You may have noticed that I stopped giving political IQ scores after the June primaries. The problem is that too few people voted in the primaries. The Republicans had a higher turn out than the Democrats, but even the percentage of Republicans who voted was low. This in itself indicates a very low political IQ. It means that a majority of the people left the decisions to others rather than taking some responsibility for selecting our leaders. This gave the people at the far end of the political spectrum a greater voice because it was the extremists who were passionate enough to get to the polls. This resulted in the Tea Party candidates scoring upset victories over their more moderate Republican opponents. The elections in November are no longer a political IQ test; instead they are a mental health test. Mad is a word that is defined as anger or insane rage. I keep hearing that the voters are mad at all politicians over the sorry state of our economy. The question that will be answered in November is whether the people of this country are insanely angry or whether their anger and frustration will make them pay enough attention to determine who is to blame and what needs to be done to get us back on track.
Shortly after the election of President Obama the Republicans cynically threw out the honored tradition of compromise in an effort to make his administration fail. To this day they continue to oppose things they once favored; things such as making loans available to small businesses, tax breaks for people making less than a quarter of million dollars per year, and an extension of unemployment benefits. They are doing this at the expense of the middle class, which is still suffering from the steady erosion of real wages and decreased employment opportunities brought about by the policies of George W. Bush. The fact the Democratic Party has still managed to make some meaningful changes can only be attributed to the fact that the voters gave them a large enough majority do it. The fact that the Democrats have not accomplished more is because even this majority is not sufficient to totally overcome the procedural obstructions the Republicans in the Senate are using to create gridlock.
Thanks to the rise of the Tea Party, the contrast between the Democrats and the Republicans has become even sharper. In an earlier post I said there is a real danger that the Republicans will shut down the government as they did when Newt Gingrich was speaker of the house and that they will use the Congressional Subpoena to trump up charges they can use to impeach the President as they did when Bill Clinton was President. The chances that the Republicans will do both of those things if they gain control of the Senate or the House of Representatives have greatly increased with the nomination of so many extremist candidates. If you think the government has failed to respond to the recession thus far just consider what will happen if the government is shut down and becomes completely dysfunctional. One look at Rand Paul, Susan Angle, and the other extreme Republican candidates will tell you I am not sounding a false alarm!
The premise behind this democracy or any democracy is that an informed electorate will make wise choices. This means that you must listen and you must vote! If you are foolish enough to let the lunatics elect extreme anti-government candidates who will run this country over a cliff do not blame the politicians; the responsibility is yours. You are either sane enough to accept the responsibility for selecting our leaders or you are not. You are either bright enough to realize that our government must take resolute action to deal with this economic crises or you are not. It is your decision to make. It is up to you to prevent the nightmare scenario I have presented!
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