Potemkin Parliament, Pseudo-Legislature

 

The indispensable Mark Steyn brings clarity to the fake Congress...

As I said earlier, I find myself at odds with virtually the entire politico-media class in my reaction to the "storming" of the US Capitol. As I put it:

The political class (represented by a Speaker who flies home to San Francisco on her own government plane) has been largely insulated from the pathologies they have loosed upon the land. For a few hours yesterday they weren't.

In a self-governing republic of citizen-legislators, that ought to be sobering and instructive. But, of course, it wasn't. Still, I was surprised that even politicians and pundits could utter all that eyewash about "the citadel of democracy" and "a light to the world" with a straight face. It's a citadel of crap, and the lights went out long ago: ask anyone who needs that $600 "relief".

I despise the United States Congress, and not merely for the weeks I had to spend there during the Clinton impeachment trial: My contempt pre-dates that circus. It dates to the moment I first realized, as a recent arrival to this land, that when Dick Durbin or some such is giving some overwrought speech on a burning issue he is speaking to an entirely empty chamber - because there are no debates, because most of these over-entouraged Emirs of Incumbistan are entirely incapable of debate: See, inter alia, Ed Markey.

But the fact that they might as well be orating in front of the bathroom mirror isn't why I despise it. It's that the American media go along with the racket, and there's only the one pool camera with the fixed tight shot so that you can't see the joint is deserted and the guy is talking to himself. The wanker press is so protective of its politicians that it's happy to give the impression that a boob like Markey is Cromwell in the Long Parliament.

I have never seen such rubbish in the House of Commons at Ottawa or Westminster or their equivalents around the Commonwealth - and it's a charade in which the media are all-in.

So it's a Potemkin parliament.

Read the whole thing. 

Mark Steyn: The Morning After

The morning after the mid-terms of 2018 I'm quite optimistic.  Mark Steyn - in his inimitable fashion - gives a few reasons why.

A few notes on last night:

~There was no blue wave.

That doesn't mean the loopier Democrats won't be gung ho for investigations and impeachment. But the narrowness of the House victory does mean that anything they try on in that regard will cause them at least as many problems as it causes the President.

~As for the Paul Ryan House, neither Trump nor his base will miss it. The reason? Headlines like this:

Republicans Surrender on Trump's Border Wall to Push Paul Ryan's 'Tax Reform 2.0'

As I commented way back when:

Gee, it's almost like they want to lose....

Only the day before yesterday, no one bothered to talk about Republicans "holding" the House because Republicans had never taken the House - in living memory. Until Newt's "Contract with America" in 1994, the Democrats had controlled the House for four straight decades, and indeed, with the exception of two one-term GOP blips, for two-thirds of a century. Exactly the same in the Senate except for Reagan's coattails for six years in the Eighties. Every GOP president of the last half of the twentieth century - Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr - faced a Democrat House and a Democrat Senate. What Trump did with those Senate seats yesterday was unprecedented for a Republican, and underlines the lesson of the House loss: Yes, "suburban women" are antipathetic to the President, but it is nevertheless a fact that there's a Democrat party and a Trump Republican party but there is no viable Semi-Detached-from-Trump party.

And Mr. Market, which has an unsentimental view of events had a part and rose more than 2% on the news.

The DNC Inside Hack

Becerra Tried To Block Server Admin Over Red Flags, But Logins Continued, With Muted Reaction

Xavier Becerra, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, barely reacted when he learned the caucus server had been infiltrated in 2016, although he loudly decried the hack of the Democratic National Committee that happened around that same time. No one has faced punishment for the caucus server infiltration.

The then-congressman, who is now California’s attorney general, refused to articulate even the barest details of the cyber breach at a press conference Wednesday, and would not say whether he’s seeking criminal charges against longtime IT aide Imran Awan and his family.

Members of the Awan family logged on to the Caucus server 7,000 times without authorization between October 2015 and August 2016, according to a House investigation. The logins suggested “the server is being used for nefarious purposes and elevated the risk that individuals could be reading and/or removed information,” it said.

This is on of the most mysterious issues surrounding the Democrats in congress, the people who they hired for their IT services, and the active cover-up of what appears to be high level corruption.

It happened over a long time and involved many Democrat members of congress.

Kickbacks?  Fraud? Blackmail?  This stinks to high heaven and definitely needs the sunlight of exposure.

Trump does what people want. Outrage ensues.

Trump made a deal with Democrats to fund hurricane disaster relief and raise the debt ceiling. “Never Trumpers” of every Party and label are shocked. He is being called names by his enemies and his supporters are accused of being duped by a Democrat in disguise.

