It’s midterm election time again, and we’re faced with the task of voting for one of two crappy partisan nominees or not voting at all. The Biden Administration isn’t exciting anyone in a positive way, and the Republican Party seems to be at war with itself. I am getting tired of this, as are many Americans.
It is a weird time right now in America.
Of course, the big issue right now is the economy and the looming recession. Jesus Christ himself wouldn’t be able to instantaneously harness inflation, as the current situation is natural “payback” for trillions of dollars of cheap or free money inserted into the economy by the Trump and Biden Administrations to, first, supercharge the economy, and second, to ease the chaos deriving from the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Lots of money chasing scarce resources equals… rising prices.
Republican candidates are cudgeling the Democrats over those rising prices and declining 401K’s and gleefully hammering home the theme that Americans would be much safer (i.e. from those darker skinned criminals and illegal aliens) if the G.O.P. was running things.
Typically, the “out of power” party does well in mid-term elections. In the 22 midterms elections from 1934 to 2018, the President’s party lost an average of 28 House seats and 4 Senate seats. If this occurs in 2022, the Republicans would control both the House and the Senate, virtually assuring that Joe Biden’s Presidency would accomplish nothing in its final two years.
This circumstance would be somewhat “normal”, considering the extreme partisanship which has plagued the American democracy for the past half century. A government which, on its best day, struggles to get anything positive done, would basically tread water for two years. Major policy issues like the war in the Ukraine, global warming, mass shootings, inflation, and competition with China would take a back seat to spitwad fights between our Democrat and Republican elected officials.
Interestingly (and a bad omen for the Republican Party), the G.O.P. adopted no policy platform for the 2020 elections. In other words, the Republicans did not identify anything substantial that they intended to do if they were to control government. Maybe they didn’t want the American public to know what their intentions were? Maybe their intent was to simply let President Trump do whatever he wanted for an additional four years? Maybe they envisioned four years of simply attacking Democrats for political gain?
It is estimated that about 40 percent of Republicans claim to believe that the 2020 election of Joe Biden was fraudulent. We can all thank our ex-President for that Big Lie, which seems to be rocket fuel for right-wing nut jobs. A few weeks ago, Eric Trump, youngest son of the Big Liar, stated that “The Republican Party is now the Trump Party”.
It’s a sad state of affairs. I used to vote Republican fairly often, but that political party has disintegrated into something that doesn’t stand for anything except obtaining power any way it can and using it to pummel opponents.
There is an old military term for this: SNAFU (Situation Normal, All Fucked Up). It is what it is, though: a form of government which no longer works because of extreme partisanship.
I believe that an increasing majority of Americans believe that democracy, as currently practiced, doesn’t work and are eager for something that does. Some believe that the system should become more democratic and others believe that it should become less so.
Republicans know that demographics are their enemy: that the numbers of W.A.S.P. citizens are on the decline and the numbers of young, non-religious, and multi-hued voters are on the increase. Party leaders have only one choice, really: they must “rig” the democracy so that G.O.P. candidates can succeed, even when Republican voters are outnumbered by Democrats.
The “Big Lie”, or “Stop the Steal”, hoopla regarding the 2020 election wasn’t really about who actually won the Presidential election. Everyone knows who won, including the 212 Republican legislators who were elected to the House of Representatives. Interestingly, not one of those Congressmen has argued that he was elected by fraudulent means. Let’s face it, if the election was “rigged”, then everyone who was elected benefited from the rigging.
No, the Big Lie wasn’t about truth; in fact, it was about fealty to Donald Trump. He’s a guy who’s publicly professed that all elections are rigged. In fact, he publicly stated this belief on election eve in 2016, hours before he was elected President.
After he lost in 2020, Trump used the Big Lie campaign to scam several hundred million dollars in donations from his political base to ostensibly fight fraudulent voting in court. He and his G.O.P. buddies have lost every significant case filed, but they made a lot of money while losing.
There are efforts in several States to “rig” future elections so that only the candidates of one party can win electoral contests. There are also legal initiatives which seek to enable State Legislatures , rather than voters, to determine who wins electoral contests.
This is called “one party rule” and is what one finds in China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and numerous dictatorships throughout the world.
My father, a staunch Conservative, used to say that the best form of government would be a “benevolent” dictatorship, forgetting of course the old adage that, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
I think that we are headed toward that autocratic future, where one individual (and/or one political party) pretty much calls all the shots and where the average citizen has no say in his government. Elections, should there be any, would be shams, with the outcome already determined by the Boss.
Once this occurs, there is no turning back.
Interestingly, what then happens is that “Freedom of Speech” disappears along with the sacred “Right to Bear Arms”. Dictators don’t like people saying nasty things about them, particularly if they’re armed.
Fifty years of scoffing at, and sabotaging our, democracy will bring us our just deserts. We will have turned over our futures to a person or group of people whose only interest is in retaining power and enriching themselves.
We will have screwed ourselves and our progeny