WHAT WILL LAME DUCK DEMS DO?
What would happen if the American public voted powerfully against the Democratic agenda in November, and then the Democrats crammed it through as lame ducks in December?
Where would the first shot be fired?
Which city would burn first?
Whose political career would end?
Would there be any accountability at all?
There would be no shots fired, or any cities burned, but one political career would be destroyed.
What’s left of it.
Here’s the background. It’s likely that the Democratic Party, after two years of Obama “change,” will be abandoned by the voters. It’s not disagreement, it’s anger. Americans don’t want what the Democrats have been selling.
And so the Democratic Party is apt to lose control of one or both houses of Congress. The House of Representatives could well fall to Republican control and the Senate could see a far smaller Democratic margin.
Either way, the Obama socialist train is about to jump the tracks. Elections have consequences, as Nancy Pelosi taught us, but so too do stupid policies, and a majority of voters have just about had a bellyful of Democrat jihads that seem to strangle our freedom and prosperity.
And after two years of giving Democrats control of all the levers of power in Washington, conventional wisdom is that, come November, the Obama Democrats are going to be put on a pretty short leash.
Come January, the composition of Congress could be a very different thing.
Which is what makes me nervous about December.
In the weeks after a repudiation at the polls, the Democrats will still have control of Congress. It has been almost two generations since a vanquished party has tried to subvert the people’s will in a lame-duck session, but if any group of losers were going to try it, this would be that group.
And public speculation about that is rampant. In some Democrat quarters, it is even promised.
Cap-and-trade, nuclear-disarmament treaty, union strong-arm tactics approved, new federal taxes and regulations, further gutting of the medical, energy and financial industries. All the liberal crap that voters are recoiling from now may well be forced down their throats between Election Day and Christmas.
The thinking is that, so what, the voters will have no club to swing. The congressmen and senators casting the spiteful votes have already been defeated at the polls, and cannot be held accountable.
And that’s elect orally true.
But the same can’t be said for Barack Obama.
And though it’s not likely he would be re-elected if the vote were held today, a lot can happen in two years and in 2012 he may face rosier prospects.
But not if he goes along with the lame-duck game.
If he signs lame-duck legislation that goes against the will of the people, instead of vetoing it, he will be thumbing his nose at the people whose votes he will one day need.
So, yes, the Democrat Congress may be unaccountable in December, but the Democrat president won’t be. If he wants to be respected on Election Day 2012, he will need to respect Election Day 2010.
If he wants to be truly presidential, he will need to honor the people’s will, not his own ambitions.
And the Democratic Party should remember the value of principle and honor. It should live up to its best history, not down to its worst mistakes.
And it should remember that the ability to lead is limited by the desire to follow or the power to compel. Americans are agreeable and docile people, but if you defiantly subvert their will – if you cheat the processes of our democracy – their anger and retaliation can be significant.
The Tea Party upset has been a consequence of suspicion that Democrat initiatives were trampling freedom. If Democrats were to replace that suspicion with certainty, the push back would become more intense and direct.
That could spell the end of Democrat support from any but the party’s entitlement-class base.
Put another way, you screw us, and we’ll screw back.
It’s easy to see what is fair and right – follow the will of the people. That is the right thing to do whether you win or lose. Sometimes what a party offers will be accepted, other times it won’t. That’s just the way it is.
Honorable politicians put their ideas forward and let the people decide.
But Americans have begun to suspect that the Obama Democrats are not honorable.
A lame-duck ram through would prove them right.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2010
