HOPEFULLY, THE AMEARCAN PUBLIC WILL RE-AWAKEN

 

Yo Americans…don’t expect to see any real governing performed by the Republicans in Congress.

 

First, I am not surprised by the results of the mid-term elections.  Disappointed, yes, surprised, no.

The obvious situation is, that when your messaging is poor, as was the Democrat’s and the president’s, and you tell your own party’s leader and president, that you don’t want them helping with your election campaign, as many Democratic Senators had done, what should anyone then expect?

But the question I now ask is, “When will those people that voted for the Republicans wake up to the fact that the Republicans had no public mandate because they have no positive agenda, and they have never had one.” 

Well, actually their real agenda was for Mr. Mitch McConnell to get what he has wanted for his whole senatorial career…to become the Senate Majority Leader.  Now that he has it….what now? 

 

The Republicans have reaped the rewards of McConnell’s scorched-earth strategy of obstructing President Obama relentlessly, this eventually created the perceived failure that voters had obviously pinned on the party in power.

Unfortunately, the question is how long before it is found out that McConnell will now lead into power, a party that is truly unfit to govern. 

 

The Tea Party wing-nuts at the Republican base want the government only to be dismantled, not to actually govern.  Even the titular radio air-head of the conservatives, Rush Limbaugh, announced that the Republicans only have a mandate to “stop Barack Obama” and “were not elected to govern.”  Now you known that this is a big first, but for once I admit that the big radio blow-hard is correct.

As Katrina van Heuvel, editor, publisher, and part-owner of the Nation magazine recently wrote, “…the collateral damage is that the “party of ‘no’ ” has no agreement on what is a ‘yes’.  Instead of using the years in their [political] wilderness to develop new ideas and a clear vision, Republicans have used them only to sharpen their tongues, grow their claws and practice their backhands.

Republicans paid no penalty for obstructing every measure that might have given the recovery more juice, blocking even the infrastructure spending that has been a bipartisan response in every downturn. They paid no penalty for shutting down the government and forcing mindless austerity that cost jobs. They paid no penalty for their hysteria on foreign policy issues – screeching about phantom terrors of pregnant immigrants helping Islamic State terrorists and Ebola victims slip in the country to kill us here at home. They never needed to fill in the magic asterisks in Rep. Paul Ryan’s budgets, enabling him to deny any damage to Medicare, education, food stamps and the most vulnerable that his plans would require.”

All one has to do is to listen their most obvious current spokespersons and what is in their individual agendas.

·       Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) pledged once more to repeal Obamacare.

 

·       Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) will use his new chairmanship of the Environment and Public Works Committee to deny the existence of catastrophic climate change.

·       Senator John McCain (R-AZ) says he will use his chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee to demand more “boots on the ground” in Iraq and Syria, harsher sanctions to undermine negotiations with Iran and push for a macho US posture over Putin’s actions in the Ukraine. (War, War, and more War)

 

Arizona Senator, “I never saw a war I didn't like," McCain”

You will notice that there is not one idea here that will be a positive for any of the American public.

And for those on Fox News, even the talking-head, Ms. Megyn Kelly says that Obama will eventually “offend” Republicans into impeaching him, while Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative political activist, argues that the first priority should be blocking all of Obama’s judicial nominees.

Sure sounds like a bunch of people that really want to do good-governing for the average American…..yesirree.

As to Mr. McConnell, he has already admitted that he is ready to embrace the conservative national Chamber of Commerce agenda.  That agenda is to repay the big money that helped bring the Republican victory.  This would include giving wealthy multinationals a massive tax break on money that they stashed abroad and off-shore to avoid taxes.  They also will pass fast-track trade authority, push ahead the Keystone XL pipeline, weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and repeal the Obamacare tax on medical devices.  These are of course their first shots for tearing apart the Affordable Care Act.

You will notice that there is less talk of “compromise”, and more of “fire and brimstone” from the Republicans. (67% of the newly elected Republicans said they wanted to “oppose” President Obama, not to “compromise” with him.)  For the winning gladiators, they want Obamacare repealed, and they still want their scorched-earth obstructionism to continue.  They still want all of Obama’s nominations blocked, all the scandals, real and delusional investigated, the Dodd-Frank financial regulation reversed and of course, taxes and domestic spending slashed. In other words, they want to go back to what caused the 2008 Great Recession.

Realistically, I don’t see any signs that there will be any real governing or that there will be any changes within the now newly powerful conservatives.  Just more of the same.

Yes, some things never change.

Ms. van Heuvel finished her article with the following: “McConnell won his majority by brilliantly waging a partisan, dishonest, unrelenting policy of obstruction. But now, the absence of any ideas or of any clue will be exposed. And next time, when voters sensibly want to “throw the bums out”, they may have a far clearer view of just who the bums are.”

I sure hope she is correct.

Copyright G.Ater  2014