New Congress Better Make Pelosi Speaker Or Be Prepared To Be Outside Looking In Come 2020

The year was 2008, there was an elec­tric dynamism in the air.
For many Americans, par­tic­u­lar­ly those of African her­itage, it was like Christmas in July.
No, African-Americans did not get the promised forty acres and a mule their ances­tors had been duplic­i­tous­ly promised and denied.
No, there would be no repa­ra­tions paid to them for the 373 years of slav­ery their ances­tors endured between 1492 and 1865.
It was some­thing less trans­ac­tion­al but a lot more moti­va­tion­al.
Contrary to the think­ing of most of those Americans, a black man was elect­ed President of the United States, break­ing what many believed was a shat­ter-proof ceil­ing that would out­last them all.

On Obama’s coat-tails rode a new Congress and a new Senate, all Democratic.
The new President entered 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with a free hand to enact his agen­da, or so he and many of the peo­ple who vot­ed for the new pres­i­dent and Congress thought.
The Republicans had oth­er ideas for the first African-American pres­i­dent, in fact, Mitch McConnell said his pri­ma­ry goal was to make Obama a one-term pres­i­dent.
I have tried to play McConnel’s state­ment over and over in my head, I imag­ined I was a Democrat in McConnell’s shoes and inter­est­ing­ly I do not find it so hate­ful a state­ment for the senior Republican in the Senate to have made.
Of course, I would have want­ed a Republican President to be a one-term pres­i­dent.
While the new pres­i­dent was being sworn into office, how­ev­er, a band of Republicans with nefar­i­ous intent was hav­ing a secret din­ner at a pri­vate restau­rant in DC with one goal in mind.
[How to stop every­thing Obama attempt to do].
I labeled them [nefar­i­ous] because to those involved elec­tions had no con­se­quence.
To them, the will of the American peo­ple meant noth­ing when com­pared to their own agenda.

In a then new­ly pub­lished book, Robert Draper wrote that as President Obama was cel­e­brat­ing his inau­gu­ra­tion at var­i­ous balls, top Republican law­mak­ers and strate­gists were plot­ting how to derail his infant pres­i­den­cy.
Present at the din­ner were Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.).
The non-law­mak­ers present includ­ed Newt Gingrich, sev­er­al years removed from his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, and Frank Luntz was con­jur­ing up ways to sub­ma­rine Obama’s presidency.

In two short years, the Democratic major­i­ty in the house was gone and the major­i­ty in the Senate reduced to a razor-thin major­i­ty for the Democrats.
A well-fund­ed insur­gency cloaked under the dis­guise of grass­roots con­cerns would emerge in American pol­i­tics as a push­back to Obama’s rise.
The Tea-Party was born, nei­ther the Republican par­ty nor America would be the same again.
A resur­gent racism would be unleashed on the nation. We are yet to under­stand what it will all mean in the end.
The inevitable ques­tion then was what the hell just hap­pened?
The rea­son giv­en for the 2010 loss has been head spin­ning in num­ber and vari­a­tions, none of which I sub­scribe to.
Obama Continued point­less wars some argued.

Others claimed Democrats were out­flanked by com­pet­ing philoso­phies. Still, oth­ers say the Democrats lost sup­port from major cor­po­rate lob­bies and financiers.
Yadda, yad­da, yad­da.
The truth of the mat­ter is that Democrats did exact­ly what they are doing this cycle. They spent time bick­er­ing among them­selves about who were blue dog democ­rats as against who were lib­er­al democ­rats and much of what the new President could have accom­plished was shelved.

Fast for­ward to 2018, the Democrats are pow­er­less in the dog-house, lit­er­al­ly shut out of Government at every lev­el and has just been restored to some pow­er after win­ning the house.
The very first thing which comes out of the new cau­cus which has­n’t even been sworn into office yet is infight­ing about jet­ti­son­ing the leader who just led them back to the major­i­ty.

I don’t want to talk about Charles Schumer’s lack­lus­ter unin­spir­ing lead­er­ship in the Senate which actu­al­ly cost Democrats seats in that body.
No need to talk about Schumer giv­ing away the store to Mitch McConnell, allow­ing him to place more judges on the fed­er­al bench just so he and oth­er Democratic sen­a­tors could go home to cam­paign.

What I want to talk about is the utter stu­pid­i­ty of this Democratic par­ty and the new­ly elect­ed ones in par­tic­u­lar.
Former RNC chair­man Michael Steele admit­ted on nation­al tele­vi­sion that the rea­son his par­ty launched its attack on con­gress­woman Nancy Pelosi was her effectiveness.

Now, I did not need to hear that out of Michael Steele’s mouth.
If Republicans go after a Democrat it always is because of that Democrat’s effec­tive­ness. Ask Maxine Walters, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and oth­ers.
If this low­ly opin­ion writer can con­clude that Nancy Pelosi is a thorn in the paw of the Republican Lion, why would these new­ly-mint­ed elect­ed offi­cials not be able to under­stand it?
Why would these new­ly mint­ed elect­ed offi­cials vol­un­teer to be the [Androclus] who removes that thorn? [see Aesop fables]

There is much work to be done in this 116^th Congress, much more than any in a very long time. At issue is the need to work on leg­is­la­tion to strength­en the Affordable Care Act.
Voters chose health care as the num­ber one issue they vot­ed on in the recent­ly con­clud­ed midterm elec­tions. 
There is also the issue of the rule of law and the dire need to instill some over­sight of the exec­u­tive branch. 
If the Democrats are stu­pid enough to squan­der this oppor­tu­ni­ty to get to work doing what they were elect­ed to do and decide to spend time-fight­ing among them­selves they should be pre­pared to be back in the minor­i­ty come 2020.
In addi­tion to that, it is not a stretch to imag­ine that a frus­trat­ed, fed up and exas­per­at­ed elec­torate will re-elect Donald Trump to the pres­i­den­cy, leav­ing the Democrats cry­ing in their milk once again.