Will the history repeat?

It is said that history repeats itself, that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, etc. The GOP and its Tea Party (Teapublicans) shut down the government to force changes in Obamacare and failed. Failed miserably. They failed because people realized the foolishness of trying to kill a law that will benefit people when fully implemented. People are not dumb. We all have the tendency to complain when things are not working smoothly, but we all understand the difference between something bad in its roots and something good that is having problems getting established. People know Obamacare is good and it is having problems in its implementation. People also know that GOP is trying to sabotage the implementation Obamacare at every step for political reasons. Now do the math and you will understand why 3/4 of the nation turned against the GOP and Teapublicans.


Talking about lessons, GOP was not the only one to ignore history and get slammed. Obama made the same mistake once. It all goes back to the famous shutdown by Newt Gingrich under the Clinton presidency. GOP tried the shutdown fiasco, Clinton stood his ground and the GOP lost. The GOP tried the fiasco again in 2011 and won because Obama did not learn from Clinton's example and rolled over. The GOP tried the fiasco again in 2013 expecting to extort concessions like in 2011, but Obama decided to fight, and won big. Lesson is GOP government shutdown is just a fiasco, a ruse they use to extort when they cannot win elections.

Shutting down the whole federal government and risking the whole economy just to undermine Obamacare was extreme, unnecessary and irresponsible. Now, the Reid deal will open the government until 1/15/2014. The question is if GOP will try the same fiasco again or if they learned the lesson. A related questions is if GOP goes through another shutdown, if Obama has learned the lesson. Only time will tell.