Among our fervent GOP friends should be consideration of this: if the affordable care act had not been enacted in 2010, and Obama had been defeated in 2012, but the senate remained in the Democrat’s hands, would they refrain from calling it blackmail if Harry Reid via senate procedure bottled up the budget, caused a government shutdown based on insistence that the ACA, seemingly a settled issue, be brought back from the grave before the government could go on with its business? They will insist otherwise, I think, but only by being dishonest with themselves.
Basically, they’ve convinced themselves that the ending “Obamacare” is so important that the end justifies the means. Terms like hostage taking, terrorism, or I think suicide bombing best fit the GOP’s behavior at this point. This mindset has already become dangerous, but with it now bleeding into the debt ceiling issue, the stakes and the dangers seem much grater. I think we may weather a failure to raise the debt ceiling better than the most alarmist claims, but I ‘d prefer not to test if I’m right all the same.
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