But step back for a moment and ignore, if you can, all the rabid voices. Ask yourself what so many people who are not particularly partisan have asked of politicians in Washington. They want to see politicians get along and do things for the common good.

So here we have it. Money has been appropriated for disaster relief. The debt ceiling has been raised. It’s a two-fer. Who, except for partisans, want to see Congress tied up in gridlock, fail to pass disaster aid and wrangle until the very last moment in that perennial fight over raising the debt ceiling?

You know the debt ceiling will be raised; it always is. The only question is whether the Republicans will be accused of shutting down the government. The news stories were already written about the “horror” of the Government defaulting on the national debt. Now the Democrats and the Press – but I repeat myself – will have to put their stories and faux outrage back in the pending file for the next time this issue comes up. The best thing that could happen with the debt ceiling is to remove it. Get rid of an issue that only allows politicians to pretend to care, to posture and preen in a Kabuki theater that has gotten so old it’s grown a beard. 

Stop it already. We know you’re lying. Clear the decks for issues that matter. Grow up.

Maybe Republicans want to lose the House

Don Surber:

Mike Kelly was the Erie, Pennsylvania, car dealer who challenged Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper in the Tea Party Year of 2010, and beat her by 10 points. His margins of victory were bigger in 2012 and 2014, and last year he ran unopposed.

Home from Washington this month, Congressman Kelly sees an America the media does not see.

From Fox Business News:

"Back home, people aren't mad at the president. They're mad at the Republican Party for not working with the president to try and get things done," said Rep. Mike Kelly (R., Pa.), who said he hears complaints while doing errands at Wal-Mart in a district that Mr. Trump handily won.

How Republican lawmakers respond to such frustration -- and whether they move past the health defeat or get swept back into that fight -- will determine whether the GOP-led Congress returns as a unified force. August is the longest recess of the year, and constituents can both energize and draw energy from lawmakers who appear at town halls and other meetings.

Many Republicans are worried that an inability to deliver major legislative accomplishments would result in significant GOP losses in midterm congressional elections. Although Republicans have a favorable map in 2018 that should bolster their chances of holding their Senate majority, GOP strategists see a greater risk of losing control of the House.

The story went on about polls and the like which show gloom and doom for Republicans hanging on to the House.

Certainly the Senate is unhelpful.

And what is Paul Ryan's incentive to stay on as speaker? He could make five to ten times as much money as a lobbyist. He's never going back to Wisconsin. He is a creature of the swamp. He has lived in Janesville only one year since turning 18, and that was to run for Congress the first time. College in Ohio followed by living in Washington.

Eric Cantor lost a primary to David Brat. Cantor was rewarded with a nice lobbying job.

'Tis their nature. Washington has become a magnet for men of weak will and poor character.

The FBI Illegally Refuses to Supply Congress With the Unredacted 302 Interview Notes from Hillary's Interview; Jason Chaffetz Has Something to Say About That

Obama Admin Won’t Tell Congress How It Paid Iran $1.3 Billion in Taxpayer Funds

Remember the bundles of cash paid as ransom for kidnapped Americans?  Here's a good question, how did Obama ship another $1.3 billion to the Mullahs in Iran?

The Obama administration is withholding from Congress details about how $1.3 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds was delivered to Iran, according to conversations with lawmakers, who told the Washington Free Beacon that the administration is now stonewalling an official inquiry into the matter.

The Departments of State, Treasury, and Justice have all rebuffed a congressional probe into the circumstances surrounding the $1.3 billion payment to Iran, which is part of an additional $400 million cash payout that occurred just prior to the release of several U.S. hostages and led to accusations that the administration had paid Iran a ransom.

Government health insurance: the ultimate sickness

How do you take the best health care system in the world and screw it up so badly that you had better hope that you and your kids never get sick? Ask Barack Hussein Obama and the Democrats in Congress because thy managed to do it.

And my friend’s story isn’t the only nightmare Americans have been experiencing. A Facebook page dedicated to ACA horror stories has been created, and the stories are heartbreaking.

FreedomWorks last year did an article of its own, detailing top ObamaCare horror stories, including that of a pastor diagnosed with stage three cancer of the esophagus who was told – just minutes before getting chemotherapy – that his treatment would not be covered.

Meanwhile, the left’s smarmy, arrogant, lying, biased, craptastic excuse for an economist Paul Krugman last year claimed the ObamaCare horror stories were “imaginary” – concocted by those who obviously just are too ignorant to know how FAAAAABULOUS ObamaCare and too stupid to know what’s good for them.

