This story originally appeared in The Washingto Post Nov. 23, 2021
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/23/robert-kagan-constitutional-crisis/

Opinion: More evidence that talking to Republicans is useless

Opinion byJennifer Rubin
September 23, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. EDT

Republicans have proved at every turn that they are not merely incapable of governing but are determined to cause havoc and real harm to America — from the refusal to create a Jan. 6 commission, to their assault on voting rights, to their obstruction on raising the debt ceiling and confirming executive branch nominees.

More examples of their destructiveness arrived on Wednesday. The Post reports that two former treasury secretaries who served under Republican presidents, Henry Paulson and Steven Mnuchin, “held private discussions this month with Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).” The former secretaries and Yellen essentially pleaded with McConnell to vote to lift the debt ceiling rather than wreck the economy. It was no go. The Post quotes former Democratic treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers as saying, “Reality is not a partisan thing. Raising the debt limit is acknowledging reality, not making a partisan choice.” Well, that is quaint.

Acknowledging reality is the most partisan thing to do these days — whether it’s who staged the attack on the Capitol, how to protect the country from the delta variant, who won the 2020 election or what happens when the United States does not pay its bills. Republicans routinely operate in a parallel universe, in which the fun-house mirror of right-wing media reshapes reality to fit its MAGA agenda. The least effective strategies with Republicans is to appeal to their sense of patriotism or shame them into doing the “right thing.” Republicans operate on a singular principle: Whatever helps them retain or accumulate power, they will do, no matter what the harm to America.

The notion that there are capable GOP interlocutors who can negotiate deals with Democrats crashed and burned when Republicans rejected a bipartisan deal on the Jan. 6 commission negotiated by Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.). They see anyone willing to acknowledge the reality of the attack — such as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — as a threat to the party.

Like Charlie Brown and the football, however, Democrats have not ceased their efforts to work across the aisle with Republicans. It does them no good. The Post reports: “Bipartisan negotiations on overhauling the nation’s policing practices to stem the killings of Black Americans collapsed Wednesday, a stalemate emblematic of a divided Congress.” As was long suspected, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) was immovable on reforms to qualified immunity, which protects police officers and other officials from civil suits even when facing the most egregious set of facts, such as those in the murder of George Floyd.

In a frosty statement, the White House decried Senate Republicans who “rejected enacting modest reforms, which even the previous president had supported, while refusing to take action on key issues that many in law enforcement were willing to address.”

Even if Scott had struck a deal, there is every reason to believe that other GOP senators would have filibustered any meaningful police reform. Republicans have made crystal clear that they reject the existence of systemic racism in policing (there’s that reality thing, again). Therefore, they cannot bring themselves to hold police who kill, harm or discriminate against African Americans accountable, or to provide any significant restraints on their conduct (e.g., banning chokeholds).

I do not know how many times Republicans must prove to Democrats that the GOP will refuse to help the country if there is any chance it might annoy the disgraced former president or the MAGA base. It does not matter what the arguments on the merits might be. It does not matter how grave the damage to the country (e.g., violent insurrection). We have never before seen this sort of institutional nihilism.

The solution to a party utterly devoid of patriotism or conscience is twofold. First, voters who want a governable democracy must throw them out up and down the ballot. Second, Senate Democrats must take away the filibuster, a weapon Republicans routinely use to hobble our democracy and are now using to threaten its financial well-being.

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) does not pass the laugh test when he insists he can find 10 reasonable Republicans on voting reform or much of anything else. The more obvious the GOP’s dereliction of duty becomes, the more foolish or insincere Manchin appears.

An irrational and dangerous movement that took over the GOP holds the Senate and the country hostage. The question now is whether Democrats have the nerve to disarm political opponents willing to blow up our democracy and economy.

Opinion by Jennifer Rubin
Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post. She is the author of “Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump.”