The president has a long and substantial rhetorical history of harshly singling out and criticizing individuals and groups that disagree with his policy preferences. And no group has been on the receiving end of more of his ire than Republicans.
On the GOP in general, he has said "Their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules."
In the president's view, Republicans are consumed by a "fever" to frustrate his every move to help the country, have moved further to the right, and have spent the last several years fighting him over whether "billionaires and millionaires" should pay a "little bit more in taxes".
Before the election the president had expressed the hope that, "[I]f we're successful in this election — when we're successful in this election — that the fever may break".
The idea of the GOP having a fever is akin to suggesting that their policy views are akin to having an illness that the president will cure by winning reelection. Two months later he went even further with the illness metaphor saying in Time interview, "So my expectation is that there will be some popping of the blister after this election, because it will have been such a stark choice." The Republican "fever" was now clearly the result of an ideological infection full of noxious pathogenic ideas that must be "popped" by an Obama election victory.
The president added, however, that he is ever ready to "continue to reach to them [Republicans] whenever I can."
Not surprisingly the president's chief enemy in the immigration debate are Republicans. Not all Republicans, mind you, just those who disagree with him.
Of those the president has said, "I think some in the House who believe that immigration will encourage further demographic changes — and that may not be good for them politically." And there's some truth in that statement.
He has also said in answer to a question at his most recent press conference: "So the challenge right now is not that there aren't a majority of House members, just like a majority of Senate members, who aren't prepared to support this bill. The problem is internal Republican caucus politics."
Leaving aside whether a majority of House Republicans would ever support the Senate bill, the president seems to treat GOP's diversity of policy views within the House as tantamount to committing a political offense rather than a sign of healthy disagreement.
Fear of its demographic and political future, wrangling caucus policy differences, but never anything at all about real substantive disagreements. Of which there are many, and they are all, almost without exception, legitimate and honest policy differences.
Yet even if the president and House Republicans could find some common ground on which to proceed, there would still be one major Mt. Everest-level barrier to overcome — trust that the president will not try to use the executive branch bureaucracy or executive orders to subvert and rewrite any agreement that is reached.
That's not an irrational worry. To the contrary, it is a concern that originates in the president's own behavior.
Next: The GOP's Immigration Reform Dilemma: Presidential Enforcement
