Article first published as The Republicans Rail and The Democrats Tuck Tail on Technorati.

The Republicans are winning again. Motivated by hate, fear and ignorance, Americans are flocking to bring back into power the party of plight for all but the wealthy.

Yesterday, the Republicans revealed their new “Pledge,” with John Boehner stating that “We’re not going to be any different than we’ve been.” They’re actually promising a return to the policies that created the Great Recession and people are still applauding instead of throwing rotten fruit at them.

Thinking people need to be concerned. The political landscape in America is no longer about principles and policies; it’s about the creation and recycling of talking points that trigger emotional responses. The Republicans have truly mastered the “art” of political theatre. Their satirical mockery of democratic government would be funny if it weren’t such a tragedy, if it didn’t hurt so many for the benefit of so few.

Americans should be mad as hell about our broken government. But getting mad at Republicans for distortion, hyperbole and lies is like getting mad at a bird for crapping on your windshield; it’s just what they do. You might as well shake your fist at the wind.

But the Democrats are another story. While the Republicans were sharing their “Pledge to [Rape] America,” yesterday, Senate Majority Leader, Harry, the Cowering Wimp, Reid was announcing that there would be no vote on extending the Bush tax cuts to the middle class until after the election. Yep, the Democrats are once again rallying behind their track-proven strategy of tuck-and-cover. Once again, they’re rolling up in the fetal position and hoping for the best.

Bravo!

For those Democrats who believe President Obama hasn’t gone far enough, a brief pause to consider the team he’s had in the Senate might be in order. If Michael Jordan were to take the court with four high-schoolers, they’re not going to threaten even the worst NBA five. The fact that Obama was able to get anything through a Senate that was effectively controlled by the minority is actually quite remarkable.

Like the old adage says, “you can lead a horse to water . . .” The President came out swinging in Cleveland. He gave the Democrats the line in the sand they needed to define themselves. He took on the Republicans for their continual pretence of support for small business, their feigned concern about jobs, and their hypocrisy regarding the deficit. But while the Republicans were out power posturing yesterday, the Democrats were showing what cowards they truly are; they decided to turn and hide.

Democratic voters should be incensed, and their rage should be squarely directed at all the gutless Democrats who continue to allow the Republican bullies to rule the congressional schoolyard. In statements yesterday, they voiced their concerns that the Republicans would spin Democratic support of tax cuts for the middle class in a negative light — as if not voting on them will prevent the attacks.

The conclusion is inescapable: the Democrats never learned that the way you beat bullies is to stand up to them. Republicans aren’t going to win the election in November because they had the better policies — because they have none. They’re not even going to win because they have the better talking points. They’re going to win because no matter how egregious their distortions of the truth, no matter how hate-filled their rant, no matter how fictional their arguments — they’re the only ones talking.

Democratic policies support 98% of the population. They uphold the right ideals and have all of the facts, both theoretic and historical on their side, yet they’re losing. Perhaps someday they’ll come to understand that when people are fed a daily diet of fact-free propaganda, unless the opposition is refuting the claims with the same strength of conviction, the people are going to swallow.

Until that day, the Republicans will continue to keep their followers seeing red, and Democratic voters will be left feeling blue.

To argue that the dysfunction of the federal government is purely a Republican issue would be naïve. Long unable to move forward on Democratic legislation, the new Congressional majority of 2009 was quick to let loose and take advantage of a Democratic executive branch.

The ARRA was the first significant legislation to wear the stamp of a Congress controlled by Democrats. Although it has been successful, in spite of Republican spin, one has to wonder how effective it might have been if more keenly honed to address directly the specific issue of job creation. It’s true that it included $288 billion in tax relief that cut the tax bills of 95% of Americans, and that it also sent $224 billion to aid the states and pin up Medicaid and unemployment insurance. But the $275 billion that went to direct investment was not, like the other portions, intended to sustain current spending and break the fall. It was allocated for the express purpose of creating jobs.

It is within this direct investment component of the stimulus that the Democrats established their most resounding successes, but unfortunately it also exhibits their most disappointing failures. There’s little room for legitimate complaint about the $90 billion allocated for clean energy or the $20 billion that will fund the digitizing of medical records. Both of these programs will pay dividends to American taxpayers far into the future. But the vast sum of grant money distributed into the black hole of government gives cause for concern and lends substance to the Republican argument that Democrats are all about bigger government.

Though the data is not coded to ease such extraction, a brief analysis of the information provided for download at http://www.recovery.gov/ reveals some interesting facts. The data representing all allocations through the end of June includes 347,915 awards of contracts, grants and loans, totaling $237 billion. Interestingly, a query of the data looking for “recipients” with a name that includes “school” or “education” finds 59,916 awards totaling $47 billion. Similarly, a search of “college” or “university” nets 26,047 awards for nearly $17 billion. Looking for funding that went to cities, a query of “city of” returns 16,364 award and another $17 billion; counties apparently received on the order of $12 billion, state departments of transportation around $19 billion, and other state departments and housing authorities close to $20 billion more.

