Maybe the nation prefers gridlock

No doubt about it — voters overwhelmingly cast their lots with the Republican Party in the election on Tuesday, and most of the blame has to fall on President Barack Obama and his policies.

Well, actually, one person does have some doubt, and that is President Obama himself, who is spinning the election as a mandate to end gridlock in Washington, D.C., and get something done.

That’s an easy mantra for him or any politician, but it just doesn’t match up with the facts. The president acknowledged while he was campaigning in October that even though he was not on the ballot, “make no mistake: These policies are on the ballot. Every single one of them.”

He was right then, and he is wrong now. When voters in state after state, and in race after race, chose the Republican over the Democrat in congressional elections, they were sending President Obama a message. And they were sending the national pundits a message, too: “We actually prefer gridlock to the president’s policies.”

There’s no other way to read the election results. The voters have made it virtually impossible for the president to pass any additional policies by electing a Republican Senate to join the Republican House in opposing him.

The president made a show out of saying, “To those of you who voted, I hear you,” but he also says he is going to continue to pursue the same policies he was touting before the election, so maybe he didn’t hear them very well.

A White House lunch the president hosted on Friday left Republicans feeling like the president is still interested in getting things his way, regardless of what the American voters are saying.

In particular, President Obama is hell-bent on using an executive order to normalize the status of at least some illegal immigrants, despite the fact that every poll shows Americans don’t want such a step to be taken.

“I don’t know why he would want to sabotage his last two years as president by doing something this provocative,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

Well, the alternative is signing legislation passed by the Republican Congress, and it’s unlikely the president will do much of that. He honestly believes he is right, and so do the Republicans who oppose him.

Ultimately, they must accept that the voters sent mixed messages in 2012 and 2014, and so must the nation. It only makes sense, therefore, that now is the time for both parties to take a stand, fight for what they believe is right, and accept the consequences in two years when a new president and a new Congress are both elected.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.