But if you listen carefully, you’ll notice that the Republicans stopped talking about Obamacare pretty quickly. Ask a GOP Representative what they want in exchange for a “Continuing Resolution” or “CR” – a bill to fund the Government. Go ahead. Ask them. They won’t have a clear answer for you. Politico’s reporting of the Republicans’ private meetings demonstrate the degree to which they have no idea what they hope to get out of this:
“It was very evident to everyone in the room that [Texas Sen. Ted] Cruz doesn’t have a strategy – he never had a strategy, and could never answer a question about what the end-game was,” said one senator who attended the meeting. “I just wish the 35 House members that have bought the snake oil that was sold could witness what was witnessed today at lunch.”
Over the August recess, Cruz made the rounds with conservative media and held rallies to call on his GOP colleagues to oppose any bill to keep the government running that would also continue funding Obamacare. As he won support on the right and among several dozen House conservatives, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) agreed to include the Obamacare defunding provision in a bill to keep the government running.”
This fiscal disaster, coupled with the Republicans’ intra-party sniping about “end-game” and “strategy”, point to a much larger theme in recent Republican politics: the utter absence of a coherent worldview. Opposition to federal involvement in the private sector makes for a great talking point. But now Republicans have it – they have shut all “non-essential” services provided by the federal government. Close to a million government employees have already been furloughed, with more to come in the next few weeks. And yet the GOP has no idea what to do with itself. Michelle Bachmann is crowing to Fox News about how amazingly the shutdown gambit is working (“We’re really very energized today … this is about the happiest I’ve seen members in a long time.”). And at least one GOP representative has gone full-on Rodney Dangerfield (“‘We’re not going to be disrespected, conservative Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., added. ‘We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.'”). As a frustrated Rep. John Dingell put it: “Republicans … have gotten themselves in the unhappy position of the dog that caught the car.”
Because isn’t this what Republicans have always wanted? And end to Federal intervention! An end to those handouts that foster laziness and dependency among the poor! No more inspections of corporate practices! And indeed, the sky did not fall down as agencies shut their doors. Or, at least we think the sky isn’t falling, but we may not be able to tell, since the National Weather Service can’t pay its employees, and they’ve resorted to begging for their wages through coded storm forecasts.
Of course, Republicans can’t admit that they love the shutdown. In fact, they may actually hate it, since they started scrambling to re-open federal services a la carte almost immediately after the shutdown started. They don’t want the government shut, but they won’t open it again either. Unless you give them something. But they can’t tell you what they want, because they’ve never really thought about it.
So why are they doing this? Why does Lockheed Martin, the massive American aerospace firm, have to furlough 3000 workers dependent on federal contracts? Why does Colorado have to cover for FEMA as it digs out of last month’s historic floods? Why, you ask?
Nobody knows. And that’s an even bigger problem than the shutdown itself. Because if the GOP can’t even articulate the reason why they want to burn Washington to the ground – even as they do it – then we’ve got a real problem on our hands. This is a major American political party so intellectually turned around that they can shut down the Government for no reason in particular – and be totally stoked while they do it. And we all know what you call a person who just wants to watch the world burn.