All told, on the order of $131 billion appears to have gone to government organizations. This is not to say that none of this funding found its way into the private sector, or that thousands of private sector jobs were not created. Many of these government agencies, from school districts to transportation departments, maintain a practice of subcontracting to industry vendors. But once the money is fed into the bureaucratic machine, suspicion arises, and rightfully so. Such practice is viewed as more SNAFU (Situation Normal All Fouled Up) because accountability and transparency are severely obscured. The result is that both the motivation and effectiveness of the investments is appropriately called into question.

Fortunately for Republicans, not long after the Stimulus, the Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. From that point on, steadfast Republican obstruction has reigned supreme over timid Democratic initiative. As stated above, the Republicans, without doubt, deserve their share of the blame in this, but if not for the Democrat’s extreme lack of intestinal fortitude, much more meaningful legislation could have been passed. From healthcare to finance reform, the Democrats have allowed themselves to be bullied, never once requiring the filibustering Republicans to actually stand up and control the floor of the Senate. Instead, each time they compromised and produced diluted legislation of questionable worth.

In the end, the most well defined accomplishment of our near completely dysfunctional Congress is a starkly polarized populace. Americans on both sides of the debate blame the other. The Tea Party blindly carries the banner of smaller government and continues to grow in its numbers, railing against an ineffective government but upholding positions that only promise to make it more so. When will we learn?

Government is not the enemy, but the sorry excuse in Washington sure is. The solutions are before us, but the path we’ve chosen, through two political parties that fight harder for control than for the wellbeing of the nation is leading us to destruction. The American people need to wake up, to refuse to listen to anymore political rhetoric and to start asking more intelligent questions. America doesn’t need smaller government, nor does it need larger — it needs effective government, and it needs it now.

Americans complain about the federal government’s failure to restore the economy, and they largely place the blame on the Democrats because they are in power. But while the Democrats have their share of culpability, the Republicans have earned their title as the “Party of No.”

Ironically, the party whose members claim unwavering dedication to the original spirit of the Constitution has relied upon a parliamentary maneuver that was not part of the Framers plan and used it to obstruct the process of government. The filibuster, which did not exist at all until 1837 and did not require a super-majority to break before 1917, has become a prominent feature of the obstructionist Republican minority.

The filibuster was used sparingly up until 1970. Between 1919 and 1960 there had been only 27 filings of cloture (motion to end a filibuster). But in recent times it has grown in popularity, with the Republican minority of the past two congresses setting all-time records. Prior to the 110^th Congress (2007-08), the Democratic minority had held the record with 68 filings in 2005-06. The last two Republican minorities eclipsed that total by stopping the wheels of government 139 times in 2007-08 and already 118 times in the current Congress.

This is obstructionism, plain and simple. Our democracy is based on political deliberation and debate that culminates in a vote, and the Republicans have strived to stop this process from occurring. They have essentially fought to block anything and everything the Democrats have proposed and offered nothing in the way of alternatives. So egregious is their barricade of democracy that they have no defense against charges of deliberate sabotage at the expense of American citizens.

The Republicans blocked healthcare, and they stood in opposition to Wall Street reform. They opposed job aid to the states, and they fought against extending unemployment benefits. They filibustered small business stimulus and attempted to stop the closing of loopholes to disrupt the offshoring of jobs. The Republicans have even repeatedly resorted to filibustering President Obama’s appointments, adding greatly to their excessive number of holds, which have led to fewer than half of the President’s judicial appointments being confirmed. The inescapable truth is that the party that wants people to believe that government is ineffective has done everything within their power to make it so.

Yet as counterproductive as this “just say no” tactic has been inside the Congress, the distortion and spin so prevalent in the media has been even more destructive. Witness the Stimulus: routinely portrayed as an abysmal failure by Republicans, non-partisan experts credit it with adding as much as 4.5% to the GDP and trimming 2 full percentage points from unemployment. In fact, as stated by economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s, it just happens that the month the NBER identified as the end of the recession was the month in which Stimulus spending was at it’s maximum.

Interestingly, it was also June of 2009 when former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich told the crowd at a Republican fundraising event that the Stimulus had “already failed.” His claim was obviously untrue, but when the objective is strictly confined to discrediting the opposing party, regardless of the costs to the American people, the rules of honesty and common decency have no bearing. From Sarah Palin to John Boehner, Mitch McConnell to John McCain, the Republicans have set aside any semblance of sincerity in order to mask their commitment to the wealthy and regain power on the backs of a struggling middle class.

Next: Broken Government — Democratic Inadequacy