The right is reduced to issuing threats

National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru, writing for Bloomberg View, responds to President Obama's anticipation of a more rational 113th Congress with his own anticipation of yet more determined entrenchment.

"If Obama wins re-election, the Republican Party will react by moving right, not left," predicts Ponnuru. "It will become less likely to compromise with Obama, not more." Although his qualifier "less likely" posits an impossible, further deterioration of Republican republicanism, Ponnuru's message is received loud and clear: It's always possible for vile fanatics to become even viler.

Ponnuru concludes in a breezy, extortionate bustle:

The choice before [the American] people is looking more and more like one between Romney and a unified Republican government, or Obama and four more years that look a lot like the last two.

At the characteristic core of this far-right conceit there is of course no choice at all. There's only an ultimatum: it's their way, or it's their way. They'll brook no compromise and entertain no association with the impure. They are the pious, the righteously puritanical who shall cast the wicked antinomians out. They are party--pure party. And the most remarkable incongruity in their twisted political theology is that they deem their absolutism as directly descendant from the Founders--the Founders, they who despised party and feared faction more than any other potential threats to enlightened government.

The right's wholesale reinvention of history is more than a convenient tactic. It's an indispensable one. For only a deeply corrupted collective memory can swathe the right's present abominations in some delusional version of a virtuous past.

Comments

[Peter G]

I had occasion not long ago to tune up some lefty bloggers that I quite respect on this very subject. They got their knickers in a serious twist about Obama's statement that he expected a more rational congress to emerge in his second term and he used that dirty word, compromise. The usual accusations of treason flew. When I asked what they expected Obama to say and pointed out his only alternative was to admit that at least two more years of gridlock were pretty much inescapable given the current polling and that "elect me for no other reason than to stop the Republicans from making SCOTUS appointments" isn't much of a campaign slogan. This is a very difficult problem for the Obama campaign and argues extreme caution. If they dare to point out that without a massive swing to the Democrats in the House the same shit is inevitable they risk having a significant number of voters conclude that a united Republican government is better than a government divided between the two parties.

[japa21]

Peter, I agree. Throughout the last 4 years, and specially the last two, Obama has had to define himself as the one willing to work with the other side. This does two things. It negates a lot of the "Obama is at fault for nothing being accomplished" claims of the GOP. Secondly, it helps define the GOP as a whole as being not interested in moving foward.

Basically he is sayiong, I am willing to work with the GOP if they are serious about be willing to work with me. And specifically pointing out the "make Obama a one term President" quote, he is placing the onus on the GOP to come to the table.

Personally, I think the Dems win back the House and at minimum keep their current majority in the Senate.

In 2010 a lot of Dem candidates stupidly ran away from the President. This year, we are seeing a lot more of them using his rhetoric and campaigning on what the Dems have done and what the GOP has obstructed. Some, like Duckworth in Illinois, are actively campaigning on their closeness to Obama.

[SueMe]

Dear Mr. Ponnuru: Actually we had a unified Republican government from 2000-2006 and look were that got us!

[majii]

I have to give Ramesh Ponnuru his props--he's a wingnut republican to his core. He's having none of that compromisin' and whatever President Obama says is always wrong!