General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: CNN: How Democrats lost the shutdown [View all]Caliman73
(11,730 posts)Fights get ratings. "Who won the shut down?" "Who are the winners and the losers?" All of this crap is ridiculous. Who won the shut down? It isn't a game. Shutting down the government is a failure! Passing CR after CR to keep the country limping along is a failure! Not allowing bills on immigration reform to be brought up in Congress' regular business is a failure!
Obviously, because I am a Democrat, I side with one party and ascribe blame more heavily to the Republicans, but all of this is just a failure of governance because everyone is thinking about it only as a game.
One party believes that the Federal Government should be working with State and local governments to try to meet the needs of the most people possible with effective public policy. Do they always succeed? No, a big no in many cases. The difference is, they try, and if and when they fail, they try again.
The other party believes that the Federal Government should only protect property rights and economic interests, and most recently, that the Federal Government should enforce a moral order in line with conservative Christianity.
The media never really analyzes what the right wingers stand for, they just report on the game and who wore it better. That is not journalism.