Doing Nothing Is The Goal
Republicans are governing with obstruction and distraction, not solutions.
Republicans have been complaining about the southern border for years. But when given the chance to pass the strongest conservative immigration legislation in decades, which was achieved through bipartisan efforts, Republicans killed the bill. Donald Trump even publicly said he wanted the bill blocked and that he wanted credit when it failed.
Since then, Republicans have continued to complain about the border that they refused to fix, and today, the bill was brought back to the Senate floor. It was voted down once again.
Republicans have made the 118th Congress the least productive in over 80 years. All of the major legislation that has been accomplished had more Democrat signatures than Republicans.
Accomplishing nothing has been the GOP strategy since Joe Biden became President.
Obstructionist politics is nothing new. Neither is the current obsession with it within the GOP.
The current form of partisan warfare traces back to Newt Gingrich, who saw name-calling, attacks, and obstruction as the path to Republicans gaining power. Steny Hoyer, then the number two Democrat in the House, described Gingrich’s motivations like this in 2009:
“There is the assumption—pioneered by Newt Gingrich himself, as early as the 1970s—that the minority wins when Congress accomplishes less.”
”Gingrich’s proposition, and maybe accurately, was that as long as our party cooperate[s] with Democrats and get[s] 20 or 30 percent of what we want, and they get to say they solved the problem and had a bipartisan bill, there’s no incentive for the American people to change leadership.”
Senator Mitch McConnell carried forward this partisan obstruction with his Senate majority during President Obama’s time in office. When Sean Hannity said he was surprised how many judicial openings Obama had left unfilled, McConnell replied:
“I’ll tell you why. I was in charge of what we did the last two years of the Obama administration.”
The Tea Party embraced this approach and then morphed into MAGA, which led to incorporating conspiracies, culture war, and anger into the already bitter partisan divide.
This is why we now have the Speaker of the House claiming that President Biden has a secret plan to flood the US with migrants who will vote for Democrats in elections and who will replace American citizens. The second in line to the Presidency is openly repeating the white supremacist Great Replacement Theory.
So why would the same political party that has been fear-mongering about the “invasion” of migrants, which they claim are terrorists and criminals, block a bill that would directly address the problem?
They are afraid that solving the issue while Biden is President will give Democrats a win. That isn’t governing. It is obstruction with the hope of gaining power.
Only 63 bills have become law in the 118th Congress, while the 117th Congress passed 365 laws. This isn’t surprising, given that the House of Representatives has been in session, with a Speaker, for only ~70 days since October 1st.
In that same span of time, a typical American would have been at their job for ~165 days, over double the time spent by our tax-funded Representatives.
It is true that all major legislation has passed because of Democrats despite the Republican House majority. The debt ceiling, budget, FISA renewal, and aid to Ukraine all passed because of Democrats.
MAGA Republicans were so upset that the bare minimum was getting accomplished that they ousted their first Speaker and attempted to oust their second.
All of the legislation that you hear about creating jobs, renewing American manufacturing, and reducing prescription prices happened during Biden’s first two years in office when Democrats still controlled the House, including:
The CHIPS and Science Act has brought manufacturing back to the US and created over 850,000 jobs.
The infrastructure bill is improving lives across the country while creating over 800,000 construction jobs.
The Inflation Reduction Act brought historic levels of investment in green energy and reduced prescription drug prices.
The largest gun safety bill in over 30 years, which has seen gun deaths drop each year since it was enacted.
Not only have Republicans significantly reduced the number of laws being passed, but 22% of those laws have been renaming buildings or appointing regents to the Smithsonian.
Republicans have also wasted time on pointless bills and attacks. They recently passed a bill in the House called the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act, which is nothing more than a bill to promote culture war boogiemen manufactured by Republicans in order to give the GOP something to “defend” Americans against. Another example is the recent bill designed to make it illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections when it is both already illegal and not a problem our country is facing.
Then there was the years-long impeachment inquiry into President Biden based on a debunked conspiracy and an accusation by a Russian asset. And the impeachment of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas was based on nothing more than differences of opinion.
Republicans won’t suddenly get to work with their remaining time in office. Everything will be a show vote or a sound bite bill made to drive headlines in order to distract from how bad the GOP record has been and how dreadful of a candidate Donald Trump is.
Congress is supposed to work for the American people, but right now, Republicans are only working to gain power. Their chosen weapons are obstruction and distraction.
