More like Christmas for the Dems

Republicans should stop referring to the Democrats’ newest ideological wish list as a COVID19 “relief bill” or “rescue bill,” or any of the other euphemistic misnomers used by the media. Surely, there is some GOP spin doctor who can come up with a catchier, more precise name for Joe Biden’s $2 trillion partisan monstrosity?

Whatever they call it, the media have mobilized to warn us about the devastating fallout that will come if Republicans oppose the Democrats’ plan — not only for the future of the country but for their own party.

Do you remember when the Republican resistance to President Barack Obama’s partisan slush-fund “stimulus” bill sunk them in the 2010 midterms? Nor do I. Though polls told us that a majority of Americans supported Obama’s efforts, not a single House Republican voted for the 2009 stimulus bill. By the next year, a majority had turned on the plan, and the GOP picked up a historic 63 seats, the biggest victory by a party in the midterm elections since 1938. The loss essentially froze Obama’s agenda for the rest of his presidency. By 2014, the Republicans — after maintaining equally intractable positions on other bogus stimulus efforts — would run both the Senate and House.

For the next eight years, Democrats were left to argue that Republican stubbornness was little more than perfunctory racism aimed out our first black president. One imagines this lazy slander will have a harder time gaining traction during the Biden years.

Oh, the endless warnings we heard about the pitfalls of “obstructionism” in those days. When Republicans were sinking the 2011 “stimulus,” Obama adviser David Plouffe warned that it would be an American “tragedy.” Republicans had turned to “nihilism,” roared virtually every liberal pundit for years. When Republicans represent the desires of their constituents, the nation suddenly becomes “ungovernable.”

Well, until they happen to lose Congress.

It is possible that, by the point at which Republicans objected to a second stimulus, the Obamacare fight had already sunk the Democratic Party’s national prospects. But in a sense, that’s the point. There will be scores of other divisive policy debates between now and the 2022 midterms, and, thus far, the Biden administration has shown no inclination to pursue meaningful consensus.

And, anyway, the same accusa