The case for throwing Republicans a fig leaf
It's a straight forward argument. If Republicans get some face saving fig leaf in return for backing off the creaking branch that they've climbed out onto, the odds increase that our American political system won't blunder into a miscalculation of historic proportions, failing to raise our debt limit on time and thus plunging the world into some semblance of a depression after a United States default. A Depression isn't a mere political talking point, anything even reassembling one carries horrific suffering for tens of millions of people. It is an extremely heavy price to pay if that is what it ends up costing to defend a sane and functional governing process in Washington. But personally I am very strongly moved by the counter argument; you simply can not reward terrorists for hostage taking, as it always leads to an even larger crisis somewhere not far down the road.
When two compelling arguments clash head on there isn't much room for some middle ground.between them. In my opinion here it what that is. Republicans may need to be given some fig leaf to save some face behind, even though that might fit the definition of making a concession in the face of extortion. But Republicans still need to be humiliated for what they are now putting this nation through. Any fig leaf they might receive has to be conspicuously tiny, it has to be laughably small, it has to obviously be nothing more than a face saving gesture tossed to them by Democrats in return for Republicans finally backing down.
There can be no real reward for what the Republicans have done. Whatever they "win" from this entire charade they have forced upon our nation has to be pitiful, a consolation prize so small that it is barely worth the cost of a stamp to cash it in. It has to be so relatively inconsequential that everyone outside of the hardest core radical tea party fringe will burst out laughing whenever a Republican tries to justify what they did to America in order to win that fig leaf in return.
The Tea Party is off the charts delusional now in their own sense of self importance. They have reached the point where a suicide mission involving the death of innocents is defended as an honorable course of action. They will persist in their delusions whether or not Republicans get tossed any bones in the ongoing talks inside Washington. But the rest of the Republican Party is desperate to negotiate some surrender terms that they can pretend is something other than total capitulation. When you strip all the politics out of it that is simply human nature. That's why the concept of face saving gestures is well established in nearly every culture on earth.
Here is the bottom line though. The Republicans can't come out of this showdown looking good in the eyes of anyone other than the most rabid supporters of that Party, and even that handful of extreme partisans need to come away feeling extremely disappointed with the outcome from this entire exercise in dangerous brinkmanship and masochistic futility. That's what it means to offer a fig leaf to someone who is otherwise stark naked. They don't exit the scene looking dressed again, they look like someone clutching a fig leaf to their genitals, scurrying away with their knees knocking. That is the price that Democrats minimally need to hold out for this time. That is probably a sufficient price for Republicans to pay to not embolden them to try something like this again.
It's a calculated risk, I grant that. There is some pretty crazy thinking in today's Republican Party, and no doubt some in that Party will end up thinking they can spin any fig leaf tossed them into a fine new silk suit. And yes, even fig leafs have value, even fig leafs represent real concessions, small as they might be. But real lives literally hang in the balance now. If Republicans unquestionably lose this stand off in the public eye, regardless of any face saving gestures Democrats ultimately allow them, in the most fundamental political sense they will not end up rewarded for their hostage taking.
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