Take Off Your Tinfoil Hat and Consider This

I know what you’re thinking now. You’re looking at the poll numbers and thinking, even though, for a good part of the year, the Democrats have been polling well overall and in individual races, and the President and Republicans have been polling poorly and, less than 3 weeks away, there’s been no improvement on their end, and, historically, it all points to the Democrats taking over the House and possibly the Senate next month since Republicans’re looking even worse than the Democrats did around this time in 1994, that somehow, come Nov. 8, we’re all going to be in for a rude surprise when, once again, the Republicans somehow emerge victorious. You’ve followed the last several election cycles. Whether you believe Diebold is in the tank for them, or that they’re pulling off some of the tried-and-true election shenanigans (purging of voters, challenging voters at the polls, sending out threatening fliers in minority neighborhoods), or that an October Surprise has already been scripted and is just waiting for an evil mastermind such as Dick Cheney or Karl Rove to issue Order 66 to his underlings, a massive news event that will force them to suspend the elections or sway people in droves to vote Republican to save their skin. You’re worried there will be some massive swing to vote Republican, a turnaround that will rank right up there with the ’04 Red Sox against the Yankees, a heroic victory that will culminate in a goose-stepping Republican parade that will demonstrate once and for all the brilliance of Republicans and the magnificence of their codpieces, while we just slink on the sidelines, defeated, demoralized, pondering what went wrong, pondering how can we ever have the courage to fight once more after such a stunning collapse and wouldn’t it be much simpler if we just gave up and moved to Canada.

I know that’s what you’re thinking. I’m thinking the same thing. It’s paranoia. It’s thinking that somehow the other side has supernatural abilities. It comes from repeated losing, from having certain victories snatched away in the last minutes. It skews your sense of reality into thinking that the only reality is a defeated one.

But I’m here, at the turning of the tide (as Gandalf the White might say), to offer you some hope. Consider the following:

--The polling numbers are not a short-term fluke. They are long-term numbers, lasting a good portion of this year and beyond, and they are fairly consistent. You can take polls with a grain of salt, sure, but they indicate broad dissatisfaction with the current leadership, which, no matter how they try and frame it, is Republican.

--With the hole that seemingly keeps getting bigger for Republicans, one has to wonder what any sort of “October Surprise” can do to help that. It would have to be something on a massive scale—like a terrorist attack as devastating as 9-11, or an initiation of war—to change things. But these sorts of things, even if they are able to somehow coordinate them, are uncontrollable events. There’s no telling what a terrorist attack could do—the number of deaths, the economic impact, chaos and riots, the responses from other countries. There’s no telling what another war could do—more terrorist attacks, actions from other nations not involved (such as Iran or North Korea), the economic impact, what happens to our soldiers in Iraq.

And there’s a growing sense of distrust of the Republicans in general. An “October Surprise” could hurt them, depending on what it is, because many may believe it was orchestrated by them. Oh, the cynicism!

--Even with their blustering around the 9-11 anniversary, and the President’s nonstop tour giving speeches about fighting them there instead of here and how Iraq is the most important battle in the history of mankind, they haven’t been able to change the poll numbers. Lower gas prices haven’t changed the polls numbers. The supposed booming economy hasn’t helped them (an economy which has been crafted to “boom” only for the rich and corporations—which is the reason why the rest of us aren’t feeling it; all the leading economic indicators don’t mean squat when you’re drowning in consumer debt, have no health insurance, can’t afford your house payment, can’t sell your house). The media’s barrage of stories about how the President’s ratings are improving or might start improving and how just about every situation is a “win-win” for Republicans (and conversely a “lose-lose” for Democrats) hasn’t actually helped.

--There has been no good news for the Republicans. The Mark Foley scandal, involving multiple Republican leaders. The worsening situation in Iraq. North Korea now testing nuclear weapons. The Jack Abramoff scandal, involving multiple Republicans. Bob Ney and Randy Cunningham headed to prison. Damning new books by the likes of Bob Woodward and David Kuo. It keeps piling up, and, man, does this shit stink!

--Karl Rove, while a cynical, shady, manipulative political operative, is not God. He doesn’t control all events. There’s no way he planned for the Mark Foley scandal to happen. He’s human, prone to mistakes. Yeah, he and the President have had smug looks on their faces lately, making you wonder what they have up their sleeves, but what do you expect them to do? Cry and worry about defeat (our side has that cornered, anyway)? Defiant posturing and blustering are central to Republican attitudes. They have to keep it up. If not, the diehards will abandon them, and the corporate donations will dry up if they wave the white flag.

And they may very well believe that they can win this thing. They may believe that, with their money advantage and get-out-the-vote apparatus—successful things in the past—may very well win the day for them again, regardless of the poll numbers. But maybe they’re just deluded. Based on other things—particularly Iraq, where we were going to be greeted with flowers and how the insurgency is in its last throes—is that such a stretch to believe?

