filkertom | Okay, Magical Republican Tea Party Solutionizers -- Bring It

So, the Republican Party regained control of the House of Representatives yesterday.

And they severely cut down the Democratic advantage in the Senate.

And they won a lot of state and local elections.

I chalk it up to many of the same things a lot of the pundits do: The Dems, as usual, fell down on the message. Both delivering it, and having it in the first place.

And, so, the Republican party is back in a position of substantial power.

Yet, I am not discouraged. I am, indeed, hopeful.

Because these are the people of the land. The common clay of the new world.

You know.

And, now that they are back in positions of substantial power, these turkeys, these goombahs, these reality-denying, faux moralistic sociopaths, have to deliver.

For the last several months, the Republican candidates, especially the Tea Partiers, have been shoving out this ridiculous load about how the Dems, and especially Barack Hussien OMGWTF He's Got Brown Skin And His Wife Has Muscled Arms That Sounds Just Like Muslim Obama, are trying to transform the country into a socialist fascist secular Nazi commune under Sharia law.

And, they say he's been spending more money, more more more, than anyone in the history of money, and since Bush had spent all his money on good causes like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the first Wall Street bailout in September 2008 and, oh yeah, the fuckload of tax cuts for the wealthy that honest to God they're gonna let expire no really it'll just be a few years WAIT WHAT'S THAT OVER THERE... anyway, because of all that, they've become pay-as-you-go reconstructionists. The Budget Must Be Balanced. Except for the shit that they decide to not worry about paying for. You know, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the first Wall Street bailout in September 2008 and, oh yeah, the fuckload of tax cuts for the wealthy.

Oh, by the way: Gay people aren't really human. Neither are brown people. Neither are non-Christians, especially Muslims. They're not too happy with fat people or actors, either. Unless it's Rip Torn. Heck, even Ah-nult pissed 'em off.

They truly, truly do not get it.

Here is what I think and hope will happen.

They are going to spend a lot of time investigating Obama, possibly to the point of impeachment. And delaying, still, all of his appointments. Especially to the courts.

They are going to make a lot of noise about how the Democrats obstruct everything, as if the past two or ten or eighteen years never happened.

They are going to rage against Big Government, while starting a new round of earmarks and constructing various laws (some of which will be enacted) policing peoples' bedrooms and private lives.

They are going to continue to try to deregulate the big corporations that pay them to interfere with the public good.

They are going to declare, again, all evidence to the contrary, that global warming is a myth. Along with a whole lot of other basic science.

They are going to misstate, misintrepret, and misuse the law.

And, in two years, next election time, they will scream about how terrible the Democrats are, and how they simply refuse to work with Republicans.

And it might work, to an extent.

But.

They are not going to create jobs.

They are not going to help people with health care.

They are not going to help people whose unemployment insurance has run out.

They are not going to help people who are about to lose their homes to foreclosure.

And they are not going to have an answer, a real answer, as to why.

A huge part of the problem with the election yesterday was, as mentioned, message. The Democrats simply could not bring themselves to collectively say We are listening, we are trying to help, here's what we're doing.

Obama and the Dems have had a lot of victories -- including a huge number of substantial ones -- but most of them have been, or at least have felt like, half-hearted compromises with people completely unwilling to compromise. Makes me think I'd love to gamble with Barack, given how quickly he seems to fold.

And people are hurting.

And, in two years, people will be hurting worse.

Because the Republicans aren't going to do jack shit, except what they perceive as necessary to maintain political power.

And that leads to the one good thing about the entire Tea Party movement: People have been hurting so badly, they're finally angry about it. And the anger is sustained.

(It's also the one bad thing about it, because many of those people have become angry enough to resort to violence. Which truly solves nothing.)

The Republicans took that anger, rightfully aimed at them, and deflected it onto the Democrats. And the Democrats lost. Fine.

So save the day, you big strong Republicans, you. I'll be cheering you on. It is, after all, our country.

But I don't think you will. Because you don't believe it's our country. You believe it's the country of the wealthy and entitled, and the rest of us just live here.

I anticipate a lot of atrocities, both social and economic, over the next two years. But there's one huge difference between then, i.e., the Bush years, and now.

Now, we've got a lot more people -- especially the Tea Partiers, their very own American Revolutionaries -- paying attention. A lot of desperate people who need and want and expect help.

And Those In Charge can only hide the truth, and from the truth, for so long.