A 2011 perspective on the Project 2025 blitz of this year

Gene Lyons has been one of the best journalists covering and analyzing American politics. He recently retired from doing his regular column.

But I was recently reminded of this piece of his from 2011 on how Republicans in Congress were trying to sabotage Barack Obama’s recovery program after the 2008 crash. In the 2010 election, the Republicans took back a majority in the House of Representatives.

The House's freshman contingent appears sincerely misguided. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof asks sarcastically if what Tea Partyers want is a low-tax, limited government haven of conservative religious values like ... Pakistan.

Not really. What most have in mind is something more like the Deep South of the 1950s -- an imagined paradise with comfortable "aristocrats," a timid middle class, and beaten-down peasants at each other's throats.

Many of them probably saw "The Andy Griffith Show" as a documentary.

[For those who may be wondering, The Andy Griffith Show was a CBS sitcom that ran from 1960-1968. It was one of the rural-based, cornpone-humor shows that were popular at the time.]

Republican leadership definitely appears willing to prolong the pain for partisan advantage. As recently as April, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor took credit for 2011 jobs growth. "Over 478,000 Jobs Created Since January, #GOP Majority," Cantor boasted on Twitter.

Never mind that Republicans had yet to propose, much less pass, a significant piece of economic legislation. The improving jobs picture was all their doing.

Needless to say, Cantor's tweeting a different tune after May's disappointing employment numbers. Now it's all the White House's fault. As Washington Monthly's Steve Benen puts it: "Heads Cantor wins; tails Dems lose." [my emphasis] (1)

Cynical and reactionary. This was the Republican Party in the five years before its bear-hug of Trumpism, an even more extreme and mean-spirited of what it already was in 2011.

If there is one thing Trump’s flurry of Trump’s 2025 executive orders should teach the Democrats is that when you have a President coming into office with a majority for his or her party in the Senate and the House, that President’s first two years in office should be peddle-to-the-metal partisan and demanding so as much constructive legislation as possible can be enacted.

Democratic voters want the government to work well and do defend prosperity and democratic rights. Nobody but lazy TV pundits and business lobbyists actually care about “bipartisanship.” Because to them , “bipartisanship” only means Democrats caving in to Republicans.

Notes:

(1) How to sabotage a recovery. Salon 06/09/525011. (Accessed: 2025-29-01).