Nuke It
Great leaders take great risks...and America desperately needs some risk-takers
Republicans must pull the nuclear option.
This is not a statement made without deep and somber consideration. For decades, Republicans have pleaded with their Democrat counterparts to preserve the filibuster, arguing it was an important tradition that has helped keep the relative peace in Congress and raised the bar for progressing debate and legislation.
When Democrats launched the nuclear option during the Obama administration to ram through controversial appointees, Republicans warned they would regret blowing up the filibuster norm. Ultimately, that is exactly what happened, when the McConnell-led Senate used the nuclear option to secure President Trump’s judicial nominees.
That particular act of ‘turnabout is fair play’ turned out to be one of the most important political moves in American history. The Supreme Court took an ideological turn that has upended decades of progressive cultural and legal incursion, and it continues to deliver the constitutional fortitude Republicans are depending on to advance the America First agenda. It was the political play of a lifetime and the only reason Republicans were so emboldened to do it was because of the Obama-era Democrat strategy.
The Democrats only had themselves to blame then, and they only have themselves to blame now.
America is out of time and this is war.
Pull the nuclear option.
Yes, it is risky. Yes, there will be fallout. Yes, we may end up regretting it, just like the Democrats. But these are not normal times. Had President Trump not won last year, the Democrat Party would have set about eliminating the last remnants of liberty in this country. We have a mere glimpse at their plans for Americans as the FBI uncovers illegal surveillance of Republican members of Congress under Biden. America dodged the same bullet as President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
In war, the most legendary tales of American victory involve elements of great risk, in which failure could not only result in defeat, but brutal retaliation. Those who conquered the risk now reside in our history books. They are flawed but indispensable pieces of the American Experiment. We know their names because of the risks they took.
Democrats are feeling emboldened after an unsurprising night of victories last Tuesday. Their entire infrastructure and political apparatus is under threat of utter destruction and they are willing to fight to the death to prevent their demise.
People have already died at the hands of this madness.
Republicans may or may not end up being blamed for all of it, but at this point it is no matter. There is no turning back. If Republicans and President Trump don’t work at lightening speed to make life discernibly better for average Americans in the next 12 months, Congress will flip, impeachment insanity will begin, and the America First agenda will be stonewalled.
This is no time for business-as-usual.
If Republicans fail the shutdown test they will not only lose the upper hand, they will lose their base - a base that is already teetering on a razor’s edge. Those people are suffering from this shutdown too. With the midterms hanging in the balance, Republicans will need every ounce of fuel to ignite the base in a Trump-less election cycle.
America can’t afford the Democrat Shutdown. Republicans can’t afford to bend. Trump can’t afford the delays. Democrats can’t afford a nuclear option.
Everyone is losing right now. Someone has to lead.
Nuke it.
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100%. Democrats have already signaled they will do it when they get in power. Fix our rigged elections. Unfortunately, the GOP is useless.
Meanwhile, way out here in deep left field*, those exceedingly rare few of us who acknowledge the success-proof nature of the political state as even a remotely credible counterfeit of actual government** simply sigh in exasperation as we watch our fellow humanoids desperately cling to the fallacy that we can vote our way out of our problems. The system that (sort of) worked when the Constitution was conceived in 1789 has long since ceased to provide anything but the barest minimum semblance of “government” necessary to prevent complete societal chaos…
…and if the percentage of the citizenry that have come to be reliant on “government” handouts isn’t enough to demonstrate that the political state is a prescription for that kind of widespread chaos, I’m not sure that there is any lesson clear enough to instruct “We the people” before it’s too late to build alternative systems that actually do provide the service of real government.
*The baseball metaphor, not a declaration of ideological orientation
**As defined by the purpose of government, codified in the Declaration Of Independence