Unpatriotic — D.C. Republicans Already Sabotaging Joe Biden
The D.C. Republicans have a history of sabotaging Democratic presidents in an effort to regain power. Unfortunately, these same Republicans at the same time are harming the country and the American people. It’s rule or ruin for the D.C. Republicans.
This D.C. Republican pattern of undermining a Democratic president (and the country) began during the Bill Clinton presidency in 1993. Not one Republican voted for Clinton’s 1993 budget because it included a tax increase on the rich. Every Republican predicted that the Clinton budget wouldn’t reduce the deficit and would cause a recession. Obviously, they were wrong since the country experienced an economic boom during the 1990s and Clinton bequeathed to George W. Bush a projected ten year surplus of $5.5 trillion.
Republican obstruction was worse during the Obama Administration. The Republicans in Congress settled on a strategy of all out obstruction before Obama was even inaugurated. Then Vice President Joe Biden reported that during the transition, several GOP Senators privately told him that GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell had given them orders that there was to be no cooperation with the incoming administration — because McConnell had decided that “we can’t let you succeed.” Moreover, a group of House GOP leaders met at an upscale D.C. restaurant on the night of the inauguration and determined there was to be no Republican support for any legislation introduced by President Obama.
Leading Republicans said the quiet part out loud after Obama took office. GOP leader and right wing entertainer Rush Limbaugh said in 2009 that he wanted Obama to “fail” and he hoped that the Recovery Act “would prolong the recession.” Subsequently, in 2010, GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell asserted that: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
Republican sabotage of Joe Biden and the economy began as early as last summer. (At least the Republicans had the courtesy to wait until Clinton was sworn in and until the transition to try to wreck the Obama presidency.) After the House Democrats passed the Heroes Act on May 15, the Republicans in the Senate refused to take up a new stimulus bill. Instead, we saw the return of the faux GOP “deficit hawks. ” Somehow these GOP born again deficit virgins didn’t have a problem borrowing $2 trillion in 2017 for Trump’s failed tax cuts for the wealthy and big business.
GOP efforts to wreck the Biden presidency and the country have escalated now that Biden has decisively won the election. The former TV reality star has barred the G.S.A. from releasing transition funds to the incoming Administration. That will make it harder for the Biden Administration to conduct background checks and begin the hiring process.
In another break with precedent, the Trump Administration has refused to allow President-elect Biden to have access to the president’s daily intelligence briefing. This is especially outrageous in light of the fact that the soon to be former president* hasn’t attended an intelligence briefing in weeks. Trump has even shut out Team Biden from the planning relative to the distribution of a vaccine!
There is nothing preventing the Republicans in Congress from passing a law over Trump’s veto allowing the transition to begin and to give Biden access to vital intelligence briefings. This refusal by the D.C. Republicans to allow a normal transition is a threat to national security and the health of millions of Americans since we’re suffering from the worst pandemic since 1918.
It’s pretty obvious that the D.C. Republicans believe in party over country and rule or ruin. We must make it perfectly clear to the American people that the GOP’s hyper-partisan obstruction is prolonging the problems created by the Trump Administration’s incompetence and hurting the country.
Our experience during the Obama Administration indicates that it is crucial that we refresh hazy memories. During Obama’s first term, the GOP and the “liberal” mainstream media bullied the Democrats into no longer blaming Bush for the poor economy. As a consequence, Obama and the Democrats were unfairly blamed for the Bush recession and bank bailout in the 2010 election and the Republicans won big. We can’t let that happen in 2022.
We can take a little time off now but our work is never done. There are crucial city elections next year in both both Omaha and Lincoln. Soon, it will be time to get back to work.
We are in the current predicament because millions of Democrats stayed home or voted third party in 2010, 2014 and 2016. We can’t make that mistake again. We must remain energized. When Democrats vote, Democrats win!