These are real people with real life problems, betrayed by politicians and pundits who couldn’t even begin to understand what it’s like to not know how your next grocery bill will be paid, or what it’s like to lose sleep, because the IRS says you owe them money you don’t have.

Read the whole thing.

Should the President be spying on congressmen?

HOUSE INTELLIGENCE CHAIR SEEKS ANSWERS ON NSA SPYING REPORT

Ted Cruz Explains Why GOP Leadership Won’t Fight to End Planned Parenthood’s Federal Funding

Cruz has led the fight in the Senate against Planned Parenthood’s $500 million in taxpayer funding. He attributed its failure to Republican leadership’s decision to rule out a government shutdown.

“From a Democrat’s perspective,” Cruz said, “why would you let an appropriations bill pass if you can just wait until the end of the fiscal year, come right up to the edge of the cliff, and know Republican leadership will surrender? You don’t even have to guess on it. They promised you from the outset.”

This is a perfectly reasonable prediction.

Voters: Ignore Obama vetoes, keep passing bills he doesn't like

A strong majority of U.S. voters want Congress to continue to pass legislation the president opposes, like for construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a clear sign that they now see Washington's power shifting to the GOP-controlled Capitol Hill.

A new Rasmussen Reports poll issued Friday found that 59 percent of voters "think Congress should continue to pass legislation that most members of Congress support even if the president is opposed."

Just 25 percent want Congress to cave into the White House and 16 percent are unsure.

Among the people who demand Congress cave are all the members of the media, including Charles Krauthammer and George Will.  Both spend much too much time inside the beltway and believe that what they read in the media is a reflection of what the American people believe.

GOP DOUBLE-CROSSING TRAITORS

Ann Coulter takes the wood to Republicans on amnesty.

Remember when?

Back when they needed our votes before the last election, Republicans were hairy-chested warriors, vowing to block Obama's unconstitutional "executive amnesty" -- if only voters gave them a Senate majority. The resulting Republican landslide suggested some opposition to amnesty.

Heading into the election, college professor Dave Brat took out the sitting House majority leader and amnesty supporter Eric Cantor in a primary, despite being outspent 40-1. It was the greatest upset in history since the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" at the Lake Placid Olympics: Never before has a House majority leader been defeated in a primary. And Brat did it by an astonishing 55.5 percent to 45.5 percent.

Again, the voters seemed to be expressing disquiet with amnesty.....;

Since at least 2006, voters have insistently told pollsters they don't want amnesty. Seemingly bulletproof Republican congressmen have lost their seats over amnesty. President Bush lost the entire House of Representatives over amnesty. What else do we have to do to convince you we don't want amnesty, Republicans? Make it a host on "The View"?

Now:

Republicans and George Will tell us they can't stand up to Obama's executive amnesty because the media are unfair.

Oh, well, in that case ... never mind.

This is news to them? They didn't know the media were unfair when they were promising to block Obama's illegal amnesty before the elections? The media have blamed the GOP for every failure of Republicans and Democrats to reach an agreement since the Hoover administration. This isn't a surprise development.

I have this Walter Mitty dream; I'm running for office and my campaign focuses on the media ... I would run against the media. My opponent would be the media which supports my opposition.

Why don't Republicans attack the media? People hate the media! Their power is eroding -- and it would erode a lot faster if Congress would challenge them. Instead of submitting to the media's blackmail, my suggestion is, take their gun away.

Tell voters what the media won't: that Obama's "amnesty" will give illegal aliens Social Security cards and three years of back-payments through the Earned Income Tax Credit, even though they never paid taxes in the first place.

Could we get a poll on that: Should the government issue work permits to illegal aliens and give them each $25,000 in U.S. taxpayer money? I promise you, Obama would lose that vote by at least 80-20. Even people vaguely supportive of not hounding illegal aliens out of the country didn't sign up to open the U.S. Treasury to them.

Tell voters that the media are refusing to report that, for the past two weeks, Senate Democrats have been filibustering a bill that would defund Obama's illegal amnesty.

Ann points out that if DHS isn't funded 200,000 out of 230,000 of its employees woudl still show up for work.

Are the Republicans deliberately throwing the fight?

Why don't Republicans spend all their airtime attacking the media for lying about what Obama's amnesty does and what the Democrats are doing? It's hard to avoid concluding that Republicans aren't trying to make the right arguments. In fact, it kind of looks like they're intentionally throwing the fight on amnesty.

