“Democrats perfect the art of delay” when they make the process of confirming Donald Trump’s nominees to the Cabinet and judiciary as “painful” as possible. When the minority party in the House managed to derail anodyne legislation that funds a veterans’ health care and America’s intelligence gathering programs, they had dealt the GOP an “embarrassing” blow. What they had not done was weaken the nation’s security and throw its warfighters under the bus only to express frustrations with how the majority party had not investigated Russian meddling in the 2016 election to the Democrats’ satisfaction. Not according to the press, at least.

Democrats put the Pentagon’s budget on hold to block border-security funding and buried legislation aimed at protecting infants that survive late-term abortions. They used their minority privileges to scuttle Sen. Tim Scott’s sensible police-reform bill and to twice prevent the GOP from passing Covid-relief legislation, and only to preserve what Democrats believe should be their monopoly on those initiatives. All this was highly ideological, sometimes parochial, and always self-serving. What it was not was the functional equivalent of a terrorist attack on the United States.

There’s nothing illegitimate about the exercise of political power derived from the consent of the governed, and playing high-stakes games of chicken in Congress is anything but rare. As a rhetorical exercise, describing these mundanities as “hostage-taking” is the polemical equivalent of revving the engine while the transmission is in neutral. It convinces no persuadable observer because persuasion is not the point. It’s a display for the benefit of like minds. But it is not without its costs. Cheapening the discourse and poisoning the political well is no small price to pay just to indulge your ego.

[It’s “hostage taking” when the other side does it. — Ed]