On Tuesday last, a number of our fellow citizens had the equivalent of an adolescent tantrum. It wasn’t pretty. Oh, we had warning of ill wind, blowing erratically, since so many of us find ourselves unhappy with Washington gridlock and stalled wages, but it hardly seemed reasonable to assume that the nation would tip itself over in such a tortured and skewed example of what I call ‘knee jerk’ behavior — but, you know — what part of ‘reasonable’ do we still expect these days?
When we go to the doctor and s/he tests our reflexes, tapping our knee with that little rubber mallet, if all is well, our foot kicks out obediently but the doctor — a person of scientific method and an understanding of cause and effect — is deliberately NOT standing in front of us. On Tuesday last, America kicked itself in its own tenders.
“Skewed example” is easy enough to illustrate, especially on the local horizon. Thanks to a temperamental and disenchanted electorate, the GOP now controls two-thirds of state legislatures, the most since the 1920s. If you have elders in the family who remember what their parents endured during that period, ask them for stories of those Good Old Days marked by misery and despair.
I think we need another review of history, since we seem to have forgotten so much, and in the interim, allowed consumerism to replace integrity, privatization for profit to strangle the principles of commonwealth, and political influence to trample the concept of public service and statesmanship. Punch that up with the fact that this last midterm was bought and paid for — BOUGHT and PAID FOR — to the tune of $6+ billion. BILLION!
Consequently, in an odd-year election that historically belongs to (old, white, rural) Republicans — the same ones who believe the black president bought his children in Malta and purposely brought Ebola to these shores as punishment for slavery — those with the most to lose, as usual, did. To vent their national spleen over all they’re asked to bear, the American electorate decided to give over control of their future to those who will happily gut environmental and fiscal regulations, eliminate safety nets for the struggling and impoverished, block necessary governmental and judiciary appointments, and offer up corporate welfare with a wink, a wave and a chortle of glee.
And that’s only the beginning! While skimming all the good stuff off the top for themselves and their corporate masters, this new majority of legislators can now access even the slim bit saved aside for the poor, freely punishing the ‘takers’ of the nation for moral ineptitude and slothful, possibly criminal, behaviors unforgivable in the eyes of their vengeful, party-approved and increasingly elitist Prosperity Gawd. (Somewhere, the late Stranger In A Strange Land author, Robert Heinlein, is shaking his head, wondering at the hardheaded American Calvinism that forced his book out of school libraries for its brilliant revelation of the American psyche and culture, denying generations a clear-eyed look at itself.)
As Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times blog, “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet midterms to men of understanding.” Despite everything, many of us seemingly don’t have a clue. Turns out it was only some 117,000 additional Dem votes in Alaska, North Carolina and South Dakota combined that handed control to the business class, according to Geoff Stone writing for Huffy. At least that many were no doubt denied a vote by one of the twenty-something states that have put stringent new voting laws in place, another ramification of conservatives seizing local government in so many states; more now than at any time since the Civil War.
In Ferguson, Missouri, for instance — where there doesn’t even seem to be pretense of equality — only one in four Diebold machines was working at one polling location, which (conveniently, don’t you think?) ran out of paper ballots by mid-morning. And speaking of the Pea Patch, one Missouri state House member decided to change her political party from Blue to Red on voting day, too late to wave off liberal voters. Here in the Show Me state we’ve shown the world our homegrown delusions, still blissfully unaware of what a national embarrassment we’ve become, although reviewing the international response to this election, voters in all fifty states deserve a well-earned punch in the nose.
Be prepared, there are assaults on all things progressive in the works. Keystone Pipeline will quite probably be wrapped in a budget deal: take it or take it in the posterior, America! And the celebrations on the right have mostly wound down to a roar with the exception of the Neocons, who are making a din sharpening their knives and planning which oil-endowed country to offer their military expertise to in exchange for “democracy” now. And the welfare of issues we care about like the EPA, the Department of Education? Liberal concerns like animal cruelty, endangered species, child welfare, consumer protection, women’s issues? Fat chance, citizen!
What can we expect from the new Red governors of Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts, along with Jan Brewer’s Arizona replacement, four of which have successfully expanded government-provided Medicaid access? It shouldn’t take too long to find out. Indeed, while Boehner and McConnell are aware they can’t turn back the Affordable Care Act in its entirety, they have already signaled their intention to bleed it from dozens of small, and even large, wounds. As announced today, their work may be moot, as SCOTUS has agreed to take up the lawsuit against ACA exchanges, the tax credits to low- and moderate-income insurance consumers. Without the exchanges, Obamacare may well breathe its last.
And yes, although I’ll admit I’d rather skewer both 2015 majority leaders than cut them any slack for their policies of victimization, I don’t think either of them, establishment old-timers, want to lean as far right as their party has pushed them — but they will, trust me. Their party agreed to talk out of the moderate side of their mouths to win this election, but at heart the Bagger purists have no intention of allowing leadership to go mainstream. Think they’ll acquiesce to bipartisanship for the good of the nation? Look at the lineup.
Oklahoman James Inhofe, who wrote a book on the hoax of global warming, will be taking over the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and let a soon-to-be-missed Stephen Colbert flesh that out for you here. Think that irony can’t be beaten? Evangelically-inspired Texas radical and climate denier, Ted Cruz — crazy as a bedbug and twice as debilitating to secular America — will now, ironically, chair the Committee on Science and Technology.