--The front-and-center issues are Iraq and the Mark Foley scandal, not gay marriage and abortion. Their attempts to work the morality angle are falling flat, unlike in previous years. Their standing on “values” is greatly diminished by Mark Foley, and, even though they’ve controlled the government for a better part of 6 years, they’ve done nothing with gay marriage and abortion, and the fundamentalists know this. Iraq is just a flat-out disaster that keeps producing death and destruction but no end.

--Howard Dean’s Fifty State Strategy has helped build the Democratic party in every state and field candidates in every state, even in places where a Democratic victory is remote. This is critical, because, now that the shit has hit the fan, the party doesn’t have to scramble to run a candidate in a place that’s become competitive. I mean, a congressional seat in Idaho has become competitive for the Democrats. Idaho!

--Internet sites such as DailyKos and Media Matters, among many others, have provided an instant forum to respond to Republican and media disinformation as well as provide thoughtful analysis of the news and politics from a liberal perspective. Robert Parry at Consortium News has long contended that liberals must create their own media machine such as what the Republicans have done the last 30 years. It’s not happening on the airwaves, but something comparable is definitely happening on the Internet.

Hopefully, these points provide you some comfort in these anxious times. Who knows what will happen on election day. We have to be cautious with optimism until the game has been played, but I think this time, we have plenty of reasons to have hope.

The End

No, no, no. Not the end of this blog. If you’re reading this blog, you must be nuts because I haven’t published for months. Why would you come back now? (Oh, by the way, hi there!) Anyway, we don’t end here, just go on unexplained lengthy hiatuses.

No, “The End,” as I’m referring to it here, and as I’ve sort of alluded to before, is the end of this current Republican-dominated era, whether or not the Democrats take back either or both houses of Congress this election. Even if they continue to dominate all levels of government, they will not be able to pass through any substantial legislation that doesn’t have bipartisan support. Astounding, really, considering that just 2 years ago, they had taken hold of the government and they appeared to be able to function without limit.

But the war in Iraq has been disastrous, Afghanistan is heading that way, and they can’t do much about Iran and North Korea; Katrina has shown them to be ineffective, heartless bastards; the corruption scandals have shown that they are, well, corrupt; the Terri Schiavo case has shown they are very concerned about interfering in our private lives; the Social Security “fix” was a bust; then there’s legitimizing torture, government eavesdropping, secret imprisonments, and other things I’m sure I’m forgetting; the Mark Foley scandal, which reveals just about every dirty aspect of these charlatans; and all of this has shown they are, above else, most concerned about keeping their hold on power than anything else.

The curtain has been opened on their little production and more people are seeing just what they are made of and seeing through their smears and lies. The polls have been consistently poor for them and they’re looking worse, not better, as the election creeps near. Bush has been consistently in the 30s for the better part of a year.

Even if they keep power, where do they go? Not that being exposed would necessarily stop them, but their shamelessness has been exposed—how can they ram through any legislation without sinking even further and ruining their 2008 prospects?
The continual 2-year election year cycle, more than anything else, has probably been the godsend that has saved this country. They can’t ram through abortion bans, gay marriage bans, more wars, and the rest of the agenda they promised to their base because they are sinking in the polls and would be wiped off the map if they did.

In short, their “end” has been brought about because George W. Bush has been a disastrous president, and the members of Congress pledged undying fealty to him in the early years of his administration, basically purchasing themselves tickets on the Titanic. That was their fatal mistake—basically forfeiting their legislative status as a check on his power and becoming his rubber stamp so that they could keep power indefinitely.

If the Republicans hold onto power, there will be a major disconnect in this country that will render the government ineffective. One party will hold all the reins of power, but won’t be able to do anything because, ironically, more people dislike them than the minority party. This could lead to an electorate that is either more outraged than it is now, or one that becomes more apathetic and withdraws from the process. But this is the government we have now—one that is no longer representative of the people. Congressional districts have been gerrymandered by both parties to become noncompetitive and largely unchangeable. We’re in a war and what sacrifices should we, the people, make? Buy more goods. Forfeit your rights under the Constitution. And don’t ask any questions of your leaders than they don’t have prepared answers for. Our elected representatives are shamelessly up for sale to the highest corporate bidder.

If they somehow turn it around and save their political hides, or if they have this thing already secured in the Diebold bag, they can spend time patting themselves on the back and talking about how the American people have spoken and how God-fearing and mighty they are, but they’re still fading away even if nothing changes. They will be sliding away to their worst nightmare, which will be a Democratic presidency in ’08. The people are on to them and eventually said people will do something about it.