The first call for obstructionism began days before Barack Obama took office when, on January 16, 2009, conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh said, in response to a media query asking what his hope was for the Obama Presidency: “I hope he fails.”
We’re talking about my country, the United States of America, my nieces, my nephews, your kids, your grandkids. Why in the world do we want to saddle them with more liberalism and socialism? Why would I want to do that? So I can answer it, four words, “I hope he fails.” And that would be the most outrageous thing anybody in this climate could say. Shows you just how far gone we are. Well, I know, I know. I am the last man standing.
Limbaugh was far from being “the last man standing,” a fact that became clear when then-Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell rallied the Republican troops around the strategy of slowing down any large initiative from the Administration. And in November 2010, the new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the top priority of the next Congress would not be a specific piece of legislation, but a commitment to ensuring Limbaugh’s goal: Defeating President Obama in 2012.
Thus, the GOP was tagged, “The Party of No.”
For years, they rejected that epithet.
Now, like the American Revolutionaries who reclaimed the British slur, “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” it appears that the Republican party has embraced the nickname they once rejected.
While solar power has become increasingly popular (and a significant job creator), Republican governors across the country have effectively declared war on the low-carbon energy source. Of course, the GOP continues to shout “No!” at scientists on even the most basic fact of climate change. This includes the current GOP presidential candidates.
Donald Trump once claimed that “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Texas Senator Ted Cruz says, “Climate change is not science, it’s religion.”
And Senator Marco Rubio, who began as a climate moderate has joined the battle among candidates to distance themselves from science over the issue (even though, Florida, the state he represents in Congress, will be among the most negatively impacted by climate change).
“I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it … and I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy,” says Rubio.
And now, like some bizarro Greek chorus that demands the curtain be dropped midway through the third act, GOP Senators on the Judiciary Committee have declared they will not vote, hold hearings on, or even sit down privately to talk with anyone President Obama nominates to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say “No!” to any SCOTUS nominee by President Obama.
The transformation of the GOP from obstructionism to outright defiance, and rejection of even the appearance of governance, is now complete. What is perhaps most concerning is that the territory staked out in 2009 by a far-right radio talk-show host, now appears to have become motherland of the GOP.
In November, the American public will decide if they really want the United States to become “The Country of No.”