If a Republican majority in both houses of Congress can't stop Obama from issuing illegal immigrants Social Security cards and years of back welfare payments, there is no reason to vote Republican ever again

Rush Limbaugh has stated that Republicans and their corporate backers are in favor of amnesty. That's absolutely right.  But while GE's Jeff Immelt has money, he only has one vote.  This could destroy the Republican party.  If the Republicans in congress stab their voting base in the back they'll never win another election.

Trey Gowdy on the role of the House of Representatives

It got him a standing ovation.

What’s the difference between Obama and a Latin American Caudillo?

Ruling by presidential decree is a characteristic of the typical Latin American “Republic.”

Does anyone care what the Brazilian or Venezuelan congresses do? What the Mexican Senate and Chamber or Deputies decide? Populated by powerless eunuchs, many of el Presidente’s own party, they don’t matter except as a façade.

So what’s the difference between the way Americans are ruled today and the way the heirs of Peron and Chavez rule their country? Is there that much difference between Obama and the rule of the president of Mexico whose term is often labeled the "six-year monarchy" because of the seemingly unchecked power that historically has resided in the office? 

Less and less.

And while the term “imperial presidency” has been bandied about for many years in this country, it has never been more blatantly practiced than by the current occupant of the White House. No other American president has ever had the brass to tell the American people that he will rule them with a phone and a pen.  And the Democrats in congress and the press cheered him on.

Debate in the Federalist Society, an organization that tries to advance the notion that the constitution should be the basic law of the land, pointed out that over many years Congress has ceded its power to the President.

“If Congress wants to restrain the discretion of the president, they are supposed to do what the separation of powers encourages them to do: Write the statute tightly so that it will be actually administered the way you want it administered," Baker said. "The reality is many members of Congress don’t care how it is administered until somebody squawks about it. They don’t read the statutes, so how do they know how it is going to be administered.”

Members of the Republican party, at least those who are actually opposed the Imperial Presidency (instead of paying lip service to it) are hoping the courts will bail them out. That's what they thought would happen the last time the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of ObamaCare.   How did that work out?

“I do not think the executive is subordinate to the judiciary, and if the executive is not subordinate to the judiciary and has the power to independently interpret the Constitution, it can’t be exercised only at the veto point when a prior president may have signed the bill,” ... “The president who inherits the bill has to have the opportunity to interpret it himself and not be bound by the prior administration. The idea that the prior administration can tie the hands of a subsequent administration doesn’t make sense to me.”

So in 2008 with Democrats in control of both houses of congress and with the election of Obama, the nation was set on a new course. Barack and Michelle promised to “fundamentally transform” America, and with the assistance of the Democrats in the senate and house, they are well on their way. But because of the resistance by a majority of the American people and a minority of conservatives in congress, they have done so less by legislation and more by executive fiat.

Is there a constitutional remedy?  Yes, theoretically.  Impeachment is a remedy for a president who commits "high crimes and misdemeanors."  Those would include taking actions which he lacks the authority to take.  Charles Krauthammer calls amnesty via an executive order an impeachable offense.   But the Republicans are afraid of trying to remove Obama from office, even if they had the votes to convict, which they do not.

Obama has been applauded by the press because they support the direction he is taking the country. They approve of socialized medicine and government control in general … in fact there is very little about socialism they don’t support. But with the support of the goals, they have turned a blind eye to the means. They like the Caudillo when he’s ruling in their favor, believing – perhaps incorrectly – that the next Caudillo will continue the trend. That’s to be seen, but in the meantime the constitution is kicked to the curb and the rule of law is replaced by the rule of the strongman.

In the Banana Republics, the rulers often change when the military stages a coup. The problem with the Caudillo system is that it invites extremism.  Riots in the streets in reaction strong-man rule often leads to ambitious military officers restoring calm and occupying the centers of power.  Often the military has the greatest legitimacy among the competing power centers.  The current ruler of Egypt is the most recent example.  

In the US, the Gallup Poll shows that the military is the institution in which Americans have the greatest confidence with 74% approving "a great deal or quite a lot."   The presidency comes in 7th at 29% and congress is dead last, even lower than TV news.  

 Don't say we were not warned.

This Isn't High School. Does Obama Think He's Leader of the Plastics?

President Obama called Russian ruler Vladimir Putin Saturday afternoon and threatened to blackball him from the Mean Girls club.

“President Obama made clear that Russia’s continued violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would negatively impact Russia’s standing in the international community,” the White House said.

