16.11.06

Election Thoughts; Back to the 80s

It’s been ten days now… here are some elections thoughts.

- I wanted one of the TV heads to say something like, “When you wake up tomorrow, you’ll be waking up to a different America.” I’m sure someone did, but I didn’t hear it. But what a bullshit statement that would have been. Looking around, is America better off today? No way. We're stuck in a bullshit war, we're hated by everyone, the deficit is huge... the Dems winning was like a solo home run in the bottom of the 8th of a 16-2 game. Big deal . Now it’s a 16-3. Things are far too messed up for me to be happy about much of anything.

I'm not that happy or on cloud 9 or anything like that. As I said, the Dems will probably find a way to mess this up anyway. And even if they don't, things are pretty shitty in this country right now.

- What's changed is that Bush becomes even more of a lame duck. But the bad news is, Bush doesn't have a successor. So all the damage he's done... doesn't really effect anyone two years from now. Good for the GOP, bad for the Dems.

- I can’t figure why the media isn’t playing up the ass whipping the GOP took last Tuesday. They were oh-fer-270 last night. They didn't win one seat in Congress or governors race that the Dems controlled. Sort of amazing that ass kicking. And really goes to show how pissed off America was at the GOP. It will be interesting to see how the GOP responds to this. Do they become more conservative, as Rush argues? Do they go back to their roots as a smaller government, fiscally responsible party? Or do they regroup and continue on as a socially conservative, big spending, aggressive party?

If I were to take a guess, the days of Goldwater (and to an extent Reagan) will come back. The big wigs in Big Biz will want to get some of this spending under control, for the party to go back to their roots, and try to retake areas of the city they’ve lost: much of the Midwest and pretty much all of the Northeast.

This probably goes back to Nixon’s Southern Strategy. When the GOP started looking South, they slowly started to became a socially conservative and big spending party; getting away from their roots as a party of ‘responsible’ government with libertarian ideals. Probably much like Blair and Labour, Bush has probably been the worst thing that could have happened to the GOP (you could argue Clinton also, but to be frank, I think Clinton was more GOP lite than a Democrat). Bush, like Blair, has changed the ideals of their respective parties. Interestingly enough, both parties now have to look in the mirror at the same time. Do they continue on under the path their current leader is setting or do they find another path to take? Should be an interesting thing to follow over the next year or so.

- The six/five years (whenever Jeffords jumped ship) of shit government is now over. We'll see if the Dems strap on a set and stand up to the White House, something this GOP Congress didn't do other than when it came to Bush thinking about shooting down a pay raise. No matter what you think, we need Congress to stand up to the White House (no matter who's in power); something that we're seeing less and less of, high-lightened by the last four years.

- Finally, I suppose we'll get better and more efficient government since American government has a nasty habit of being more effective when one party is on the Hill and the other is in the White House. Hopefully that will be the case once again. And in all likelihood, we won't see another Alito if someone leaves the Bench. But other than that, I'm sure we'll have two years of little and nothing.

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Changing gears a big, don’t you love US foreign policy sometimes?

For years we’ve been hear democracy this, freedom that, liberty here, let the people of the world elect their own government. Obviously we are pro-democracy.

But check this out from USA Today last week… that’s right, the US government is ready to start training militants from Latin America! Just awesome, really guys, how many Americans, nuns, Jesuits, and Cardinals from the Catholic Chuch are we going to kill this time?

And why have they started the program again? Because we’re worried about the recent trend in Latin America of it turning to the left; and pretty much all of these leftist governments have been… democratically elected! How cool is that?

USA to World: We’re pro democracy, but if you elect the wrong people and we don't want to work with 'em, maybe we'll just KILL 'EM!

Team America put it best (kids put on those earmuffs):

1 comment:

Progressive Pinhead said...

Beyond all the mess that Bush II has created the GOP's problem is that they have tried to make too many groups happy and in the process have alienated much of their base.