Total Republican failure.

Voter were beginning to understand Republican failure, surrender, and co-optation before the Tea Party came upon the scene. For me, it became obvious upon detecting the silence of the grave as Republicans gained majorities in Congress in 2014 and just stood there in place like an ox chewing grass.

They acted like – and were – chumps when they later got around to play acting over shutting down the government. Despite much data from the past on likely Democrat tactics, they had no response prepared for when the Obama had Park Rangers threaten to make looking at mountains in Yellowstone Park a major felony.

Dems can come up with political videos where old women are thrown off a cliff but not a dime of the Republican war chest could be found to pay a political PR firm to punch back in any way. Where was Reince Priebus's inner Lee Atwater?

Anyway, here's what David Stockman has by way of a bill of particulars where Republican failure is concerned:

Yet after decades in Washington they and most of their Senate colleagues have accomplished nothing that resembles the old Republican verities. In fact, during 2000-2006 when Republicans controlled the Congress and the White House, not a single welfare state program or agency was eliminated or even reformed, while vast new expansions of education, Medicare, agriculture, alternative energy subsides and much more were piled on the pre-existing heap of state.

Accordingly, the Federal spending share of GDP grew faster than at any time in history; and the $4 trillion worth of new national debt incurred during the eight Bush years smashed all prior peacetime records.

* * * *

In all, the GOP establishment has become an integral part of the Washington ruling class. It has no passion——only lip service—–for the anti-Washington predicate on which the party was founded.

Stockman doesn't spare the Democrats but he's described the gutlessness of the Republicans very well. If he would desist from using the word "bombast" where Trump is concerned he could have cut the word count of his essay in half but it's worth reading and is one of many that are coming out that point out the obvious – the curious nonfeasance of the Republicans.

I don't know if it's Ann Coulter who keeps saying that such and such a politician is paralyzed because someone's got the naked pictures. Whatever wit came up with that it seems to me to capture the odd fact of political life where we have two ostensibly antagonistic political parties but, in fact, they are Siamese twins separated yesterday.

For years we thought the Republicans were like a stick of dynamite ready to explode into action in just a day or two more, maybe a week at most. Bang, kapow, thank you Jesus! But it was just never, ever to be. Every darn time it was, to borrow a term from artillerymen and mortarmen, a hang fire. The lanyard got pulled or the round got dropped down the tube but . . . nothing. A dented primer and no flash, no bang.

Stockman understands that Trump has figured out that a boatload of people got sick and tired of a "Groundhog's Day" that's dragged on for 35 years.

"The Donald—–The Good And Bad Of It." By David Stockman, Contra Corner, 2/27/16 (emphasis added).