This is lame. Who does Obama thing he is, Regina George?

Apparently Obama is unfamiliar with Napoleon's famous maxim: "When you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna."  Putin wants Ukraine and intends to take Ukraine.

“The United States calls on Russia to de-escalate tensions by withdrawing its forces back to bases in Crimea and to refrain from any interference elsewhere in Ukraine,”

Why would Russia do that? Who is in a position to stop him? This isn't high school.  He's not afraid that Obama will talk behind his back.

There is only one possibility that would make Putin back up and appear to give Obama a win. Remember that Obama is in the process of gutting the military to pass out more food stamps. A militarily belligerent Russia could cause a backlash in congress and foil this plan. A secret deal between Putin and Obama, with Russia appearing to back down from the Ukrainian invasion, could set the stage for further military cutbacks and give free rein to Russia, no matter who the American President is in 2016.

NEW YORK TIMES: TEA PARTY 'NIHILISTS' TO BLAME FOR KILLING FILIBUSTER

The New York Times editorial board spent Thanksgiving bringing Americans together by ripping into the Tea Party, suggesting that conservatives were “nihilists” because they opposed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) destruction of the filibuster. 

Blaming the victim is part of the Left's playbook.

ObamaCare law is doing exactly what it was supposed to.

There’s a lot of chatter in Washington that Democrats on the Hill feel like they were lied to or misled by the White House. But if you understand how our Constitution works — and they should, given that they only took an oath to defend it — it’s Obama who should feel lied to.

The law is really quite clear. It was so clear that the Congressional Budget Office — their own in-house think tank — said that millions would lose their health-care plans. Obama even said so with the Democratic leadership in the room.

More to the point, the law was intended to cause millions of people to lose their existing plans so they would enter the exchanges.

Now the same people who literally wrote the law feel betrayed when the law does exactly what they intended. That’s like getting mad at a remote-control car when you crash it. Yes, the website’s failures make the panic more acute, but the fact remains that the Affordable Care Act is doing precisely what it’s supposed to do.

The Left lives in an echo chamber. The entire collective believed their own propaganda that the country had a health care crisis. That's what they said. That's what the media faithfully amplified. What they did not realize was that most people were satisfied with their health care and their insurance. So when this was yanked away from them they got really, really mad.

What does Congress think of “enforcement discretion”

Bud Norman has another good piece on Obama's latest foray into lawlessness.

Wonder what Congress thinks of “enforcement discretion?” Sort of leaves Reid, Pelosi and the rest of the congress critters as powerless eunuchs.

Death benefits not paid to fallen soldiers families

 

The MSM  and the conservative media are treating the scandal very differently. 

 

To read about the story in the MSM, the Pentagon had no choice about withholding payment of the death benefit from the grieving families and denying them a plane ride to Dover AFB to meet the bodies  of the soldiers killed in battle.  It seems that some unknown entity we'll call "Mr. Government Closer" found a rule that said that death benefits can't be paid, but that the Pentagon can keep the military golf course open so that President Obama can play.  Of course nobody told Obama anything, he has to wait to read about it in the Washington Post.  And of course, when Commander-in-Chief Obama found out what the Obama Pentagon had done he went right to work ordering his Pentagon to find a way.  What a guy! 

 

Of course the reality is 180 degrees from this fairy tale.  The Obama administration wanted to create the maximum pain on the American people to pressure the House of Representatives to cave in to all the Obama demands.  These include absolutely no changes in that train wreck called ObamaCare (except what Obama decrees) and a blank check with no limits on all future government spending.  

 

So how can we cause the American people pain while blaming it on the Tea Party?  If that meant closing the open-air World War 2 Memorial and the Viet Nam Memorial that was one way.  If it meant closing the Grand Canyon and Mt. Rushmore, that was another.  If it meant turning young cancer patients away form the NIH and refusing to consider a bill passed by the House to keep it open, that was third.  If it meant not paying the widows and orphans of the dead, that was a fourth.  The list of petty and vindictive actions taken by Team Obama is much longer than this, but they will do to show the nature of the people at the top. 

 

This is the group that has the full throated support of the MSM who tell us that we should be blaming the Republicans and the Tea Party because they can make all this pain go away if only they would give in.  And it's true, you can always make the torturers stop if you give them what they want.  But make no mistake about who's inflicting the pain and the nature of the people who choose to deny aging veterans access to their memorials, families the right to see their parks and grieving families the right to meet their dead heroes and collect the pittance that is due them.   Make no mistake that when you hear how this is all the fault of the Tea Party, just keep in mind that the House of Representatives has passed bills to fund all of these activities, but Harry Reid won't let them pass in the Senate and Obama promises to veto them.   

