The GOP Blamed the Democrats and called it a “Commitment to America”
The ghost of the Contract on America returns.
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Republicans have just rolled out their Commitment To America. In it, we’ll find familiar talking points. An economy that’s strong. A nation that’s safe. A future that’s built on freedom. A government that’s accountable.
I think we can agree that both Democrats and Republicans want those things in America. I suppose we disagree on how we’re going to get there.
Politico rounded up the responses from various members of both parties, and as I read them, something caught my eye:
“Americans are getting crushed, crushed under one-party Democratic control,” Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), who helped draft the party’s economic recommendations, said in an interview. “Well, what we have an opportunity to do is return to an economy that’s strong.”
The assumption that Republicans are asking us to make is that our country is in shambles because the Democrats did it. Remember that Republicans are sure that things are terrible in America because Democrats control the country when I tell you that Republicans had a hand in it.
A trifecta is what we find in a state that has one-party control of both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office. Observe here a map of the trifectas around the country:
Notice the legend. Red, which is most of the country, indicates a Republican trifecta. Blue indicates a Democrat trifecta. And grey is where both major parties share power. presently, Republicans have 23 trifectas, Democrats have 14. That means Democrats have sole control of the government in just 14 states out of 50. That’s 28% for the nerds.
In Congress, Democrats have a slight majority in the House of Representatives and they share power almost equally in the Senate. They are seriously hobbled by the filibuster, a self-imposed injury. They could kill the filibuster, but there are two Democrats who seem to think that the filibuster is something we really need.
