We’ve been hearing about the debt limit for months, but familiarity makes it sound sort of normal.  That is spectacularly wrong.

We all know it would be a disaster for this country to foreclose on its debt.  That would not only have massive economic impact, beyond that it would undermine international confidence in the United States for any of its commitments.  That the Republican Party is playing chicken with those consequences shows just how divorced it is from the well-being of the country.  What’s not to like about a forced recession in a Democratic President’s election year??

However even that doesn’t do justice to what is going on.  The issues under discussion are not merely financial.  McCarthy is going after specific parts of the Biden legislative agenda with his own alternatives.  The debt limit fight is an effort to replace our Constitutional form of government with a new Republican agenda forced upon the country at gun point.  That is not an exaggeration.

The Debt Limit fight is a coup.