Beyond the Precipice

Yeah, I know other pundits are smarter and more elegant and have this figured out but please bear with me--this is a form of therapy. 

The clown show that just unfolded over the last few days had me, a registered skeptic, fooled.  I actually thought the GOP had pulled off some kind of clever coup by flying off the fiscal cliff with a parachute.  But as the sky begins to clear the sun is becoming more visible, and it looks reddish.  
 
So, what just happened?  Well, it's important to start out with the most likely goals of the president, who was driving the clown car.  With reelection out of the way he appears to have two main goals in the short term--1) redistributing wealth and 2) killing the GOP for 2014 so he can redistribute more wealth, ban more guns, nationalize more health care, give amnesty to illegal aliens, bow down to the UN on climate change and further weaken the church and charitable giving.   All of this would be part of the change he was talking about in 2008.

In trying to neuter the GOP he's using a divide and conquer strategy, pitting the Tea Party against the moderates to splinter the body.  That's why he wanted only some of the Bush tax cuts to expire, knowing how it would affect the party psychologically.  So far the plan is proceeding wonderfully.  Speaker F Yourself is severely weakened with talks of a mutiny.  In all likelihood Boehner cajoled the TP members into voting for the 41 to 1 plan by scaring them about press fallout and promising they would go after Obama on the debt ceiling in a few months.  Now some of these TP members are on the record as voting for tax increases and pork, thank you very much.

When the debt ceiling fight arrives Obama will float back down off the mountain and lecture them about using the debt ceiling for politics, reminding them of their recently-passed spending increase votes by saying "Congress needs to pay for what they have spent".   He will then ignore his own advice and use the debt ceiling to demand even more tax hikes from the rich to pay for any reforms, which is in effect poking the wound. 

But the truth about our debt will come out, you say!  Some places.  But just because Faux News and Limbaugh reports something doesn't mean it really happened.   Hannity's ratings are already way down, Boortz is off the air, Limbaugh becomes less relevant with each passing year.  

If the GOP can't get Obama to cut anything without more tax increases they may be forced to do something drastic like shutting down the government, which is unlikely because the moderates remain deathly afraid of the punishment they'll receive from the press, the White House, Pelosi, Hollywood, Jon Stewart, Facebook, Twitter and Kim Kardashian.  As bizarre as it sounds the RINOs may actually join forces with the Dems to eradicate the Tea Party, who will become increasingly marginalized and ostracized.  How many Alinsky rules is that?  I've lost count.   

Even if the GOP were to coalesce around a set of balls and challenge the administration with something drastic it may result in another credit downgrade, which the Dem machine will beat in a drum circle until the mid-terms, trying to convince the rest of America just how "radical" these "terrorists" are, ie, they must be stopped.   If that sounds wild and unbelievable just look around.  If they are successful America as we know it could be gone by 2016.  And many progs will wave goodbye to it, saying good riddance to a racist invention from a bunch of old white guys and cheering for the new fair freedom-less Utopia of ultimate balance, never quoting Ben Franklin again.   Just remember, they won't be called radicals, it's those little old ladies at Tea Party rallies wearing funny hats and sitting in lawn chairs who were the radicals. 

So what's really going on?  From my view, one group is playing chess and the other is playing checkers, and the GOP is getting beat at checkers.  It's not over yet--halftime or early third quarter maybe, but the GOP is down big and needs a Tebow.   Are there any?  Even the real one is mired in controversy these days.  But at some point there is going to be a goal-line stand.