What we have to remember as we're subjected to hundreds of calls for "unity" from Republicans who've made disunity their business in Washington is that the Republican Party succeeds when the federal government fails.
Fracture and gridlock is a GOP strategy, not an inevitability.
Fracture and gridlock is a GOP strategy, not an inevitability.
The Republican party that Joe Biden negotiated with in the 1970s and 80s had a platform and an agenda. It had things it wanted to do that it was willing to negotiate with the Democrats in order to get done.
This GOP is a judge-confirmation machine with an elephant sticker on it.
This GOP is a judge-confirmation machine with an elephant sticker on it.
The day that the Republican Party decided to forgo having a platform in favor of endorsing whatever Trump wanted to do was the day it revealed itself as singularly focused on the accrual of power, even as and when doing so makes actual progress for the American people impossible.
So when I hear folks talk about bipartisanship my reaction is not to think of bipartisanship as a nasty word but to earnestly ask, "Bipartisanship with *whom*?" The Democrats don't have an honest negotiation partner available—because the incentives in the GOP are for dysfunction.