The people have spoken? To me it sounds like a childish temper tantrum more than anything else but I suppose that’s both the blessing and a curse of democracy. So will they have the same fit in two years when Republicans fail to deliver on the promises some are already backpedalling from less than a day after they were elected? To their credit, they brought their best game against the Democrats who have fully mastered the art of shooting themselves in the foot. Now they’ll spend the next two years trying to bring down Obama, blaming him and the remaining Democrats for the certain gridlock that will begin in January. It seems to have been a pretty good strategy, block everything possible and then blame the other guy. Voters apparently have amnesia and they also seem to be incredibly temperamental. Logic and reason so often ends up trumped by fear, spin and outright falsehoods.
I suppose it will be back to the same business as usual once the new “change” color bearers are assimilated into the ranks of the GOP but somehow I believe they were already there. Perhaps we need another recession, a few million more jobs shipped to Asia and another war to realize that the policies of the GOP establishment are good for a very few and bad for the rest of us?
However, back to the newly elected Tea Party candidates and all those who ran on the spin that somehow Obama went back in time and took the economy into the tank. They talked a big game but now they have to perform. Michelle Bachmann already refuses to answer questions about her plans to act upon her previous statements that progressive members of Congress should be investigated, McCarthy style, for “un-American activities”. The truth is, it’s nothing more than pandering to the extremists and the conspiracy theorists on the far right. Now that they’ve joined the establishment that they railed against, they will be expected to carry out the witch hunts and budget slashes they promised so many times. To his credit, Boehner gives a nice little cliché speech which is pretty much no more than a highlight reel of the rhetoric we heard this entire election season but other than tears, he didn’t serve up anything new, no specifics as to how his party was going change things. However, since he comes in promising change, I suppose he’s going to turn the economy around in the next two years? After all, you criticized Obama for not doing it in that same amount of time so that's the same time frame I will hold you to. I’ll give credit where credit is due if he comes up with a plan that actually does that but I have the feeling that the time will spent on raising money for 2012. So where are their blueprints to fix things? Simple answer is, they don’t have one and the only real plan is gridlock and 2012 prep work.
If you were to read what I have to say, you would surmise that I am bitter about the outcome of this election but bitter is not the right adjective. More than anything else, I’d say I’m disappointed for a few reasons. I’m disappointed in people who say they’re for “voting them all out” when they really just meant “vote all the Democrats out”. I’m disappointed that the Republicans are continuing to be the corrupt mirror image of the very same things they claim to oppose which is why I haven’t voted for one since 2000. I’m disappointed that people can continue not to learn from history and somehow believe that this election is going to turn everything around. Perhaps people will realize that once again, they’ve swallowed the bait and spit it back out in two years. At least this time, the moderate swing voters have demonstrated they can, and will, turn on those they just recently elected if they don't listen to them. Maybe they’ll finally support a common sense third party that doesn’t rely on the fear of the socialist boogeyman under the bed to get elected and has actual ideas on how to make our country work. Maybe, but I’m not holding my breath.
If you were holding your breathe then maybe you would match the Blue State maps that are no where to be seen. As I said on Facebook today, your view of this election is a bit short-sighted in the sense that this vote was not in favor of the Republicans. In the election in November 2007 the people rejected the policies of the Republicans, and yesterday they rejected the polices of the Democrats. I heard the new Speaker of the House saying that he was humbled by the trust being placed in the Republicans. He missed the flippin point. We want nothing from them but for them to stop Obama's radical agenda. There is no such thing as the Independent swing voter as evidenced by the Scott/Sink election. almost dead heat down the middle. There are those that like the give aways of the Leftists and there are those that don't because they are paying for them.
ReplyDelete