professional writer.