The Mighty Wave
As the GOP basks in the Republican mid-term landslide, it is useful to consider what was lost and what the results say about the nature of our democracy and the intelligence of the electorate.
This was a victory for the deliberate GOP strategy of government by obstruction - of hamstringing the party in the majority so that it will be rendered unable to govern, angering the voters sufficiently that they will award the throne and scepter to the minority... well at least the scepter. Never mind that the important business of the country will be either put on hold (like energy policy), critically diluted (like health care policy) or way-layed entirely. Never mind that this irresponsible strategy was enacted in the midst of the worst economic crisis in a generation, a crisis that was in large part the result of GOP anti-regulatory theology.
Perhaps even worse was the manner in which the voters blithely permitted Republican candidates in several key elections - such as Nevada and Delaware - to avoid answering questions about their positions and ignore encounters with the media that would have required responses.
This series of events tells a compelling truth about the responsibility of citizens in a democracy to educate themselves. Voting against extending unemployment benefits during a time of record unemployment, voting against universal health care coverage is at best profoundly ignorant -- at worst suicide.
As the GOP basks in the Republican mid-term landslide, it is useful to consider what was lost and what the results say about the nature of our democracy and the intelligence of the electorate.
This was a victory for the deliberate GOP strategy of government by obstruction - of hamstringing the party in the majority so that it will be rendered unable to govern, angering the voters sufficiently that they will award the throne and scepter to the minority... well at least the scepter. Never mind that the important business of the country will be either put on hold (like energy policy), critically diluted (like health care policy) or way-layed entirely. Never mind that this irresponsible strategy was enacted in the midst of the worst economic crisis in a generation, a crisis that was in large part the result of GOP anti-regulatory theology.
Perhaps even worse was the manner in which the voters blithely permitted Republican candidates in several key elections - such as Nevada and Delaware - to avoid answering questions about their positions and ignore encounters with the media that would have required responses.
This series of events tells a compelling truth about the responsibility of citizens in a democracy to educate themselves. Voting against extending unemployment benefits during a time of record unemployment, voting against universal health care coverage is at best profoundly ignorant -- at worst suicide.
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