This Country is Screwed
Paul Krugman just about sums up where we’re headed if Republicans win back Congress this mid-term election season (for context he was comparing it to Republican’s victories in the 1994 mid-terms and their paralyzing effect on the government):
It will be an ugly scene, and it will be dangerous, too. The 1990s were a time of peace and prosperity; this is a time of neither. In particular, we’re still suffering the after-effects of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, and we can’t afford to have a federal government paralyzed by an opposition with no interest in helping the president govern. But that’s what we’re likely to get.
If I were President Obama, I’d be doing all I could to head off this prospect, offering some major new initiatives on the economic front in particular, if only to shake up the political dynamic. But my guess is that the president will continue to play it safe, all the way into catastrophe.
So…basically we’re all screwed because Republicans would always rather play games, and democrats are a bunch of retarded pussies. Seriously, Republicans ALWAYS manage to dictate the tone of political dialogue in this country. They use otherwise legitimate political processes to harass Democrats (see e.g. the filibuster, the congressional hearings on the Clintons’ every bowel movement in the 90’s and the prediction that Republicans are going to do the same to Obama). Meanwhile Democrats just stand there and take it like the pussies they are.
How is it that most Americans have the most horrendous misconceptions about democratic policies? For example, most Americans think Obama spent us into the current budgetary mess, and that conservatives are better fiscally. No one ever mentions that health care reform will actually reduce the deficit, that Bush increased government spending more than any other president in the 20th century, that Bush had a budget surplus that he squandered, that historical facts show that Democrats have been the only presidents capable of balancing a federal budget.
The fact is, Republicans TALK tough on the budget deficit, but when push comes to shove, they still want to enact ludicrously expensive policies to benefit their key constituencies. Point in case, the battle over re-enacting the Bush tax cuts. Democrats want to re-enact the tax cuts for 95% of Americans. Republicans have threatened to filibuster any Bush tax cut renewal that does not also renew the tax cuts on the wealthiest 5% of Americans. The additional tax cut renewal Republicans are calling for would cost upwards of $600 billion over the next ten years. This type of duplicity is disgusting, but do you see ANYONE in the allegedly “liberal” mainstream media calling the Republicans out on this? Of course not! Why? Well, because the mainstream media is not liberal for one thing.
Republicans are loud and more extreme in their rhetoric, and to borrow an old saying, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” The fact that Republicans scream louder and use unnecessarily extreme rhetoric slants all media coverage in a Conservative slant. Just look at the current Mosque situation in downtown Manhattan. The mainstream media consistently calls the Cordoba House the “Ground Zero Mosque.” This is what Republicans have been screaming, but in fact it would be 1,000 times more accurate to call it the Former Burlington Coat Factory Building Muslim Community Center and Swimming Pool.
And where are the pussy Democrats in all of this? One very angry Democrat aside (I’m looking at you Anthony Weiner, respect) Democrats sit on the sideline and let the political game be dictated to them by the obnoxious assholes that constitute today’s Republican party. Even worse than sitting on the sidelines, some Democrats appear ready and willing to “run to the right” to try to appease their constituents and hold on to their precious congressional seat. It’s appalling to see how many democrats are spineless, unprincipled losers. I’d rather be a Democrat in the minority than have any sort of ties to the types of Democrats that were anti-health care reform, anti-wall street reform or anti-Former Burlington Coat Factory Mosque.
This is why I’m fucking angry, and this is why I fucking curse sometimes when I discuss or write about politics…because SOMEONE NEEDS to be angry. The Democrats that should be angry about this type of thing are sitting on the sideline and taking it from Republicans, and I’m fucking sick of it.
