“I feel like the party went through this and the 2016 election showed that Trumpism isn’t just Donald Trump — it’s the entire Republican Congress, too. Until there is someone in the Republican Party who can stand up to Trump, then none of them are better than Trump.” — Rebecca Katz, Democratic strategist
(“Biden Thinks Trump is the Problem, Not All Republicans. Other Democrats Disagree,” Shane Goldmacher, New York Times, May 4, 2019)
Joe Biden is running on the conceit that Donald Trump is an aberration. And that he, Biden, can reach across the aisle to work with a cooperative Republican Party.
The former Vice President is either making a clever (if not quite factual) electoral pitch (which, while it may sound reassuring, is hardly something we can bank on), or he has a very short memory — because Joe Biden was there when Barack Obama was greeted with absolute, across-the-board opposition from the Republican Party.
Let’s recall:
Michael Grunwald, speaking of his book, “The New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era,” recounts a now familiar plot line for Time magazine (when the United States was poised to plunge into a depression):
It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.”
Grunwald goes on to relate that Biden was aware of this scorched earth strategy:
Vice President Biden told me that during the transition, he was warned not to expect any bipartisan cooperation on major votes. “I spoke to seven different Republican Senators who said, ‘Joe, I’m not going to be able to help you on anything,’ ” he recalled. His informants said McConnell had demanded unified resistance. “The way it was characterized to me was, ‘For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back,’ ” Biden said. The Vice President said he hasn’t even told Obama who his sources were, but Bob Bennett of Utah and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania both confirmed they had conversations with Biden along those lines.
“So I promise you — and the President agreed with me — I never thought we were going to get Republican support,” Biden said.
Robert Draper’s book, “Do Not Ask What Good We Do,” describes the Republican strategizing at the January 20, 2009 meeting:
“The only way we’ll succeed is if we’re united,” Ryan told the others. “If we tear ourselves apart, we’re finished.” But, he added, he liked what he was hearing now. Everyone at the table sounded like a genuine conservative. It was a place to start.
“If you act like you’re the minority, you’re going to stay in the minority,” said Kevin McCarthy. “We’ve gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign.”
…
The dinner lasted nearly four hours. They parted company almost giddily. The Republicans had agreed on a way forward: Go after Geithner. (And indeed Kyl did, the next day: “Would you answer my question rather than dancing around it — please?”)
Show united and unyielding opposition to the president’s economic policies. (Eight days later, Minority Whip Cantor would hold the House Republicans to a unanimous No against Obama’s economic stimulus plan.)
Begin attacking vulnerable Democrats on the airwaves. (The first National Republican Congressional Committee attack ads would run in less than two months.)
Win the spear point of the House in 2010. Jab Obama relentlessly in 2011. Win the White House and the Senate in 2012.
“You will remember this day,” Newt Gingrich proclaimed to the others as they said goodbye. “You’ll remember this as the day the seeds of 2012 were sown.”
Here is how Mitch McConnell summed up the strategy on everything Obama proposed:
“We worked very hard to keep our fingerprints off of these proposals,” McConnell says. “Because we thought—correctly, I think—that the only way the American people would know that a great debate was going on was if the measures were not bipartisan. When you hang the ‘bipartisan’ tag on something, the perception is that differences have been worked out, and there’s a broad agreement that that’s the way forward.”
Why?
Want another example? There was Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi: the Republican never-ending cycle of hearings to politicize the deaths in 2012 of Americans at the Libyan embassy. Why? For political advantage, of course, as Kevin McCarthy (then House Majority Leader; now House Minority Leader) explained in an interview with Sean Hannity:
“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” McCarthy asked. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”
“I give you credit for that,” said Hannity. “I’ll give you credit where credit is due.”
The obstructionist strategy played out in the bipartisan negotiations leading to passage of the Affordable Healthcare Act in 2010, Obama’s major legislative accomplishment, without a solitary Republican vote in favor. Democrats made numerous compromises with Republicans (this is why we don’t have a public option*) before Republicans revealed their unanimous, remorseless opposition to ACA:
… [W]ith Obama’s blessing, the Senate …became the fulcrum for a potential grand bargain on health reform. Chairman Max Baucus, in the spring of 2009, signaled his desire to find a bipartisan compromise, working especially closely with Grassley, his dear friend and Republican counterpart, who had been deeply involved in crafting the Republican alternative to Clintoncare. Baucus and Grassley convened an informal group of three Democrats and three Republicans on the committee, which became known as the “Gang of Six.” They covered the parties’ ideological bases; the other GOPers were conservative Mike Enzi of Wyoming and moderate Olympia Snowe of Maine, and the Democrats were liberal Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and moderate Kent Conrad of North Dakota.
Baucus very deliberately started the talks with a template that was the core of the 1993-4 Republican plan, built around an individual mandate and exchanges with private insurers—much to the chagrin of many Democrats and liberals who wanted, if not a single-payer system, at least one with a public insurance option. Through the summer, the Gang of Six engaged in detailed discussions and negotiations to turn a template into a plan. But as the summer wore along, it became clear that something had changed; both Grassley and Enzi began to signal that participation in the talks—and their demands for changes in the evolving plan—would not translate into a bipartisan agreement.
What became clear before September, when the talks fell apart, is that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had warned both Grassley and Enzi that their futures in the Senate would be much dimmer if they moved toward a deal with the Democrats that would produce legislation to be signed by Barack Obama. They both listened to their leader. An early embrace by both of the framework turned to shrill anti-reform rhetoric by Grassley—talking, for example, about death panels that would kill grandma—and statements by Enzi that he was not going to sign on to a deal.
And, let’s not forget the Senate’s refusal to hold hearings for Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Mitch McConnell is especially pleased with himself for putting President Obama in his place: “One of my proudest moments was when I told Obama, ‘You will not fill this Supreme Court vacancy.'”
When I asked McConnell how he felt about his legacy and Trump’s being so closely linked, he rejected the premise. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think the most consequential call I made was before President Trump came to office.” I asked what he meant. “The decision not to fill the Scalia vacancy,” he said. “I think that’s the most consequential thing I’ve ever done.”
Remember: not a single Republican Senator moved a finger to ensure hearings for Obama’s choice (though there were ineffectual murmurs of complaint — I recall Senator Susan Collins murmuring — just like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker’s mild criticism of Trump, while voting consistently in support of Trump and the Republican leadership).
This, the Garland blockade, McConnell believes, will be his lasting legacy as Senate Majority Leader:
When I asked McConnell how he felt about his legacy and Trump’s being so closely linked, he rejected the premise. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think the most consequential call I made was before President Trump came to office.” I asked what he meant. “The decision not to fill the Scalia vacancy,” he said. “I think that’s the most consequential thing I’ve ever done.”
Count me in the Democratic camp that thinks that Trump is only a symptom of an off-the-rails Republican Party.
*After posting this, I recalled Joe Lieberman’s threat to kill the public option. I don’t wish to let him off the hook for his misdeeds, but if Republicans hadn’t played Max Baucus for months on end with meaningless negotiations and compromises, the ACA would have passed with Ted Kennedy’s vote.
(Image: McConnell, Ryan, Trump, and Pence celebrating the Republican tax bill.)
