Republicans Have Been -- And Still Are -- The Damn Problem
"when you look at the facts and study the history of how we got to where we are today, there’s really only one true reason for all of this: The Republican party. Look, politics has always been a drawn out, back and forth process that takes entirely too long to get anything done — but we’ve never seen anything like what we’ve seen from the GOP over the last few years. It’s beholden upon Congress to pass legislation that the president will sign — it’s not the job of the president to bend to the will of Congress. If Congress overwhelmingly supports something that the president chooses to veto, they have the power to override that veto — but at the end of the day, it’s up to Congress to pass legislation that the president supports. Sure, a president needs to show the ability to effectively lead and compromise, but being that they’re the only person voted on by all the people, that’s why they’re given the powers of the Executive Branch. It’s up to Congress to craft legislation that they feel will be supported and signed by the leader of our nation. But most Republicans have refused to do that the entire time President Obama has been in office. In fact, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell once famously said that the number one job of congressional Republicans was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. So, how were they ever going to accomplish that goal (which they clearly failed to do), by helping him fix the country? The simple answer is: They couldn’t. For Republicans, the only option they gave themselves after the president was elected was to obstruct anything and everything they could to prevent President Obama from signing any sort of legislation to help Americans and the country heading into the 2012 elections, hoping that by outright sabotaging him they could scuttle his re-election chances. Hell, Republicans shut down the government in 2013, not because they had any actual hope of accomplishing their goal to repeal the Affordable Care Act — but simply because they could."