The losers in the shutdown are incumbents; the "Ruling Class"

Henry Kissinger, pressed to root for a side on the Iraq-Iran war memorably remarked “it’s a pity they can’t both lose.” Barack Obama, who counted on blaming the Federal Government ‘shutdown’ on the Republican Party, has succeeded in making Kissinger’s impossibility come true. He lamented that it was a pity both parties — especially his — were losing.

In particular the president regretted that too many people were blaming both sides for the event. “When this gets reported on, everybody kind of thinks, well, you know, both sides are just squabbling; Democrats and Republicans, they’re always arguing, so neither side is behaving properly”.

Gallup’s latest poll says its actually true. “Among top U.S. political figures, there are no winners in the budget standoff, at least in the early days of the shutdown. The public sees Republican and Democratic congressional leaders, as well as the president, more negatively as a consequence of the budget impasse. … A majority of Americans, 57%, say they now view President Obama more negatively as a result of the shutdown, while 28% see him more positively.”

Richard Fernandez believes that the big, big losers are the long-time incumbents.

Obama’s shutdown calculus was predicated on its likely effect on GOP vs Dem polling, which is turning out to be more of a tossup than he bargained for. But even if the blame fell more heavily on the Republicans, it was the wrong metric to watch. He was measuring blood pressure when he should have been looking at blood sugar. Thus his pollsters neglected to reckon on the shutdown’s effect in another metric: the contest between incumbents versus challengers.

By this metric the incumbents are definitely losing. Readers will recall from Storming the Castle the idea that there is really one party in Washington, the Party of Incumbency and that people like Harry Reid and Charlie Rangel are as permanently ensconced in office as officials in any one party state; that Leo Linbeck’s PAC controversially attempted to support any challenger against an any incumbent, regardless of party in this belief, to break up the monolith.

The shutdown is now operating like a wrecking ball on the incumbent’s popularity. The Economist warned that a disgust of the GOP did not mean that voters thought better of the Democrats. “Things have in fact been moving in the opposite direction: Polltracker’s congressional generic-ballot poll average, which Democrats had led since last year’s elections, is now about even for the two parties, not because Republicans have improved—they have spent the entire period hovering at 38%—but because Democrats have dropped to meet them.”

There is a fight because the people back home are demanding it after showing that they are willing to throw out the bums who join the Ruling Class and are unwilling to fight for principles they were sent to Washington to uphold.

Because congressional districts are largely gerrymandered into so many safe Republican and Democratic seats, the sitting congressmen fear being upended by factions within their own party than by the rival camp. If the GOP is holding more firmly in the standoff than predicted it is because they fear an outraged conservative challenge so intensely that they will not risk an open surrender.

Perhaps the Democrats are holding fast for the same reason. Obama can’t surrender to Boehner because he fears the tar and feathers from his own left wing. So it’s over the cliff he goes. That he never anticipated it would come to this was predicated on the belief that the Republicans would fold like a cheap suit as they have so often done.

But Ross Douthat insightfully notes that an unlooked-for awakening within the Republican party which has led to a kind of grim determination everyone assumed was never there.

So what you’re seeing motivating the House Intransigents today, what’s driving their willingness to engage in probably-pointless brinksmanship, is not just anger at a specific Democratic administration, or opposition to a specific program, or disappointment over a single electoral defeat. Rather, it’s a revolt against the long term pattern I’ve just described: Against what these conservatives, and many on the right, see as forty years of failure, in which first Reagan and then Gingrich and now the Tea Party wave have all failed to deliver on the promise of an actual right-wing answer to the big left-wing victories of the 1930s and 1960s — and now, with Obamacare, of Obama’s first two years as well.

“They didn’t dare,” Frum wrote of the Intransigents’ Reagan-era predecessors, “and they realized that they didn’t dare.” Well, this time, no matter the risks and costs and polls, there are small-government conservatives who intend to dare — because only through a kind of wild daring, they believe, can the long-term, post-New Deal disadvantage that the cause of limited government labors under finally be overcome.

The result is that this is turning out to be fight, not between “Republicans and Democrats” — as the press likes to view it. The shutdown is assuming aspects of a struggle between insiders and outsiders; between the Beltway and the Beyond. Obama had calculated on winning the fight. But even if wins the fight, it will be the wrong fight.