From the Department of What Were They Thinking, the electorate exchanged someone of the caliber of Colorado’s Mark Udall — champion of government transparency, environment and women’s issues — for the likes of Iowa’s Joni Ernst, she of the hog nuts and the Smith and Wesson pointed at your face. “Our first Alex Jones Republican,” as Tbogg, San Diego blogger and sometime Hullabaloo contributor, wrote in his piece titled “When God closes a Bachmann, he opens an Ernst.” There isn’t a right-wing conspiracy theory Joni hasn’t made her own, and perhaps it’s a blessing for Udall that he lost his race to a glib pretender to the ‘moderate’ throne.
Pushing the progressive boulder up the hill has gotten even more ridiculous now, making the effort of any well-intentioned legislator — a rarity in itself — an almost unendurable frustration. Perhaps the efforts of the well-intentioned are better spent in grassroots organizations and think-tanks than striving for a larger perspective. Meanwhile, of course, that leaves the public at the mercy of the narcissists and the corruptly self-involved, who have perfected the art form of squeezing the little guy because — well, because Mr. Smith wouldn’t last more than ten minutes in today’s Washington, given the deadly cynicism, deep pockets and amorality that define it.
Now, here’s the kicker about this apparent division among voters: research indicates that around 80 percent of citizens are NOT ideologically divided, that by and large, they agree on most issues. Surprised? It’s a dilemma. Eighty percent of us, both those who are politically astute and those who pay no attention at all, want the same things. Very few of us lean heavily to one side or another; which is both the good news and the bad.
The worst news? The majority of us do not see the inherent danger represented by the regressive policies pursued by the right. Meanwhile, the left has largely surrendered its progressive roots in the face of today’s fiscal realities, with both government and culture worshiping at the altar of a free (rather than fair) market. Money speaks more loudly today than ethics, civic responsibility or altruism as the pendulum swings back, even beyond the inequities of the Gilded Age. That the majority of voters do not see the moral implications of such a philosophy, and its full embodiment as one of the nation’s two political movements, tells us a lot about any actual ‘exceptionalism’ that America once hoped for and can never inhabit as it continues on this path.
How did this happen? We’ve been working on it a very long time. Wrote the late Howard Zinn, in his book A People’s History of the United States: 1492–Present:
“How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor, building resentment on top of humiliation! How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods, in a violent exchange of impoverished schools, while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, doled out carefully where children need free milk, is drained for billion-dollar aircraft carriers. How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small special benefits, and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scarce by an irrational, wasteful system. How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminals bred — by economic inequity — faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention from the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the law by men in executive offices.”
Is there a Best to go with the Worst? There is the possibility — should we become aware of the many factors manipulating us, the way in which we’re ‘handled’ rather than informed — that we could come together to make progress on those issues, ones that some 80 percent of us agree upon. It would take something of an earthquake, a suspension of suspicion and a willingness to end the separations — regional, cultural, racial and sexual — that divide us.
It would take an evolution of our willingness to meet one another as equals. It would take a reconsideration of both the way we engage one another and the way we allow ourselves to be spun by media, politics and religion. As Eric recently mentioned, we are more likely to vote AGAINST something than FOR it, and yet, that is exactly how things do eventually change. When some terrific idea comes along to capture the imagination of enough people, the old is effortlessly replaced and forgotten.
Over the short haul, then — at least the next two years — we have jumped from the frying pan into the fire, and I can already smell the scorch. Those who wanted less obstruction just voted for the obstructionists to lead the nation. And while the Dems could take up the (remarkably successful) Pub mantra of “do nothing and let them fail,” it’s unlikely that they will. They’ll still struggle to make some progress against a concentrated reversal of ideological fortune, which will most likely look damned pitiful, with the last hedge against acquiescence to plutocracy represented by Obama’s veto pen.
Instead, I’d like to see the left and those in the middle look determined, as if they’ve got little to lose because — sadly — they don’t. They’ve already lost power, short-term. And that should make them more effective at raising the roof than they’ve been in a long time. Truly, it’s the Pubs game to lose now. They’ll be tasked with governing, something they have neither skill nor desire to do. The nation will look to them for forward movement, only some of us aware that their throttle is perpetually stuck in reverse.
Truly, it’s time to break out the first aid kit because the nation is playing with fire and its fingers will inevitably get burned. But it’s all grist for the mill when you think about shifting the dynamics of an era, isn’t it? Getting a gut full of what doesn’t work may be exactly the thing that changes our dynamic from voting against, to voting for.
I suppose I’m leaning on differences rather than similarities when I mention that those who are driven to get/have/keep are hardly those who are interested in coming to agreement on policies that help us all. Deepak Chopra tells us, “The highest levels of performance come to people who are centered, intuitive, creative, and reflective — people who know to see a problem as an opportunity.” Somewhere in that 80 percent that are in agreement for common cause there should be plenty of us who are not so much opportunistic as willing to seize the day.
It isn’t the reality-based community that is going to singe its fingers in these next months. Two more Pluto-Uranus hits lie in waiting, bringing us the loud squeal of cogs straining in the machine, the stink of grinding metal and the heat of melt-down. It’s on our plate, but it can’t be much of a shock. After over a decade of political nonsense, we are not accustomed to looking to a political party for our good, although we have and must continue to solidify our intent to hinder any powers that work against it.
We live in a time of evolution and revelation, bringing us opportunities to become more mindful, more inspired, more aware. If that leads to revolution, it seems more likely a change in our way of seeing ourselves and our options than a clash in the streets. And if that’s true, as Deepak says, our highest levels of performance are just ahead. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and his decline was remembered for centuries. If the Republican Congress does likewise, their tenure will be short and informative.
It would be easy to mourn a loss of traction toward modernity and freedom today, but perhaps we could better spend our time practicing being “centered, intuitive, creative, and reflective.” Opportunity awaits our willingness to remain clear-eyed and open-hearted. The promise of progress lies just ahead because Shift happened, and — despite any evidence to the contrary — it is us.
