Rope-a-dope the Administration
The Republican Party is effective at campaigning and winning elections, but sucks at governing. For all the huffing and puffing on the campaign trail in 2016, the first Trump administration largely amounted to tax cuts for the wealthy, 500 miles of a border wall and a destructive pandemic gone viral.
We now have the most incompetent cabinet in modern history: a health and human services secretary who is already targeting federal vaccination efforts; a director of national intelligence who was devoted to an allegedly abusive yoga-centered cult; a former WWE tycoon turned head of Department of Education; and a former cable news talking head as defense secretary.
There is nothing the American public despises more than disorder and a broken economy. With no clear leader to voice our opposition and no control in any branch of government, it’s time for Democrats to roll over and play dead. Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight, and make the American people miss them.
The Dems are largely playing defense and struggling to defend politically charged positions (like explaining D.E.I.), and take time to regroup, look forward and make decisions about where we want to get to over the next two years.
Many Democrats are itching at their seams for a showdown. Instead of gearing up to fight them the most radical thing we can do is nothing at all. Let the Republicans disagree with themselves publicly. Do not offer a single vote. Do not insert yourself into the discourse, do not throw a monkey wrench into the equation. Simply step away and let ‘em flirt with a budget default.
Let the Republicans push for their tax and Medicaid cuts, their food stamp cuts. Then let dysfunction paralyze their House caucus and rupture their tiny majority. Then start making a coordinated, consistent argument about the need to protect Medicare, Medicaid, worker benefits and middle class pocketbooks.
The people did not vote for the Department of Education to be obliterated — they voted for lower prices for eggs and milk. At this rate, the Trump honeymoon will be over best case by Memorial Day but more likely in the next 30 days.
Let’s rope-a-dope, Dems.