Are the Republicans staging a coup?

Confederates attack Fort Sumter.

I know that sounds crazy but hear me out.

It’s obvious now that they are trying to force Democrats to vote against their most cherished programs.  Social Security is the jewel in the crown of government programs.  And Medicare is indispensable to millions of seniors.  Then there are Pell grants, foreign aid to countries struggling against their dictators, childhood nutrition programs, public education, the *post office*, forgawdssakes. The Republicans are asking for $4 trillion dollars in cuts and conceding nothing in increased revenue.  Not only that, if the Democrats sign off on any of it, they are condemning the country to severe misery because our economy is not strong enough to withstand less money to people who need it.  If you’ve got no money to spend, you can’t pay taxes or put other people to work.  It’s a vicious cycle.

And Obama was prepared to give Republicans everything they asked for.  I think it is clear to Obama voters that he is a disaster.  Let this be a lesson to the Democratic leadership.  You can’t gift self-esteem.  It must be earned through trial and error and hard work.  Obama was not ready to be a president and giving him the presidency wasn’t going to make him one any faster.  It’s probably also a dumb idea to give the guy a Nobel Prize for the same reason.  Accomplishing peace when your predecessors went out of their way to tie countries up in knots is very, very difficult work.  It’s a good thing Obama has Hillary because he isn’t qualified to be Secretary of State.  I mean, think about that.  Would Obama really make a good Secretary of State?  This is the guy who said he would meet with Ahmedinejad without preconditions.  Ok, I digress.

Anyway, the Republicans are pushing this to the limit.  They’re either going to get the Democrats to condemn themselves when they vote on austerity that causes devastation to millions of American families (that way, Democrats get the blame in 2012) or they’re going to force Obama to invoke the 14th amendment and order the Treasury to raise the debt ceiling without Congressional approval.  If Obama had done it when the talks broke down a week ago, maybe we wouldn’t be having this showdown.  He could always say it was temporary until Congress got its act together.  But now that Congress has made such a fiasco of the budget debate, it will be very difficult for Obama to raise the debt ceiling without the ratings agencies downgrading our creditworthiness.  Actually, they don’t have to do this.  They’re just threatening.

But what if getting Obama to invoke the 14th is Republican plan B?  We assume that Obama can just do it and the courts will determine at some future date whether he was correct to do it or not.  If everything works out OK, then it simply looks like a matter of it being better to ask forgiveness than permission.  But we forget that the Republicans have 5 solid votes on the Surpreme Court on their side.  Oh sure, Kennedy is *supposed* to swing like a pendulum do but in actuality, he doesn’t.  He’s as much a movement conservative federalist as the other four.  So, what if the court is already set up to say “NO!”.  What then?  Is it an impeachable offense?  While I don’t think the House or the Senate have the votes to impeach, they can do a lot of damage in the interim, tying up  legislation for months. Could they force him to resign?  Bill Clinton was under pressure to do so over a little nothing affair but Clinton was a good president with a savvy political nature.  Barack Obama, um, isn’t.

Is this effectively a coup? Is it domestic terrorism?  Should the world demand that the Republican leadership pay some kind of price for the precarious position it is putting the worlds’ economies through?  Is it international terrorism as well?  And when if demonstrations start, who does the Army support?

By the way, did anyone notice that the South Carolina Republican delegation all voted against Boehner’s bill tonight?  It was South Carolina that seceded first from the union in 1860 and it was confederate South Carolina who fired the first shots at Fort Sumter in April of 1861.  Are we watching a grudge that will not die?  That’s all we need, a bunch of religiously zealous legacy secessionists with a score to settle because Obama sure isn’t Lincoln.

And for all you Obama voters out there, do you get it now?  Do you regret voting for him in the primary now that you see what he is (ie, not ready for the big leagues)?  Would Hillary have been worse?  Really??