Rahm wants to win! What else is new?

Anybody who was shocked or appalled at anything Mayor Rahm Emanuel said this week in speaking to business students at Stanford University is politically clueless or naïve.
 

EMANUEL: Spewing a dose of political reality?

In telling Democratic partisans upset about the current political status quo in D.C. to “take a chill pill,” he came up with a cutesy quip while also reiterating the long-expressed belief that he’s willing to put political tactics ahead of ideological concerns.

THE MAN WANTS to win because he wants to have political control. And “control” is certainly something that Democrats don’t have in the current federal government set-up.

For as much as people want to rant and rage about how loony-toons the current president is, the real long-term threat to our society is that his presence empowers those amongst the Republicans in Congress who are of a conservative ideological bent and are determined to impose their social agenda on all of us.

We have to live in their world, and accept our place as subservient in it, is the way they view our society. For them, the 2016 election cycle was a long-desired dream-come-true because it created circumstances by which they don’t even have to contemplate bipartisanship.

Republican strategy in recent decades (since the days of Reagan, I’d argue) has been based on creating a government by which they dominate and others have to listen. If anything, the GOP becomes incompetent when they’re placed in a position of having to negotiate anything.

Rahm would restore Obama and Clinton ideals...

EMANUEL, HIMSELF A former White House staffer under both presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and also the man who once led efforts to make Congress Democrat-leaning, knows that coming years will be an ugly age for those people who don’t fit the certain profile of the conservative ideologue segment of our society.

Stressing the need to find conservative-leaning candidates willing to run as Democrats in Republican-leaning districts to challenge congressional incumbents, exploiting any differences between GOP officials to create dissention and saving one’s strength for resisting any efforts to redistrict Congress in ways to bolster the Republican caucuses even further are what we expect to hear from Emanuel.

... rather than any specific policy

So when Emanuel says, “If you don’t win (elections), you can’t make the public policy. I say that because it is hard for people in our party (Democrats) to accept that principle,” it’s the same philosophy he has always espoused.

Emanuel is the guy who famously (in political circles) tried to talk Obama out of pushing so hard for health care reform because he didn’t want to tick off Republican ideologues into wanting to vehemently oppose anything the president would try to do.

HE’S ALSO THE guy who tried to get Obama to downplay activity toward immigration reform for the same reason, creating a situation where many Latino activists view Obama as a disappointment and have tagged him with that “deporter-in-chief” label.

One that Trump, if he follows through on all his political trash talk, will easily snatch away from Obama. Which may actually serve as evidence that Emanuel has a point. Losing elections enables government officials to behave in ways that are greatly harmful to our interests. “Winning’s everything,” the mayor said.

Reagan planted dream of GOP dominance ...

I found it interesting that the Illinois Republican Party on Tuesday felt compelled to issue a statement denouncing Emanuel for doing little more than going into the rhetorical mode that gave him the political nickname, “Rahm-bo.”

Republicans were particularly bothered by Emanuel’s comment that, “wherever there’s a disagreement among Republicans, I’m for one of those disagreements. I’m all for it.”

AS THE GOP says in a statement, “Mayor Emanuel espoused a political world of trying to foster disagreement and division. During Emanuel’s political lecturing, his hatchet-man was busy slashing school budgets and trying to create a crisis for his boss who infamously advised to never let a serious crisis go to waste.”

... will Trump make that dream grow?

Which might be a legitimate point, if not for the fact that the social conservatives have long advocated disagreement and division, so long as the balance of power leans in their favor and allows them to bully the opposition. Hearing GOP political operatives call anyone else unfair is a laugh!

It makes me wonder if the real fear amongst Republican political operatives is that Emanuel can be a cunning S-O-B with a politically strategic mind, while the current GOP efforts are headed by the chaotic, and politically amateurish, initiatives of Trump himself.

Who very well could wind up shooting himself and the Republican Party’s desired agenda in their collective foot, quite possibly with a “pistol” that Emanuel will conveniently figure out a way to place in their hand.

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