Quit yr damn cryin'!: a post-election RANT

by | Jan 21, 2010

Get over it. All this doom and gloom and whining and moaning I’ve heard last night and today in the bar, in the café, on MSNBC, NPR, WHMP, just PATHETIC. One badly-run campaign, one lost senate seat, one successful fit of tea-party-racist-sexist-fear-mongering-haters’ backlash to Obama and everything’s in the shitter? Come ON, people. Republicans DO NOT act this way. They think of the next way to WIN at all costs (and I mean ALL). Massachusetts likes white guys with good hair (and doesn’t like women in state-wide races, not ever), regardless of party, remember? This is a great wake-up call – As you may recall I ranted back during the presidential campaign, Dems must be more willing to play mothafuckin’ hardball. Obama has significant majorities in BOTH houses of Congress. Did Reagan have that when he pushed through his tax cut? Did the Bushes when they did all the horrible crap they did? I’m pretty sure the answer is no, and they certainly didn’t have 60 seats in the Senate all that time. Did Clinton have majorities, let alone unfilibusterable ones, when he got stuff (good and bad) done? Not a lot of the time, anyway, and never 60 seats, right? (again, correct me if I’m wrong) Can’t we monger some fear of our own? How about positing war as something to be afraid of because our kids die in war, because we go broke fighting wars? How about lack of health care, rates going up up up, people dying? Bridges falling? Levees breaking? Instead of making them moral issues, let’s talk about fear, about money, about WINNING. People don’t care about what’s right, they care about being safe and getting theirs and paying less to the govt. unless they’re scared into a reason to pay more. How ‘bout this as a good time to kick Joe Lieberman out of the party on his hypocrite scumbag ass?!? Not likely huh. Instead I’m guessing said scumbag ass will get more kissing than ever. I’m not disappointed, I’m disgusted, with the right, as ever, but even more so with our side (and while I'm far left of the Democratic party, our side it is, the far far lesser of two evils) . People who might lean racist still voted for Barack because he felt like a WINNER and America looooooves a winner. The biggest racist football fan is a-okay with having a black quarterback if he takes us to the goddamn superbowl, but after a 2-11 season? The same guy is okay with, even enthusiastic about a war so long as we WIN! And is okay with Barack so long as his taxes go down and he feels like American WINS! The middle-left in the US seemed, for a minute, like WINNERS and McCain like a pouty little boy loser stomping his feet in the corner. The Repubs way-beyond-dirty tricks during this health care fiasco may be as wrong as wrong can be, but they’re looking like winners and Obama and the Dems like whiney socialist losers. We’re living in an Orwellian age, and socialist sounds like communist sounds like LOSER and sounds SCARY. Change the language, fight the bad fight, abuse some arcane rules, redraw some districts, tell some lies, WIN WIN WIN. The ends justify the means. They have to. There’s just no other choice. Except losing, that is. Am I a tad cynical? As one of the most popular female political figures (and authors) in American history likes to say, YOU BETCHA!!!