The Republicans’ Bad Day and What it Means for America

Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 03:46 pm

Obviously, the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of the Affordable Care Act is good news for Americans but what about Republicans? In an understatement of magnificent proportions, the Washington Post announced on its front page this morning that the Court’s “stance stunned many.’  Ya think? If it stunned liberals out of their doom and gloom what effect do you think it had on Republicans, who were 100% confident of victory?

Exploding heads, anyone?

The importance of yesterday’s ruling is not to be ignored. The decision can be seen as a vindication of Obama’s presidency – not at all the message the GOP has been trying to send, which is one of not only making things better but actively destroying America. Arguments that he is a foreign usurper bent on destroying America aren’t as compelling when it turns out he obeyed the Constitution when he gave us healthcare for all.

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We’re used to long litanies of their many attacks – oft times successful – on American liberties but what about their failures? We don’t spend enough time thinking about the many occasions on which the GOP falls flat on its collective face. So let’s indulge in a happy moment.

What will Republicans do now that the impossible has happened, that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the loathed Obamacare? Now that the Supreme Court has struck down much of the infamous Arizona Immigration Law? Now that a federal appeals court has ruled that yes, the EPA does have the right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act? Now that DOMA has been ruled unconstitutional not only by the Justice Department but by a federal appeals court?

And that’s not all. As David Cole wrote in The Nation yesterday,

Indeed, it is worth noting, as the term draws to a close, that this conservative Court issued a surprising number of liberal decisions this term. It struck down mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles; invalidated a penalty imposed on broadcasters for “indecent” speech; struck down a law making it a crime to lie about one’s wartime honors; extended the right to “effective assistance of counsel” to plea bargaining; invalidated most of Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB 1070; ruled that installing a GPS to monitor an automobile’s public movements requires a warrant; retroactively applied a liberalized crack cocaine sentencing regime to persons who had committed their crimes before the reforms were introduced; and held that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial right requires the state to prove facts that increase a criminal fine to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. All in all, not a bad year for liberals before a conservative Supreme Court. But stay tuned, because next year it is likely to take up affirmative action, the Voting Rights Act and gay marriage.

What do they do? Sink into abject denialism? Is there anything left besides exploding heads? The prognosis for Republicans is no more friendly than reality itself.

What’s a Republican to do but get a good old fashioned Old Testament Bronze Age hate on? It’s a perfect time for thuggish behavior. And after all, they can always hold the attorney general of the United States in contempt even though there is absolutely no compelling reason to do so. We have Darrell Issa to blame for that, just as we have him to blame for the Sandra Fluke fiasco. We get it now: he’s got a McCarthy complex a mile long and he’s a compulsive liar.

Mitt Romney, the guy we’re supposed to entrust with the nuclear football pulled a Dubya when he heard the other day by the Arizona ruling, unable to vocalize a coherent thought. He didn’t do much better with Obamacare. The rest of the Republican Party…well, they responded like Republicans. Look at some of the crazy things they said.

From the Breitbart crowd, conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro:

This is the greatest destruction of individual liberty since Dred Scott. This is the end of America as we know it. No exaggeration.

— benshapiro (@benshapiro) June 28, 2012

Republican from Indiana Mike Pence, a gubernatorial candidate, “likened the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the Democratic health care law to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to several sources present” reported Politico. In other words, it was an act of terrorism and ranked up there with killing several thousand people.

He apologized. But he still said it.

Rand Paul had possibly the most Republican reaction of them all, a complete lack of comprehension of how this country works:

“Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional.”

Um, yeah…it does. Guess he doesn’t get the Supreme Court’s function per the United States Constitution. Rand: How can the Constitution be unconstitutional?

And now you know how we feel about the Citizens United ruling, eh?

But my favorites are from BuzzFeed, which has a collection of tweets from “people who say they’re moving to Canada because of ObamaCare”. Avoid drinking while reading this list. Comments like “I’m moving to Canada, the United States is entirely too socialist” will make a mess wherever you happen to be sitting.

Our thoroughly self-absorbed conservatives might not know this, but Canada has universal healthcare; Canada has gay marriage; Canada even has hate laws. According to Daily Kos, Canadians are laughing – and they should be. Canada is the liberal’s refuge of choice; it is hardly friendly ground for conservative, hate-spewing thugs. How would they survive without FOX News?

But it’s not all fun and games.

Obviously, they still have Citizens United even when the citizens themselves don’t want it. The Supreme Court is adamant that corporations are actually people and we’ve been blind to it all this time.

And democracy did suffer another setback when a federal judge sided with Florida over the DOJ’s attempt to block the state’s voter purge. As everyone knows, it was in Florida that Republican shenanigans led to Gore’s defeat and George W. Bush’s victory. An entire state is a nice insurance policy.

Most like Mitt Romney will double down on his efforts now, condemning his own Massachusetts healthcare reform law and his own legacy in an attempt to win the White House. We’ve long known this is all that matters to him and its become more than obvious even to the dim-witted. There he is, dog tied to the roof of his car, frantically shaking his Etch A Sketch between stops trying to find the right thing to say to the right group of people.

Of course, the Etch A Sketch isn’t always reliable, as he found out when he taunted some NASCAR fans because they didn’t have the money to buy a fancy coat like his, but he knows he can always deny that he ever said any such thing, that he has consistently been a big fan of plastic raincoats.

After all he has always been a super conservative, even while passing leftist healthcare reform bills as Governor of Massachusetts that served as the framework and inspiration for the Affordable Health Care Act he now insists he will repeal as president. It’s a good life for Mitt Romney, not being bound by the constraints of the real world and such trivial things as facts.

One thing is certain: Romney’s unhinged and erratic behavior and Christian fundamentalism’s hatred of Mormonism while being forced to hail Romney as a Christian savior will make the 2012 presidential campaign one to remember.

After all, we haven’t seen the last highway bill that deals with contraception or the last flood insurance bill that determines when life begins (from Rand Paul, the guy who doesn’t understand the Constitution) or the last agriculture bill that bans abortion.

This is all part of the Republican plan for America, but that plan became derailed yesterday when the Supreme Court had an attack of decency. That ruling didn’t win the election for liberals and progressives but it improved our chances and diminished those of Republicans, as their unhinged reactions show.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.