By now the extremes these Congressional Republicans will go to in their ceaseless attempts to nullify two consecutive presidential elections really should not surprise or upset me. And, lest any Republicans take offense, I suspect I myself am most likely a closet Republican. But, I am a David Brooks (New York Times) Republican, what I’m probably now calling The Sane Republicans or maybe The Adult Republicans. The GOP has become wholly owned and controlled by its extreme base and their megalomaniacal fanaticism apparently knows no bounds. They play politics with absolutely, positively everything, up to and including the world economy and efforts—regardless of how cosmetic or half-a-loaf—toward engagement over nuclear nonproliferation.
These extremes fall into a series of unprecedented and shockingly sophomoric if not infantile political maneuvers to the great degradation and loss of the American people. Oddly enough, it is those great American people I fault for this. Not for continuing to vote these guys into power, but for the two-thirds of us who can’t be bothered to vote them out.
This is why voter suppression works so well…because so many people are only BARELY willing to go vote in the first place, even the slightest inconvenience will do the trick to keep ’em home. Meanwhile, you pander to some hard core of lunatics who will do whatever it takes to get to the polls.
What’s hard to understand is why even remotely enlightened people can’t read that play (or choose not to).
I think we could really use a party that ACTUALLY believed in fiscal responsibility, personal accountability, and government restraint, instead of one that just paid lip service to those things. Instead we’ve got two parties dedicated to the principle that whatever our guy does is good and whatever their guy does is bad. We’ve got Republicans who thought drone strikes and warrantless domestic surveillance were great ideas when Bush was doing them and travesties now that Obama’s doing them, and Democrats who’ve held the reverse of those positions. The minority in the Senate always filibusters and the majority always clamors for filibuster reform; which party is doing which just switches off every few years.
I’m registered independent. Last year I voted in the Republican primary, and I voted for Adult Republicans. My guys didn’t get nominated, so I wound up voting mostly Democratic in the general. And I really didn’t care for a lot of the Democrats running, either, but found myself in the usual lesser-of-two-evils trap.
It would sure be nice if we could have a viable third party, or if independents could get elected without party support, but the system’s rigged against it.
Yeah. What HE said. 🙂