Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Damn ignorant sheeple


We have been sentenced to two years of cruelty and hard labor. There will be no escaping the results. We wake up to a different world this morning, one not of our making – not the half of this country who cares about the 99%, the workers, the downtrodden. We like to say, “Those Texans deserve what they get when they vote for Ted Cruz,” or “Those Minnesotans deserve what they get when they elect Michele Bachmann,” and so forth. 
 
But the 2014 Midterms have come and gone, and I can tell you right now, having woke up to Scott Walker as governor of Wisconsin, Sam Brownback retaining his governorship of Kansas, Rick Scott still in charge in Florida, Kay Hagan losing to an asshat in North Carolina, and practically every last Democrat in Alabama – except those from heavily black counties – tossed out of the legislature due to the heavy gerrymandering, I don’t feel I deserve what I got.

This is a reverse Christmas, one where they come and take all your gifts away from you. The simple fact is that the Republicans conned America. They did so with corporate money, with the money of the wealthy who love their tax cuts, with the complicity of the mainstream media (for example, MSNBC’s Chuck Todd claiming – lying – during last night’s coverage that both parties had equal amounts of money to spend).

Republicans won this election by non-stop lying – with the help of FOX ‘news’– for the past six years, using fear to overpower reason and logic, to disregard facts and obscure them with doubt.

There are a few bright spots. That perpetual carpetbagger, Scott Brown, was sent packing, again, by Jeanne Shaheen, but he will almost certainly resurface in another state, and run for office there. It appears that Mark Warner held on by the skin of his teeth, Gary Peters won in Michigan, and David Ige won the governorship in Hawaii, but there is not much to be happy about this morning. There is simply no getting around the fact that today, November 5, 2014, the world is a lesser place, a bleaker place, a more hopeless place, than it was last night. 

This looks as bleak to me as when the George Dubya cabal ran the country.

We had hoped for a Democratic wave or at least holding the Senate. Instead, Reuters is calling last night a “rout.” David Axelrod is calling it a “Republican wave.” But it is the kind of wave that ruins lives instead of one you surf for fun. It can only be destructive with victories by the likes of Joni Ernst in Iowa, Rick Scott in Florida, and Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback in Kansas. 

You might remember that Pat Roberts is the guy who said if we go left, we go National Socialism (never mind that National Socialism is a right wing ideology), and that Sam Brownback drove the Kansas economy into the dust and wants to do the same thing nationally. And the Palinesque Joni Ernst…well, with her hard-core Tea Party line, she will no doubt soon enough give Iowans reason to rue dodging their polling places on Tuesday.

So no, half of us did not get what we deserved. 

You have to remember the great efforts Republicans went to suppress the vote, both by legal and by extra-legal means (intimidation). These days, you can’t even count on your vote registering for the Democrat you voted for because the machines are rigged or that your vote is being counted at all. That is how corrupt the GOP has become. Either voters in this country are incredibly stupid or the voting machines were rigged. I think machines were rigged. And many of us understood that these midterms represented a vote for or against Barack Obama, though he was not technically running. Some Democratic candidates cowardly distanced themselves from Obama, and my personal thought on that is that these people have earned their reward in defeat. 

While I take no satisfaction in their right-wing babbling, I did get a laugh at Reuters’ headline this morning: Tough road ahead for Obama after Republicans seize Senate. Are they saying he had an easy road before? Six years of endless obstruction, nullification, and racist attacks, and only now the road gets hard? Where has Reuters been hiding all this time? There is no ignoring the fact, however, that as Reuters says, last night was a “sharp rebuke” to President Obama…and a vastly undeserved one.

In the end, those who did not vote – and on the left there were manyfailed not only themselves but the rest of us. The millennials who failed to vote surrendered their hopes for prosperous careers; the elderly their comfortable retirement, and the working class their jobs, healthcare, and possibly, any hope of putting food on the table for their family.

Some Americans opted for economic ruination. Others had it thrust upon them. We have been sentenced to two years of cruelty and hard labor. There will be no escaping the results. Our salvation will be in 2016 with Hillary. Apparently, the liberal and progressive electorate only care enough to get out and vote during presidential elections. 

We will have to tighten our belts until then, America, because these rightwing nuts will steal from the poor to give to the rich. And Obama will likely cave in to the Republicans for the sake of "compromise" just as he did in his first term. I really wish he would stiffen his spine and become the Veto King.

I take heart from Alison Lundergan Grimes’ defiant speech – one can hardly call it a concession – her heart-felt rallying cry for tomorrow – a promise to be made good on. Going forward, remember this, and take heart, and don’t forget the cowards on MSNBC who called her ungracious.  I, for one, like Grimes, am not in a forgiving or a forgetting mood, and although I do not intend to grin, I will bear it. 

We all will bear what the damn ignorant sheeple have rained upon us deserved or not.




Edited from: The Likes of Mitch McConnell and Joni Ernst Leave America a Bleaker Place This Morning