Compromise is never a consideration

I had lunch with my friend and debate partner yesterday. We each packed a personal lunch and met in a park for a picnic. It was a beautiful day and we had a pleasant time. One of the things my friend talked about, and he did this with much glee, was the idiotic things the GOP, especially its House members, have been saying and doing. Great! he says, it will only hasten their downfall.

Doug Daniels of the Washington Spectator blog has an article about the GOP and gerrymandering. Rig the electoral map in favor of the GOP, they said, and we'll consolidate power and rule over the country.

The House GOP members may owe the shape of their district to the party, but loyalty ends there. These guys don't care about the health of the national party, no matter the report generated after Romney's defeat. These guys are worried about only one thing -- a challenge from the Right. Immigration with a path to citizenship? No Way! My district is 75% white and wouldn't stand for that. Compromise?

House Republicans have no such incentive. They realize they can continue to be a protest movement rather than a governing force, and still maintain their majority because of redistricting. To these members, compromise is never a consideration, no matter the issue. It’s their way or the highway.

Newt Gingrich called this the “perfectionist caucus” back in the 1990s. These are true believers who don’t respond to political pressure or long-term demographic realities. They will go down with the ship even when there’s a perfectly good life-raft within reach.

So John Boehner has the least control of his caucus as any Speaker in a good long time. And the gerrymandering that was to keep the GOP in power has only made them more extreme and more likely to be rejected by the rest of the country. Since the midterm elections tend to bring out the conservative voters things will only get more extreme in 2014 before hitting a wall in 2016.

So, yeah, my friend will be mightily entertained by the GOP idiocy over the next few years. Alas, real people will be hurt, the latest being students who will have to pay more for loans and those who use food stamps.