“Bipartisanship” Should Be An Epithet
- Patrick Toomey
- Jul 5
- 3 min read
-by Patrick Toomey
On July 3, 2025, a date that will live in infamy, the donkey’s beloved concept of bipartisanship breathed its last. So did much of FDR’s legacy, the ACA, and most of the party’s other positive achievements during the lifetimes of any living American. Come to think of it, the Dems’ pre-FDR legacy was nothing memorable, so the party’s legacy as a whole largely expired on the House floor on that dark afternoon.
The GOP, as a party, gleefully threw dirt on the graves of the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and the Great Society. It wasn’t the handiwork of 1 overfed, oversexed, and undereducated front man. It was fathered and nurtured by party stalwarts like Grover Norquist and Mitch McConnell.
Cutting social spending for the poor and middle class, cutting taxes for the top 1%, and running up huge deficits in the process have been essential elements of the GOP playbook since halcyon days of St. Ron the Forgetful. Let’s remember what then-OMB Director David Stockman said of the 1981 Reagan-era upper-bracket tax cutting orgy. Do you realize the greed that came to the forefront? The hogs were really feeding. The greed level, the level of opportunism, just got out of control.
Stockman summarized the GOP template for 45 years and counting now. Yes, Trump has been extremely effective at conning people who will be severely hurt by that template into voting for representatives who supported it. He’s using, however a tried and true playbook that predates the birth of his Vice President.
There is this myth that the GOP is the party of fiscal rectitude. In reality, as Dick Cheney once noted: “Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." The GOP cares about cutting deficits about as much as our Crytpo King cares about hiring qualified personnel for key posts.
The elephant has made it abundantly clear in word and in deed since before most Americans were born that its core philosophy is fundamentally antithetical to the donkey’s stated ideals. The GOP has wanted to overturn the ACA from day 1, even though key elements of it came from the Heritage Foundation. It wants to privatize Social Security, and it has long been happy to abolish other governmental agencies or slash their funding to the bone.
Under these circumstances, the Dems’ repeated attempts to find “common ground” with an opposing party that has such profound differences with it boggle the mind. In 2019, candidate Joe Biden stated:
“The thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House. Not a joke,” Biden told reporters at a diner in Concord, New Hampshire. “You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends.”
More recently, Senate Minority “Leader” Chuck Schumer said the following after the 2024 elections:
“As I’ve said time and again, in both the majority and the minority, the only way to get things done in the Senate is through bipartisan legislation while maintaining our principles— and the next two years will be no different,” he said.
The ACA, for better or for worse, was not bipartisan legislation. Nor was Obama’s Stimulus Package. The Big Ugly Bill that the GOP just rammed through was the antithesis of bipartisanship. Any leader of a caucus in either house who is this ignorant of basic political reality should resign or be removed forthwith.
There were too many times to count over the decades that I’ve thought THIS time the Dems will wake up and FINALLY realize that “bipartisanship” is a fool’s errand. Ultimately, I effectively abandoned that line of thinking. I don’t know if the sight of the GOP House Caucus gloatingly chanting “USA! USA!” as they (metaphorically) pissed on the graves of FDR and LBJ will finally rid the donkey from this delusion, and I’m not even sure that it really matters much at this point.
The GOP has finally succeeded in its 45-year effort to turn the US of A into a giant Amazon Warehouse. The Dems have continually tried to meet the GOP halfway during that era. In the process, the Overton Windows were steadily moved to the right.
The damage is done. Rural hospitals are already making plans to close, sick people will lose their health coverage, essential agencies will be gutted, and our economy as a whole will suffer from a Keynesian Deflator, all so that Jeff Bezos renting out Venice for his wedding can be mimicked by others. Even if the Dems do prevail in 2026 and 2028, reopening shuttered hospitals and rebuilding gutted agencies will be nigh impossible.
The donkey’s dedication to the delusion of bipartisanship has been a defining disaster for decades. The Big Ugly bill was the culmination of a fundamentally flawed core strategy. It didn’t have to be this way.
No, this won't work.
Gorgeous George was a professional wrestler during the '50s who made a career out getting his ass kicked.
That's what this looks like to me.
If the Dems were a professional fake opposition party, how would their behavior be different?
The trouble with your thesis is that the Dems haven't been out of power for thirty years. They have been out of power for a couple of months.
Strangely, when they do take power, until Lina Khan, they never reverse all that terrible damage to 'their' legacy, even when it could be cured by a rescinding an executive order, or a competent cabinet appointment.
There are two political parties, the party of evil and the party of stupid. Evil always wins that competition, thus we have the Big Bullpucky Bill.