Republicans are refusing to learn the lessons of the last election, failing to put adequate support behind an immigration deal at the outset of Washington’s new hot debate, immigration, that would enable them to address the deep issues with Latino voters they’ve created. It lends validity to the accusation society thrust upon this party when they explicitly rejected them in November: The GOP is becoming the last dying roar of a Mad Men/White male America whose time (thanks to shifting demographics, cultural values and the fact that we let non-White people and women vote now) has passed and will never come again, obstructing all progress in any direction for our country.  The blame for their  image falls on two archetypes of our political times: Jim DeMint, the lobbyist, and Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the politician afraid of being “primaried.”

Jim DeMint is the former Senator from the most dysfunctional Congresses we have ever suffered.  DeMint was known for killing others’ bills, yet not passing his own, earning him a record as unsuccessful and obstructionist even amongst his peers.  Since then, he has taken unsubtle advantage of the revolving door between K Street and Washington to land himself a high-paying lobbyist job with the Heritage Foundation, where he continues to do more of the same: shoot down solutions while offering none himself.

Jeff Sessions is the unreasonable current-Senator of Alabama, willing to courageously throw undocumented children under the bus in front of their parents if it would prevent him from being “primaried” in a state that’s only 4% Latino.  Like every other Republican in a thoroughly red state, he doesn’t have to vote for things as reasonable and popular as background checks for purchasing firearms on the internet, rather, he just has to stay to the right of his primary opponent.  If this pushes him to the right of sanity, well, it’s worked so far for Michelle Bachmann.

The complaint that we’ve heard time and time again is that Congress is incapable of doing anything.  Neither of these one-dimensional obstructionists are doing anything about this, rather, are exactly the men who are making this problem worse.

For a recent example of a catastrophic failure of government in legislating, one needs look no further than the background check debate.  This debate had everything: a desperate need of the people which was undeniable; adorable Little Leaguers in tiny caskets; polling placing the approval of background checks around 90% nationally (more popular than Michael Jackson in the 80’s); tragic yet relatable victims and victims’ families (i.e. Gabriel Giffords and the Sandy Hook families): the public was strongly behind it, and those against it were unable to articulate why adequately, clinging to that one last talking point of the gun registry specifically outlawed in the bill.

“Harry Reid has a doozy of a gun plan,” explained the Heritage Foundation which Jim DeMint heads.  David Addington, head of Heritage’s Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial studies, claimed that the background check bill “could help criminals figure out where it is easiest to buy guns” and “…allows for the beginnings of a national gun registry.”  Considering how the bill before the Senate explicitly made it a federal crime to create a gun registry, there is a word for this sort of misinformation: B.S. of the “total and utter” variety.  Research like that put together by the Heritage Foundation is then used by politicians like Jeff Sessions to stay as far to the right as their primary audience can tolerate (and, as we saw in the 2012 election, they will tolerate anything but moderation).

Although the Heritage Foundation came out with a research study Monday on how expensive immigration will be on Monday, there is no reason to believe that it is any more valid or less biased than their plainly inaccurate statements on the basics of the background check legislation, or their 2007 immigration report that was thoroughly debunked and dubbed “fatally flawed” by the conservative Cato Institute.  Already Marco Rubio calls the report “not legitimate,” conservatives like Paul Ryan, Jeff Flake and Haley Barbour have come down against the report and the Cato Institute is already criticizing the report and moving to disprove it.

For Jeff Sessions, coming from a state as conservative as Alabama, all he has to do to keep his seat is avoid being “primaried” because he knows a Republican incumbent will win there every time.  The fear of being primaried is in him, as well as in every other Republican with a 2014 election, job security issues and a serious lack of courage.  While obstructionism seems to be something that DeMint enjoys, for Sessions and his kind, it’s transparent self-interest.

To avoid a rough primary, Sessions has come out with quotes like “[there is no scriptural basis] for the idea that a modern nation state can’t have a lawful system of immigration.”  Sessions was lecturing Dr. David Fleming of the Champion Forest Baptist Church, who had joined the increasing number of religious leaders and organizations backing immigration reform.

With the unreasonability of the background check debate to inform our impression, it’s hard to imagine men like Sessions and DeMint changing their stances.  Jim DeMint and Jeff Sessions are the poster boys of obstruction, positioned well in both the public and private sector of governing to block anything with rich lobbyist organizations and Senate filibusters.  If the debate is going to move forward, it may very well have to do so over their strong objection, which has become desperate enough to resort to transparent misrepresentations and irrational arguments.