Let me finish tonight with this.
I think the difference between the Democrats and Republicans is getting as wide as the Grand Canyon.
Watch how they do it:
President Obama wants to keep the government running. Republicans threaten to stop it. It’s relentless. The fiscal “abyss,” the “debt ceiling,” the “sequester,” the end of the “continuing resolution.” Different words, different deadlines, all detonate the same explosion. Threaten to crash the government if you don’t like the way it’s doing something if you don’t like who the American voter has elected.
Isn’t this what the Republicans did back in the old days? If you don’t like government—Guatemala, Iran, the Dominican Republic, Chile—just bring it down.
Guess what? The Republicans are now using that tactic here at home. If they don’t like who’s been elected, they find some way to undermine it, discredit its leaders, whatever it takes to destroy it. We’re using the ways of the old Cold War CIA to destabilize our own country.
Look at the impact these constant threats to shutdown the government are having on public confidence. It’s undermining it, making people forever nervous about the basic ability of America to even have a government.
Is that patriotic? I don’t think so.
Chris Matthews