Remember the yelling, screaming and personal attacks on the credibility of Republicans who opposed slapping the Unaffordable Care Act onto the federal spending bill just four years ago?

Maybe it’s because I stopped watching Maddow, Ed Schultz has vanished and Mika & Joe have cured their sexual tension by dumping their spouses and moving in together, but it seems there are fewer tantrums since the Democrats themselves obviously shut down the government for a few days recently.

In fact, left-wing sites like Alternet and the Huffington Post have been reporting on the recent Democratic government shutdown by gleefully recalling the shutdown of 2013, for which they blame Ted Cruz.

Ah, memories.

Problem is, it was the Democrats who shut down the government in 2013, not Ted Cruz, whose old-school, Jimmy Stewart-style filibuster included the reading of Dr. Suess’ “Green Eggs and Ham.”

During this historic filibuster, Cruz said, “We should not shut down the government. We should fund every bit of the government, every aspect of the government, 100 percent of the government except for Obamacare. That is what the House of Representatives did. The House of Representatives – 232 Members of the House, including 2 Democrats – voted to fund every bit of the Federal Government, 100 percent of it, except for Obamacare.”

Republicans didn’t want a shutdown because they knew the media would blame them for it and then produce dramatic pieces showing how horrible the shutdown is for people.

They had no idea that millions of Americans would recognize that Cruz was right and that Obama tried to make the shutdown seem worse than it was by unnecessarily closing the White House to midwest school children and ordering police to keep tourists away from federal parks no rangers had ever guarded, to try to make the shutdown look worse than it was.

Just before the shutdown, Cruz explained, “If we have a shutdown, it will be because Harry Reid holds that absolutist position and essentially holds the American people hostage.”

And that’s what happened.

There was yelling and screaming and the Republicans were blamed for the shutdown, while millions of Americans turned their heads and wondered if they really were responsible.

The since-disgraced Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida called Republicans “unhinged” and likened their objection to Obamacare funding in the spending bill to burning down the house because they didn’t like the design of the kitchen.

Never mind the millions of Americans who can’t even afford to use the policies the government forced upon them.

Democrats shouted illogical demands that Republicans, conservatives and libertarians must go along with President Obama’s policies because he was elected by the people.

Good luck finding Democrats who feel the same way about Trump and his policies.

Today, there are Trump supporters who believe Democrats should support Trump’s policies because he was duly elected.

That’s crazy. The last thing Democrats want is for Trump to succeed in appointing young, conservative federal judges, which he has.

In fact, Trump appointed a record dozen Federal Appeals Court judges in his first year, despite Democrats voting against the judge who emigrated as a child from Taiwan before he could speak English and two women.

They surely don’t want Republicans to defund Obamacare.

Democrats certainly don’t want Trump’s tax policies to result in higher middle class salaries, more investments in business infrastructure or more employment, as that might cost them elections.

Unfortunately for them, that is exactly what Trump’s new tax laws are doing.

That is a lot of what this most recent government shutdown was all about:political posturing at the expense of the American people.

Anti-Trump Republican Jeff Flake even believes the shutdown over adding DACA to the spending bill gives Congress a better chance at a long-term solution for DACA.

It’s also interesting that many in the major political media are blaming “both sides” for the shutdown.

In Washington media-speak, that means it was the Democrats.

 

Rick Jensen is an award-winning conservative talk show host on WDEL. Contact Rick atrick@wdel.com.