Republicans Can't Govern

 Martin Longman looks at Trump's demand that his lickspittles in Congress pass a third reconciliation bill. He notes that one issue is that the last bill defunded Planned Parenthood, but that ban has just expired. There aren't the votes in an election year that is already shaping up as a bad one for Republicans to take on a bunch of unpopular votes. 

Longman notes

This is something people on the left are familiar with. The base is angry that the Republican leadership didn’t do something they didn’t have the votes to accomplish and feels demoralized because its representatives won’t fight with every tool in the box, even if those tools won’t work.

That's a pretty cogent analysis of the state of politics in America. For years, I've noted that Republicans can't govern, they can only rule. They cannot govern, because governing involves legislating, and their caucus is fucking insane. I certainly hope that some of the loopier DSA candidates who are going to enter the House this fall won't fall into the same batshit dynamic of demanding that their every whim is made into law and if it isn't, it must be corruption. 

Still, this isn't a bothsides moment. Biden was not as historically great a president as some have decided to make him out to be in their anger at the processes and his own decline depriving them of a victory in 2024. Still, Biden was exceptionally effective at getting legislation passed. There were enough Republicans in Congress still willing to legislate that important bills made it through. The tragic counterexample was when they had a really decent bipartisan immigration bill, and Trump killed it. 

That's the ballgame, when it comes to the current GOP and their inability to govern. They are now - even more than then - the Party of Trump and legislating, a process that involves compromise, good faith and trust, is anathema to him and the creatures that surround him.

This system of compromise and working together was why the Framers established checks and balance, separation of powers. No one person, no one faction was intended to rule this country. We would have to come together to govern it. To self-govern it. 

One of the many ways that Republicans have lost the plot.