On
Tuesday, election Day, I watched with some trepidation. I did not
want a blue wave; I wanted a blue Tsunami. As the votes came in and
the wave grew so did my anticipation. But I kept telling myself to
manage my expectations and to accept whatever progress we Democrats
were able to make. The results of elections for the House of
Representatives looked good. The results of the gubernatorial
elections and the senatorial elections in Texas, Georgia, and Florida
were problematical because those elections are in dead red states.
It would be unrealistic to think those red states would not remain
true to form, and yet there was hope. What I was seeing was only the
beginning. I knew there were too many votes that would not be
counted that night, and that we would have to wait several days
before the results would be known.
I
went to bed cautiously optimistic even though I knew it was unlikely
that Beto O'Rourke would pull off the miracle in Texas or that
Georgia and/or Florida would reject the destructive Republicans
supporting Trump. Now a week has gone by and Florida and Georgia are
still teetering on the brink of disaster for Republicans. They, the
Republicans, seem to be in a panic, and they are lashing out with
absolutely absurd accusation even though the numbers reported thus
far and the odds still favor them in those states.
The
GOP spinmeisters are absolutely beside themselves: “No wave! No
wave!” they babble much in the same manner that Trump babbles “No
Collusion, No collusion!” All right, I will concede that the
results of the mid terms are not a blue Tsunami, but they are one hell of
a large wave. Taking over the House of Representatives by such a
large margin and flipping
seven governorships and six state legislative chambers is a
very strong victory. Furthermore, Beto O'Rourke came very close to
beating Ted Cruise in Texas while taking mainstream Democratic Party
positions on the issues rather than trying to paint himself as being
Republican-lite. This is not good news for Republicans. If Beto
O'Rouke and Democratic congressional candidates who won in red states
without trying to out Republican their Republican opponents is not a
repudiation of Trump it is at least a sign that people want him held
in check. That is good, but you will not hear champagne corks popping from my
direction, not yet!
The
problem is that voters are driven by emotions rather than logic. All
we have to do is look back a few years to see what that means.
Barack Obama's election in 2008 was a reaction to the crash that was
caused, at least in part, by George W. Bush's mismanagement of the
economy. This reaction by the voters
was understandable, and it would have been rational if it had been a
rejection of the policies that caused the crash and/or exacerbated
the recession that followed. But the voters are not that
sophisticated or wise. The reason that we know the voters were not
making a rational decision in 2008 is because in 2010 they gave the
Republicans control of the House of Representatives, thus rewarding
the Party that had crashed the economy and was doing every thing it
could to obstruct the efforts of a president and a party that was
trying to get us out of George W. Bush's recession. My point is that we cannot
view a few special elections and a single general election,
particularly a mid-term election, as a trend because the voters are
too damn fickle to allow that.
The
one thing that seems to remain fairly constant in regard to the
electorate is not a good thing; it is the number of paranoid
individuals who always buy the fear and loathing being peddled by
shameless demagogues such as Donald Trump. Furthermore, it is
exactly that group of paranoid voters that now comprises eighty
percent of the Republican base. That is why the Republicans cower in
fear of the angry Trump chumps, and why the elected members of the
Republican Party are every bit as obsequies to Trump as they were
before the elections! The remarkable thing is that while those
elections may not be a trend they are at least a warning to
Republicans that their base is shrinking. Continuing to practice
what Richard Hofstadter described as the paranoid style in American politics is a
rejection of reality that requires the practitioner to reject all
inconvenient facts. This frequently results in the sort of self
deception that causes the demagogues to become as delusional as the
people they are exploiting. What makes this rejection of reality and
self deception so dangerous now is that Trump has turned partisan
politics into a life and death struggle for the rule of law by firing Attorney General Sessions.
Where
are the Republicans who claim to revere our constitution and the rule
of law? What happened to that red line Republicans such as Lindsey
Graham drew in the sand regarding the firing of the attorney general?
Why is it now alright to replace Sessions with a lackey who is more
than likely to interfere with Mueller's investigation! The answer is
that Lindsey Graham, like the rest of the members of his party, has
lost his moral compass and has become a political eunuch serving the
king of his party and the would be dictator of this country!
Make
no mistake about it, Trump's appointment of Whittaker to replace Sessions as attorney general on a temporary basis is a
naked attempt to end the investigation! Wake up America! This is
worse than Watergate was! Trump is a clear and present danger to us
as a democracy and as a nation of laws. We must once more defend the
rule of law and our Constitution against the attacks of a corrupt and
lawless president!
My
condolences to the victims of the fires in California. My heart also
goes out to the victims of the shootings at the Borderline Bar and
Grill in California. I must confess that I have run out of words to
express my feelings about such tragedies and horrible crimes. The
best I can do in that regard is to refer you to my previous post,
“Human-Kind.”
