Bad Politicians Doing Dumb Things

From the House GOP to Kathy Hochul and Kyrsten Sinema, this has been a week of remarkably bad political decision-making.

I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to subscribe, you can sign up here.

I think most of you can figure out my political leanings but as an analyst of American politics what annoys me as much as bad policy decision, is bad political decision-making. These people have won elected office. They should know better, It’s a bit like the Seinfeld episode where Jerry’s dentist Tim Whatley converts to Judaism so he can start making Jewish jokes. As Jerry puts it, I’m not offended as a Jew, I’m offended as a comedian.

This week we have three terrible political decision to discuss that have left me befuddled and annoyed!

More On The GOP’s Bat Shit Insane Debt Limit Brinkmanship

I wanted to follow up on Tuesday's piece about the debt limit because I failed to do proper justice to the utter insanity of the Republican strategy.

The quote that best describes the GOP thought process here comes from former Democratic Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich. As some of you may remember, in 2008, when Barack Obama was elected president, it created a vacancy in the US Senate that Blagojevich, as governor, had the power to fill. Rather than looking for the best person to replace Obama, Blagojevich sought to find the highest possible bidder. In short, he tried to sell the seat, an idea immortally captured in this quote caught on FBI surveillance, "I've got this thing and it's fucking golden, and, uh, uh, I'm just not giving it up for fuckin' nothing."

House Republicans are taking a similar approach. They believe that the best tool in their arsenal to force the White House to listen to them is the debt limit — because if they refuse to raise it, the US will default on its debt, which could lead to an economic catastrophe. Once again, Texas Congressman Chip Roy has said the quiet part loud.

Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur

"You only have so many leverage and negotiating points. The debt ceiling is one of those," @RepChipRoy says. nbcnews.com/politics/congr…

Here’s the problem: House Republicans recognize the power of the debt ceiling, but they have entirely misjudged its usefulness. It only works as a negotiating point if the other side is willing to negotiate, but as the White House and Senate Democrats have repeatedly said, they won’t do that. Moreover, refusing to raise the debt ceiling only provides leverage if House Republicans are willing to kill the hostage. And to be clear, this is not like shutting down the government, which is highly damaging but is a storm that can be weathered. Defaulting on the debt is exponentially worse. Most Republicans would prefer not to go down that path because doing so would likely create a significant political backlash (the party’s nihilist wing seems happy to default).

Republicans might be counting on the media to “both sides” the issue. But it’s going to be awfully hard to make the case that Democrats are to blame for a debt limit showdown when Republicans are the ones who have initiated the conflict. “He started it” might not work in other venues, but here I think Democrats have a pretty good talking point. So, in short, House Republicans have completely misjudged the situation. They’ve decided to create a debt limit showdown without a theory for how it might work in their favor.

But there’s another, even bigger problem. House Republicans are demanding massive spending cuts and deficit reduction in return for raising the debt limit. But, as I pointed out the other day, Republican candidates did not run on cutting spending and reducing the deficit in the Fall campaign, so there’s no substantial constituency in their party for such drastic measures.

If House Republicans demanded more money for border security or revoking funding for hiring IRS agents (which was in the Democratic-passed Inflation Reduction Act and Republicans sought to end in the first House legislation passed this year), it would have nothing to do with the debt limit … but at least it would make political sense. There’d be consistency in the policy demand. But the calls to reduce spending are coming out of left field. To make the situation worse, during the Trump years, Republicans were more than happy to vote for tax cuts and spending increases that exploded the deficit. So dying on the hill of deficit reduction opens the GOP up to charges of rank hypocrisy.

Finally, even if they win this fight, they lose. Let’s say that the House Republicans successfully blackmail the White House into agreeing to massive spending reductions, including Social Security and Medicare cuts. How is that a good political outcome? House Republicans in competitive districts will be assaulted with campaign ads, assailing them for supporting cuts in, arguably, the two most popular government programs. Even Republican voters don’t want to see their Social Security or Medicare benefits on the chopping block.

Let’s say that somehow these social insurance programs are exempted. Cuts to education and environmental programs, student loans, or infrastructure do not generally win you votes. The GOP end game if everything goes their way will likely do little to help them and could potentially help cost them their House majority.

This is political malpractice of the highest order. Republicans decided to have this fight for really no other reason than they could. They made the key issue spending and deficit reduction even though that is likely to backfire against them. And they didn’t consider the possibility that the White House might call their bluff. In short, Republicans believe they have this thing that is “fucking golden” but didn’t think through how it might work in their favor. And it’s here where I turn to Jurassic Park ...

Kathy Hochul … Not So Good At The Politics

So this happened on Tuesday:

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s embattled nominee to become New York State’s top judge was rejected on Wednesday, an unprecedented repudiation that underscored a deep division among Democrats on the direction of the state’s judicial system.

After a combative hourslong hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10-9 against the nomination of Justice Hector D. LaSalle, whose nomination was strongly opposed by progressives who saw him as too conservative.

The committee’s rejection — the first time that New York lawmakers have voted against a governor’s choice for chief judge — laid bare how vulnerable Ms. Hochul, a Buffalo-area Democrat, may be to a challenge from her own party. All 10 senators who voted against the judge were Democrats; two Democrats voted in favor of Justice LaSalle, while one Democrat and all six Republicans on the committee voted in favor “without recommendation.”

This is yet another befuddling political decision.