Why House Republicans blinked
The House Republicans blinked. That’s a sentence you’ll rarely, if ever, see in political punditry today, where they’re always portrayed as the ruthless or calculating side in any political fight – and of course, they’re always clever with strategy – even if those strategies are usually reckless approaches to implementing terrible ideas that will cause pain and suffering for a whole lot of people who don’t deserve it.
However, I wrote that the House Republicans blinked, despite making a whole lot of noise – it’s true. Despite controlling the House, too many of them were elected in moderate districts and couldn’t afford to force a default – regardless of what the Freedom Caucus wanted, so they had to hold their nose and vote – something that our side supposedly hates doing.
Of course, the doom tweeters will probably be at this again for a few more days arguing that President Biden caved to a terrible deal and he should have done some magical 14th Amendment solution that was never actually going to happen – at least until whatever the next big story is. If you drown them out for a second, you’ll realize that President Biden once again exceeded expectations, and the House GOP got the short end here – their only concessions being a few modest cuts – with student loan payments restarting at the time that they were intended to restart after the pandemic, and work requirements that affect virtually no one on SNAP benefits.
The moral of the story is yes, Republicans are evil, but they can be defeated if we work against them – and every moment between now and Election Day 2024 is a moment to fight back. We must win and we will win back the White House and the House in 2024.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making