Well, I guess they showed us. All us naive sheep and moochers with all those pipe dreams about hope and change failed to anticipate the coming tsunami. I haven’t seen a red wave that gigantic since the last time the Crimson Tide went undefeated. Last week’s mid-term elections were fueled by resentment and anger directed toward the president, so it seems that new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s simple but seditious strategy worked: Say no to every initiative, block every bill, refuse any compromise, and filibuster the Obama presidency into paralysis. Then, when the Congress is in a total logjam where nothing can move, blame the president for being a divisive leader.
The endgame was to destroy Obama by any means necessary. With the aid of Fox News and vitriolic right-wing radio, the GOP stoked rage and hatred against our foreign-born, socialist president, and whipped elderly white men into such a frothing frenzy, they had no choice but to come out in angry numbers in order to put our first black president in his place. That’s who voted, you know — angry, old people. I hate stats too, but them’s the facts.
The funny thing is, leading up to the election, every time I saw Obama address a large gathering, the crowd always went wild with excitement. That excitement was the very thing the president’s party lacked. So rather than rail against a poorly informed populace, a flood of untraceable “dark” money, or the lowest voter turnout in any election since Pearl Harbor, I would instead like to address the milquetoast, paranoid, spineless, unprincipled, gutless cowards who inhabit the Democratic Party ranks these days. They took a poll, then ran from Obama like he had Ebola. As a result, the enthusiastic young people who attended the president’s rallies did not vote. Why should they? No Democratic candidate celebrated the president’s successes except Representative Steve Cohen, and he could have remained silent if he so chose.
There is no clearer example of this Obama denial than in the race of Kentucky senatorial candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes. She might have mentioned that those 413,000 Kentuckians who are now enjoying the bluegrass state’s new “Kynect” health insurance program are actually receiving the benefits of Obamacare under a different name. When asked if she voted for the president, the answer should have been simple: “Of course, I did. I’m a Democrat, and Barack Obama is my party’s standard bearer.” Instead, the gun-toting, coal-loving, blue-dog acted like she never heard the name Obama and insisted that she was strictly a “Clinton Democrat.” When pressed on the issue, she proclaimed that her vote was a private matter and refused to answer the question. Next time they revise Wikipedia, right next to the word “mealymouth,” there should be a picture of Grimes.
When was the last time you heard someone say they were a “proud liberal,” or that they “stood by progressive values?” Maybe Lyndon Johnson? Or George McGovern? Democrats have allowed the term “liberal” to be defined by the opposition, and ever since Bubba Clinton’s election, they’re all “new Democrats,” meaning conservative-lite. Personally, I preferred the old Democrats — the ones like FDR, who fought hard for progress against Republican intransigence. Now, they all just want to keep their jobs and not ruffle any constituent feathers, and they will abandon the man who brought their party back to prominence as soon as his approval rating drops below 50 percent.
It’s not like they didn’t have anything to talk about: three million new jobs in the past six years, unemployment dropping to new lows, Obamacare succeeding everywhere it’s been implemented, the stock market setting new records every month. Instead, they ran as the party of please. “Please don’t blame us for our candy-ass leadership. Please don’t hurt us for not exercising power when we had it. Please don’t think that we’re with the black guy. We’ll just be over here — under our desks — if that’s okay with you.”
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The Democrats were richly deserving of an ass-whuppin’, and they will soon shed their cloak of power with a whimper. And on behalf of the real men in Tennessee who consider themselves feminists, I’d like to apologize to all the women whose reproductive rights will now be determined by a congressman from Crossville named Cooter. I spent six years in East Tennessee, — four as a student and two as a rock star — and I witnessed the general area’s antipathy toward knowledge. That’s where the bulk of votes in favor of abortion restrictions came from. It’s a battle of country against city. That’s why country music is so popular up there — it’s a celebration of poverty and ignorance. Abortion on the ballot is like Mountain Dew to a meth head, and you can bet that every gap-toothed, overall-wearing, fundamentalist, country-ass rube marched to the polls with religious fervor. So what if the amendment is unconstitutional? Republicans rule the roost. So expect more of the same.
As a nation, we voted for more tax breaks for corporations and the obscenely wealthy, cuts in welfare assistance and food stamps, more attempts to overturn Obamacare, protection for the democracy-killing “Citizens United” decision, and further denial of climate change. I guess Abe Lincoln was wrong: You can fool all of the people all of the time. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
