[oldembed width="420" height="245" src="https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640" flashvars="launch=39998808&width=420&height=245" fid="2"]

Rachel Maddow explained pretty clearly why the Republicans in the newly won US House of Representatives actually have no incentive whatsoever to compromise with Democrats and the Obama administration. As she noted, they're set up to do nothing but block any compromise or progress and despite any of their platitudes, when you nail them down on the specifics of what their plans are, it comes down to stopping Democrats from getting anything constructive done.

Personally, I could have done without the laugh tracks. We all know it's laughable that the Republicans have any intentions of working with the opposition party on anything without the gimmicks. Their words and their actions speak loudly enough without the theatrics.

That said, the clips she played here should be shown to the public over and over again because our beltway Villager cocktail set wants to pretend that Republicans actually care about governing, when they don't and that Obama must listen to them because their ideas are somehow rational and they represent the "center" of the country when they're not and they don't.

A normal mid-term election with somewhat low voter turnout compared to Presidential election years and where the electorate in those races is normally a lot older does not equal a "mandate" regardless of the spin the corporate press is putting on the results. And that doesn't even account for the races that were lost by Democrats in districts that should have been Republican districts already but had Blue Dogs in there that were doing nothing but undermining the Democrats and voting against their party at every turn.

As Bill Maher noted, "We have a center right party, and a crazy party. And over the last thirty odd years, Democrats have moved to the right, and the right has moved into a mental hospital."

The party that has "moved to a mental hospital" isn't going to cooperate with anyone. Of course the Villagers will demand that the already "centrist" Democrats move to the "sane" middle, which means caving to Republicans and kicking their liberal base in the teeth, or "hippy punching" as some of our friends here call it, and that meme has already started with them from day one if not earlier after the mid-term elections.

It's up to all of us to make sure they hear otherwise and push back against this nonsense.