Republicans Know How to Exercise Power

I have to compliment Senator Mitch McConnell, he knows how to use power. When there was a Democrat as president and a vacancy on the Supreme Court 9 months before a presidential election and 11 months before a new president would take office McConnell used his power as Senate Majority Leader to stop even the consideration of the President Obama’s nominee. His argument was that the people should be allowed to speak. It didn’t matter that his action was unprecedented. The people spoke and nearly 3 million more voted for the Democrat. Nevertheless a Republican won due to the anti-democratic Electoral College votes and it didn’t matter that it was hypocritical to still prevent even a hearing let alone a vote.

Now only 5 months from an election in one third of the senators who will vote on the new president’s Supreme Court nominee will stand for election he’s pushing hard to assure that a vote is taken before the people have an opportunity to speak again. Democrats just don’t have the idea that when you have power you’re supposed to exercise it. Obama had overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate and failed to use his power to push through a robust Affordable Care Act. Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi allowed the Republicans to amend and twist the bill into a pretzel without ever committing to vote for it. That’s one of the reasons Republicans and Trump have been able to whittle away parts of it in an attempt kill it without taking blame for breaking the parts that even Republican voters like.

Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership failed to use the power of their offices to twist arms that needed twisting and it was just the Affordable Care Act. We didn’t get the forceful stimulus bill we needed, nor the environmental protection bill that would have put a real dent in climate change, or an immigration bill that might have prevented the tragedy we’re seeing at our southern border today. In fact I would argue that Obama’s failure to use the power inherent in the office is the very reason we have Trump as president today. I believe that if he had used his power in concert with the congressional leadership Democratic voters wouldn’t have sat on their hands in 2010 and Republicans wouldn’t have taken control of both houses of Congress. If he’d been the strong leader we needed voters in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida would have turned out to vote for another Democrat in 2016 and the winner of the most votes would have also won the Electoral College vote.

It’s important that Democrats get out and vote in November so we can take back the Senate and the state legislature. It’s also important that our Democratic leaders use their power to do the people’s will. Failure to use your power is a lot like failure to use your muscles. Democrats have allowed their power to atrophy unlike Mitch McConnell who doesn’t even blink at his own hypocrisy. McConnell uses his power to get anything and everything he can accomplished.

Neither Franklin Delano Roosevelt nor Lyndon Johnson were perfect, but they did great things for this country because they understood both the need and the method for exerting power. As we now know winning elections isn’t enough if you aren’t going to use your power to get things done. Understanding the use of power is one of the key attributes I will look for in every candidate in future primary elections.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 13, 2018