Davis Merritt: Extremism, left or right, can kill democracy

When U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, was asked Sunday to explain why the new Republican-majority Congress seems just as incapable of governing as its recent bipartisan predecessors, the first words out of his mouth blamed – you guessed it – Barack Obama. The president, he said, could not be allowed to get away with his “unconstitutional” executive order on immigration.

The need to thwart Obama was so intense, he argued, that furloughing 35,000 Department of Homeland Security employees, forcing 200,000 others to work without pay, and endangering Americans’ lives was acceptable to stop the executive “overreach.”

That’s like Willie Sutton claiming jewelry salesmen asking too high a price for diamonds forced him to knock off banks.

But the intellectual dissonance in Boehner’s performance was hardly new for the growing band of House ultraconservatives he may or may not represent but must indulge in order to keep the speaker title. They obviously cannot distinguish between their perceived obligation to ideological purity and their stewardship obligations to democracy. That confusion blinds them to even the most obvious contradictions and absurdities their actions generate.

For instance, their insistence upon linking their effort to defeat Obama’s immigration executive order to funding for DHS would shut down the E-Verify online service that employers use to check the immigration status of prospective hires. But it would not affect Citizen and Immigration Services, which implements Obama’s hated executive order, which is largely funded by fees from the people using it, not taxes. One new problem created, a perceived problem left unsolved. What’s the point of that?

For instance, cutting off funds would not actually shut down such things as the Secret Service and airport security because about 200,000 of DHS’ 230,000 employees would be deemed “essential” and ordered to work. But they would become indentured public servants – indentured not to the idea of eventual freedom but to the idea of keeping their jobs. How do you feel about the safety of the president and all airline passengers being dependent upon people with plummeting morale and distracted by concern about when or if they will be paid?

For instance, a major Republican election pitch to a nation weary of gridlock was that if they were given majorities in both houses of Congress, they would prove they could govern. The pitch worked, but in the House of Representatives that voters chose, there is no party in the Grand Old Party.

In fact, the new membership is spawning the House Freedom Caucus, an initial group of nine flame-throwing radicals with membership by invitation only. It seeks to round up about 30 true believers willing to practice the political equivalent of civil disobedience by lying down in the middle of the legislative pathway and daring the leadership to drag them, limp and loudly shouting slogans, out of the way. Like predecessor civil-disobedience practitioners, they will obstruct, but, unlike most of their predecessors, they do not offer viable alternatives to the evils they futilely seek to stop: no immigration policy or tax reform or health care plan.

And a final instance of intellectual dissonance: The new radical right’s extremism could further alienate Americans from politics. But perhaps that’s precisely what they want: Go away, Americans; we know what’s best for you. Sound familiar?

Whether from left or the right, extremism is the same dead end for democracy.

This story was originally published March 2, 2015 at 6:01 PM with the headline "Davis Merritt: Extremism, left or right, can kill democracy."