Okay, but let's start off by setting the goalposts in the correct place. The argument to which I was responding was that there is no value in electing Republicans down-ticket because the GOP Congress "gave Obama everything he wanted." I mention that because it is almost a ridiculously low bar to meet, and I'm just the guy to meet a really low bar.
So, I listed some of the major things Obama wanted that Congress did not give him:
1) They did not confirm Garland. That likely saved both Citizens United and Heller. Those two issues alone are huge. It is also highly relevant because of the next two points:
Do you believe they did this because they were ideologically opposed to Garland, or do you believe they did this because this is an election year and it would have greatly angered the base who already perceive them as "do nothings" ? Yes, the Senate did the right thing, but the suspicion is that they did it for exactly the wrong reasons. The suspicion further exists that were this not an election year, they would confirm him just as they confirmed Loretta Lynch, who has proven to be exactly the sort of corrupt government official which the base had feared.
2) Congress refused to modify the Clean Air Act as he requested, so he was forced to try to implement his global warming agenda via regulatory action/executive order. He was stopped by the courts.
That one i'll grant you. Democrats would have approved it, but is this the most significant thing on which he should have been opposed? How about this lawless non-budget we've been having for the last 8 years? Also I haven't noticed the courts doing much to stop him. They make noises, but he keeps doing what he wants.
3) They refused to pass his immigration bill, so he was forced to try to get legal status for millions of illegals via regulatory/executive order. Again, he was shot down by the courts. And, a rehearing on this by the Supreme Court was just denied. Had Garland been confirmed, the rehearing likely would have been granted, and Obama's executive actions would have been allowed to proceed. That would have been game over on immigration.
But again, did they do this because they believed it was the right thing to do, or did they do this because they believed that if they didn't, the voters would enact vengeance upon them? I'm getting the impression that many of them are actually in favor of illegal immigration, but have to tell the voters what they want to hear.
4) They refused to pass amendments he wanted to the Affordable Care Act, and in fact passed legislation barring the use of federal funds to backstop insurance companies that were losing money in the exchanges. The result of those failed amendments and legislation has been to force ObamaCare into the death spiral.
My recollection is that they did pass legislation to modify when and how Obamacare was to be pressed down upon us. They deliberately drained off much of it's poison so as to make it more palatable to people instead of forcing everyone to immediately feel it's horrible effects.
Strategically the better approach would be to allow people to immediately suffer under Obamacare so as to create the political will necessary to repeal it. This was a golden opportunity which they deliberately bungled because they do not seem to know how to play this political game properly.
"The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly."-Abraham Lincoln-Again, I want to emphasize that considering where the goalposts were set - "there is no value in electing Republicans" - pointing out times where they failed to stop Obama doesn't advance the ball on the other side. Someone literally must show that they caved on everything, which cannot be done.
I am of two minds about this. I am very cognizant of the fact that as Jefferson said:
"... all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. "and I recognize that the Republicans holding the House and Senate did a
little good, but in order to right what I perceive to be grave problems in our current government I do not believe this is sufficient.
We must change the existing paradigm. We must either Advance, or we must create the conditions necessary for a future advance. Their efforts to provide a holding action against Obama were pathetic. I remember when Tip O'Niell was speaker of the house, so I have a baseline from which to compare their efforts.
Tip O'Niell would have destroyed Obama. (Had they been on opposite sides.) The closest we have come to Tip O'Neill's intransigence is Newt Gingrich, and the media warred on him relentlessly, but he put up a fight. A real fight. He forced Clinton to balance the budget , and he pushed Clinton into embracing Welfare Reform.
So we have two paths. One path is to elect Republicans that will fight the Federal Leviathan, (if they *WILL* fight) and the other path is to cut the brakes and let the system bludgeon the populace until it engenders sufficient wrath in the people who will then demand "change."
Both are fraught with potential disaster, and at this point I am not sure which is the better choice for the long term benefit of the Nation. Obviously a lot of the "never Trumpers" think the "Let it burn" solution is the better choice.
