Here are some inviolable facts:

• Obamacare is ubiquitously unpopular
• Obamacare will become entrenched once it is implemented like every other entitlement of the past century
• Kathleen Sibelius already admitted that Obamacare would be devastated by the House defund bill.  That is the only plan to actually uproot the law “root and branch.”
• Republicans control the House, the branch of government that must commence the process on any spending bill.  Republicans have a filibuster-enabling minority in the Senate to ensure that the House defund bill is the only budget bill that can pass one house of Congress.
• Harry Reid and the Democrats would be on the wrong side of public opinion for pushing a government shutdown for the purpose of throwing people of their health insurance.

Given all those points, if we actually had an opposition party in Washington that wasn’t stuck on the 20^th century paradigm of rubber-stamping Democrat programs (even when unpopular), we could force them to negotiate away this albatross across their necks.  Unfortunately, we don’t have an opposition party.  The opposition party consists of only a handful of members who represent the conservative grassroots.  The rest of the party is throwing arrows in our backs in order to undermine the only plan that would actually uproot the law they all claim to detest.

Here is a sampling of the Washington Republican Party:

Chris Wallace: “This has been one of the strangest weeks I’ve ever had on Washington. As soon as we listed Ted Cruz as our guest this week, I got questions and research from Republicans about Ted Cruz. Why are they so angry?”

And this from Robert Costa:

Robert Costa @robertcostaNRO

I ask aide to just go on record, but source won’t; boss would potentially fire source for putting any public daylight btwn him and Cruz & Co

Ask yourself this question: What are the Democrats supposed to think about this?  They are watching as Republicans fear any brinkmanship to the extent (even over something as popular as defunding Obamacare) that they are willing to engage in a civil war with their own grassroots leaders.  Why in the world would Democrats ever fear the threat of brinkmanship over delaying Obamacare for a year, as Boehner and McConnell supposedly favor?  Does anyone think these people fear fence sitters and finger lickin’ frauds who openly admit they will always blink first?

Now imagine for a moment that the entire Republican Party would only consist of people like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.  Democrats are facing a red state mid-term election with an unpopular law weighing them down with the voters.  There is no question they would be forced to the negotiation table from a position of weakness.  But, alas, they know they will never be forced to the negotiation table.

Democrats know that most Republicans believe Obamacare is the law of the land, irrespective of what they say in public.  Establishment Republicans are committed to embarking on another losing century in Washington – one in which Democrats grow government when in control of Washington while Republicans fail to roll back the pernicious growth when they are in power.  And ultimately, Democrats understand that it is Republican members who will score the winning touchdown for their side.