Among Republicans' many misleading rhetorical ploys — together, there are gazillions — employed on the singular matter of refusing to raise the debt ceiling is that Senate Democrats, in the past, have also voted in opposition. Which is true. What is also true is that Democrats have historically done so only when there was no question that the ceiling would be raised; their opposition was mere theatrics for the fiscally befuddled back home.
Because to not raise the debt ceiling would be stupid, malicious and catastrophically reckless. These are behavioral inclinations that Democratic politicians tend to abjure. Not Republicans, though, for two reasons: Their tenure in office depends fundamentally on the stupidity, malice and cranked-up recklessness of their base, and, of equal significance, Republican pols just kinda like behaving that way. If they didn't, they would not have run as Republicans to begin with.
In a primal, preemptive scream, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spelled out the ABCs of Republicans' malicious stupidity in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last Sunday:
"[Default] would likely precipitate a historic financial crisis that would compound the damage of the continuing public health emergency [and] trigger a spike in interest rates, a steep drop in stock prices and other financial turmoil…. Mortgage payments, car loans, credit card bills—everything that is purchased with credit would be costlier after default…. Nearly 50 million seniors could stop receiving Social Security checks for a time. Troops could go unpaid. Millions of families who rely on the monthly child tax credit could see delays…. Billions of dollars of growth and millions of jobs [would be] lost."
These are facts, as was Yellen's conclusion: "Neither delay nor default is tolerable…. We are just now emerging from crisis. We must not plunge ourselves back into an entirely avoidable one."
Plunging headlong into avoidable crises, however, is a Republican speciality of the highest order. Fomenting chaos and crisis is also the party's principal objective, for only by proving that government is nothing but chaos and crisis can Republicans also prove that Democrats are useless.
And here, in the impending calamity of a debt-ceiling standoff — about debt incurred mostly by Republicans — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has stumbled, ironically, on an uncomfortable reality: Senate Democrats are co-conspirators in making Republicans' case of Democratic uselessness, resulting in chaos and potential crisis. I'll let Mitch explain:
"The debt ceiling will need to be raised," he conceded last week to Punchbowl News. "But who does that depends on who the American people elect." In a contemporaneous tweet, he strained for more clarity: "Let’s be clear: With a Democratic President, a Democratic House, and a Democratic Senate, Democrats have every tool they need to raise the debt limit. It is their sole responsibility."
The generality of that last part is, of course, bullshit. In any Congress with two sane parties, raising the debt limit would be a happily achieved, bipartisan exercise. In this miserable Congress, however, raising the debt limit is, indeed, Democrats' de facto, sole responsibility.
Now, laughably untrue in McConnell's assertion is that — at the moment — Democrats possess "every tool they need to raise the debt limit." See: filibuster.
Yet Senate Democrats do possess the power to unravel the wretched thing; to obliterate its undemocratic wickedness not only for America' fiscal survival and health, but, oh, I don't know, maybe also to guarantee every American's right to vote and ensure that the Trump-McConnell-McCarthy Party can't steal future elections? Just a thought.
To accomplish these rudimentary decencies, the filibuster's total annihilation is unnecessary. Advisable, but not required. Exceptions to the filibuster rule already exist, and democratically minded Democrats have proposed further exceptions. Nothing radical there. The problem, as we all know, lies in the ferocious obstinance of a few Democratic senators — very few. So here we are, tied up in immovable debt and electoral sabotage.
But that's not McConnell's problem.
It's the Democratic Party's problem, exclusively. However infuriating, however sickening, however absolutely insane it is, raising the debt limit in a responsible, timely fashion, as well as permanently safeguarding American democracy, is Democrats' sole responsibility.
Because they're dealing with a stupid, malicious, unthinkably reckless opposition party hellbent on American chaos, crisis and catastrophe.
And if Democrats cannot proceed accordingly — that is, as the majority power they are — then their unforgivable failure shall be America's epitaph.