Those Intransigent Democrats: Political fights are risky, unattractive, tough — and a necessity...

American Spectator ^ | 10.24.13 | Matt Purple

[neverdem]

Political fights are risky, unattractive, tough — and a necessity for conservatives.

By now you’ve surely heard about that band of anarchic saboteurs in the nation’s capital, causing painful indigestion to its party elites, preferring rigid ideology to progress and problem solving, unwilling to accept even the most generous compromise, wild-eyed, nihilistic, destructive. I’m talking, of course, about the Democratic Party.

You wouldn’t know it from the news coverage of the past month, which has portrayed the president as a victim of screeching, clawing, Tea Party hordes. But consider the recent stance taken by the AFL-CIO, the mega-union and Democrat mega-donor, on the subject of entitlements. “We are opposed to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits cuts. Period,” Damon Silvers, the union’s policy director, told the Washington Post. “There will be no cover for members of either party who vote for such a thing.”

The issue of entitlements threatens to pull the center-left coalition apart at the seams. Earlier this year, the left-wing groups Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, and MoveOn.org teamed up to apply the pressure. “To be clear, any Democrat who votes to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits is asking for a primary,” said Ilya Sheyman of MoveOn. The Wall Street Journal more recently reported that progressives are trying to stymie the newly formed bipartisan budget committee from reaching a deal that would affect entitlements. “The president is about to run into a major base problem if he tries to do this,” portended Rep. Keith Ellison.

How inflexible is the liberal position on entitlements? Even modest reforms like chaining Social Security’s consumer price index have incited rabid opposition. This despite the fact that chained CPI only saves the Social Security program $127 billion over the next decade — hardly a panacea — and...

[DustyMoment]

Today’s politics are defined by disagreement. Republicans and Democrats have irreconcilable values from which spring different goals that must be accomplished to avert catastrophe. It’s a clash and it’s potent enough to turn even the quotidian business of passing a continuing resolution into a fight over priorities.

The problem between the left and the right has been getting worse since the 80s. Run-of-the-mill Dems are bad enough but, the current schism between Dems and 'Pubbies began with zero's arrogant attitude that Republicans no longer drive the car, they can ride in the backseat.

zero has resisted every effort that conservative Tea Partiers and GOPe politicians have made to try to compromise with him during both his first term and, now, his second. Hairy Reed Dems in the Senate have made it clear that virtually every initiative Republicans try to pass is dead before it ever leaves their hands.

The intransigence of elected politicians, regardless of which party, is only widening the discord and the schism that is spreading across America. We are no longer "one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all" but, instead, we are becoming the unthinkable - a very divided country comprised of organizations whose goals are increasingly more mutually exclusive of each other.

America is currently a simmering cauldron of anger, disillusionment and frustration. People on both sides of the political spectrum are being drawn to one or the other hardline position and each increasingly sees compromise as surrender.

None of this bodes well for the future of our beloved country. And, our choices are becoming more limited with every passing day.