Governing is a political disaster for the GOP

Holding power is hard when you've lied to get there

A Republican failure.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Image courtesy iStock)

During the Obama presidency, Republicans demonstrated just how much mileage a political party could get out of frenzied opposition. Whipping your voters into a froth about how every election is freedom's last stand is a great way to stoke turnout. Even if it's not remotely true, even if your opponent is just a cautious moderate who craves bipartisanship, that's no problem — just invent a bunch of conspiracy theories about how he's a secret Kenyan Muslim anti-colonialist or something.

But the GOP is discovering the downsides of that strategy now that they've been trying to govern. They've held power for just over one year, and are already running into severe political difficulties as a direct result of the unhealthy way they have achieved that power.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.