Analysis: Biden needs to figure out what kind of GOP opposition he's facing

[Nevilledog]

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Norman Ornstein
@NormOrnstein
Tragically, @JohnJHarwood is right:

Analysis: Biden needs to figure out what kind of GOP opposition he's facing
The collision of the new President's agenda with the old one's impeachment trial this week sharpens the question: Just what kind of Republican opposition does the Democrat in the White House face?
cnn.com
10:13 AM · Feb 8, 2021

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/07/politics/biden-republican-opposition/index.html

(CNN) — The collision of the new President's agenda with the old one's impeachment trial this week sharpens the question: Just what kind of Republican opposition does the Democrat in the White House face?

If the GOP remains an honest voice for a wide swath of Americans in the democratic competition of ideas, President Joe Biden has reason to follow his instincts toward common ground on Covid-19 relief and the rest of his agenda. But if the GOP has devolved into something else -- dishonest, detached from reality, bent on gaining power by undemocratic means if necessary -- he can justify skipping the time and effort.

Biden has straddled the question so far. But Republican leaders plainly fear the party risks forfeiting its historic claim as the mainstream conservative alternative to Democratic liberalism.

Distinguishing his party from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky warned last week that "loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican Party and our country." The 2012 GOP presidential nominee, now-Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, called the Republican tent "not large enough to both accommodate conservatives and kooks."

Yet House Republican leaders refused to sanction Greene for having suggested violence against political opponents. The party remains in thrall to former President Donald Trump, even after his flagrant lies about the 2020 election incited a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol.

*snip*

[dawg]

1. Doesn't matter.

Neither wing of that party will negotiate in good faith.

[Midnight Writer]

2. "what kind of GOP opposition"? Total?

The opposition is there and inalterable, no matter the justification for it.

Democrats should reach out their hand, but when the Republicans won't shake it (and they won't), then we need to move ahead and take care of business.

[Nevilledog]

4. I don't even want to reach out a hand

[Midnight Writer]

6. I understand. I still bristle remembering when McConnell refused to shake Obama's hand.

[Nevilledog]

7. I think we should just ignore them. Make them come to us.

[maxsolomon]

3. "If the GOP remains an honest voice for a wide swath of Americans"?

They don't. I don't know that they have ever been in my lifetime.

[lame54]

5. Like Manchin?