“…and then you might have a chance to do something”. That was the advice by an NH House Rep from my town (whose name now escapes me) I was given when I first became politically active with the upshot of that being that IF you sit and learn, and IF you sit and shut up back there in the back, you’ll get your turn in due course. But keep your mouth shut (and he was so quiet padding around, his name became inconsequential because he was a useful as old wallpaper). It is clear that I never listen to it (much to the dismay of many) as it was dumb then and certainly dumb now; from Ramesh Ponnuru (emphasis mine, congruent to the above):
So a lot of the party’s leaders are turning passivity into a strategy. What they’re telling one another is: Don’t make yourself an issue. Don’t make serious legislative proposals, because they will only be targets for Democrats. If Republicans make sure not to nominate weak or extreme candidates, and simply rail against Obama’s health-care law, they will win.
This strategy has ease of execution going for it. Coming up with policy proposals that make sense and will fly politically, and then convincing colleagues to back them, is hard work a lot of Republicans would rather avoid.
Certainly when your political enemies are swirling around in the toilet, one should not pull out the plunger but keep hitting flusher. Like the quiet one above, many politicians ARE lazy and upon being advised to do nothing will just toddle off to the corner, happy to comply. It’s easy to “do nothing” – but you get nothing done in advancing your own agenda either. Not being a target may keep the eyes of your opponents off of you, but you start to rise the ire of your constituents that didn’t you there to sit on your posterior. We send you to fight, not to retreat. Not ticking off the Democrats may well, in this environment, tick off your own base.
Instead, they ought to be piling on! Progressives view politics not just as a way to pass legislation but to change peoples’ behavior. And to be able to do so, they are willing to wage outright war (hence Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals) especially when it comes to the politics of personal destruction (when they win for the agenda and take their enemies off the board for good). Ruthlessness, in the long run, will outwin passivity.
But that’s not what we’ve seen – passivity on the debt ceiling, the defending the sequestration (the only time lately that spending has been cut), nothing on entitlement spending, and not even a willingness to pick up the power due to them in the House – the power of the purse.
(H/T: The Corner)
