It is strange in two related ways.
First, it seems to reject the fundamental principle of a democracy that sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose but -- so long as the political battle is conducted according to the rules governing the system -- you respect the outcome.
Back when Jimmy Carter was president, we had a hard-fought battle over the Panama Canal Treaty, which surrendered American control over that important piece of real estate. Then, as now, the hawks fought hard against the treaty. Then, as now, they lost. But unlike now, when the battle was over, the losers accepted the outcome and moved on.
But today's Republicans seem to reject that basic ethic.
Hardly has there been a harder fought political battle than that over the reform of America's exorbitant and patchy health-care system. Eventually, after nearly two years of struggle, President Obama and the Democrats prevailed. It was close, but they won it fair and square.
Which points to the second remarkable aspect of this political culture on the right brought into focus by John Boehner's comment to the effect that the fight will go on. It is a political culture that seems indifferent to whether or not a course of action will achieve beneficial results.
Does it matter to these House Republicans whether there's any chance remains of undoing the Iran deal? Did it matter to them that there was no chance that the repeal of Obamacare would change the outcome of that long-lost political battle?
Apparently not.
There is now a movement afoot among congressional Republicans to shut the government down over the question of federal funds for Planned Parenthood. It seems there's virtually no chance that Planned Parenthood will be defunded. And the last time that the Republicans shut down the government in an attempt to blackmail their opponents into doing their will, it was a public relations disaster for the Republican Party.
Another such disaster is hardly what the Republicans need heading into a presidential election, as some Republican leaders have well understood. Yet here is a substantial Republican cohort (once again egged on by Senator Ted Cruz) heading energetically toward that same cliff.
Senator Cruz seems to have figured out that there can be political rewards for leading a course that is long on attitudes of belligerence and defiance even if it achieves nothing -- and even much worse than nothing -- for the people one is leading.
In a healthy political culture, leaders whose decisions and efforts bring great benefits to their people are honored, while those who lead their people into disaster live in infamy.
But not all political cultures work that way. Consider, for example, the strange case of the leadership that led the American South into the Civil War.
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