It seems that Republicans are shocked to discover that Democrats are actually really angry with them and not interested in just “uniting” with them for the sake of the country without any accountability.
I had blogged previously about the work of Rebecca Solnit, and her analogy that Republicans and Democrats are now in what is essentially an “abusive” relationship, where Republicans can perpetrate a kind of violence without ever having to take responsibility. They believe they can just make peans to unity and move on, free to engage in the same kind of violence at a future date.
Well, some of the current blowback from Democrats can be seen in an interaction between Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ted Cruz, who apparently wanted to join with AOC in investigating the Gamestop/Robinhood controversy.
Having had her life threatened, AOC is clearly pissed. But she’s hardly the only one. An article in Politico documents the raw anger that many Democrats are feeling with their Republican colleagues, and the defensiveness that the Republicans have retreated to. Among other things, the article notes that:
- Some law-makers are privately refusing to work with each other.
- Some law-makers are afraid to be in the same room with each other.
- Lawmakers have now been barred from bringing guns onto the floor of the House or Senate.
- Lawmakers are no longer being allowed to side-step the metal detectors.
- Many Democrats remain livid at those 139 Republicans who refused to certify the election.
- A couple of Reps almost came to blows during the certification vote after the insurrection.
- Some Democrats are looking to expel the QAnon conspiracist freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
- House leadership is investigting freshman Rep. Lauren Boebert and others who might have given aid and comfort to the insurrectionists.
Some Democrats, particularly moderates, argue that their party will have to move on if they want to get anything done legislatively.
But Democrats — who have been notorious for being spineless and disorganized compared with their often Machiavellian Republican colleagues (see the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, if you don’t know what I mean) — may finally have been pushed too far.
Nothing could be better than Democrats to finally have drawn a Maginot line beyond which Republicans cannot cross without consequences. It would be nice to see the Republicans on the defensive for a while.