I say let the Republicans and Blue Dogs say and do whatever they want on health care reform. If polls, which I will cite are accurate, the Republican Party may be even more marginalized in 2010, reversing a long-standing trend where the opposing party gains seats. Impossible you say? Didn’t Reagan end the trend of curse of the “zero president” or was John David Hinckley just a wuss in his job as the curse’s facilitator?On Election Night last year a close personal friend of mine up the beach who is a recording artist agreed with me that if there is ever going to be a three-party system in this country it would be the Republicans splitting in two—like an earthworm that, when it’s cut in half, crawls in two separate directions.
With extremism on the right increasing through the issues of health care and abortion and birtherism, moderate Republicans have been effectively silenced. In fact, this recent extremism is so loud, even other far-right Republicans are working hard just to catch up and be heard, except John Ensign and the C Street-The Family politicians.
Warning: the following is not a prediction but only the observance of a possible scenario.
Recent polls show that the “vast” or “overwhelming” majority of Americans—in some polls more than the number of those who voted for Hope and Change—want health care reform. Health care is one of those hot button issues that effect people in a deeply emotional way—much more than tax cuts. Health care involves a relative dying or in misery, tax cuts only involve freeing up enough cash to buy a new car or get a face lift.
If Republicans and Blue Dog Dems are seen as being whores for insurance industry pimps and against the people come 2010 the trend Dems benefited from beginning in 2006, and which grew in 2008, could grow even more in 2010.
If that happens and the Republicans are forced down to about 30 in the Senate and down to about 150 in the House, two things may happen—the Republicans may split after a long-overdue moderate Republican backlash takes place, and, passing a progressive agenda through Congress may also get easier.
But the above presupposes that Democrats will get the balls and fight to win elections as happened in 2008. I have never thought Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid had the balls to correct the wrongs in government when they had the opportunity. I still wish Pelosi had gone after Bush-Cheney for impeachment. Cheney deserved to have his face rubbed in the dirt after the things he’s done throughout his political career, not just as vice-president. His I’m-above-the-law snobbish attitude alone deserved a bloody nose.
Impeaching Bush may have set some things straight in that stratosphere of government just as impeaching Reagan may have straightened out the abuses in his office, many of which involving drugs that I wrote about in my first four posts of this blog.
If they had impeached Bush maybe that would have shaken up the Imperial Owners so that our Imperial Manager, Obama, would not have had to sell out as much as he has or experience the difficulties he has. But no, Pelosi and Reid chose to put all that behind us just as Attorney Genital Eric Holder is putting torture behind us so they can keep using it, I guess, by not making it a crime, despite the Special Prosecutor sideshow he seems to be starting.
But I digress. Recent polls by the Gallup organization, which, according to Wikipedia, rates 17th out of 23 for accuracy, show that many states that were red in 2008 are now in play. A slight majority of these people in Texas have labeled themselves as “leaning Democrat”. Thanks, Rick Perry.
And that gubernatorial reference points me to the thesis of this piece that I have lolligagged about getting to, which is this: let the Republicans do and say what they want and they will pay for it next year. As Forrest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does”.
As my close personal friend who is a recording artist will tell you, the Democrats are just as pro-war as the Republicans.
That is true, but I believe the Democrats are more malleable, as evidenced by the putty-like feeling I get when I’ve held Barbara Boxer in my hands. Plus, progressivism is more closely connected to Independents but there aren’t enough of them so, for now, Democrats will have to do until the Democrats break down into more than one party after the Republicans.
Exploring the point I made about the Republicans splitting will have to wait for another post.
Once the far right is marginalized into extremist criminal acts and all locked up, and as their audiences for their TV networks and radio shows disappears, maybe, just maybe, we can turn our attention to ending global climate change, providing quality health care for all and reducing the Taliban to becoming contestants on a nationally-televised show in Afghanistan and Pakistan called “Talibans Got Talent”.
