I watched the midterm election results like everyone else here did, and I was quite disturbed that the tea-party supported GOP took back the House of Representatives so handily while make a few gains in the Senate. Since then there's been much hand wringing from both sides of the political spectrum, but the misery on our side has been almost too excruciating to bear. The midterms just ended two weeks ago, but according to some folks around here it would appear that President Obama has thrown in the towel, and that the GOP is poised to not only repeal the health care law passed last spring, but do away with the 13th, 14th, 15th and 17th amendments to the Constitution as well. Meanwhile, the media and pundits are already attempting to handicap the 2012 Presidential elections. I, for one, am sick of all this mental posturing.
Folks, even though the President and Democrats took a huge hit two weeks ago, remember that the Democrats still control the Senate, plus the President still has veto power. In addition, the Dems still have control of the House until Christmas, so there's still a chance to pass progressive legislation. And even when John Boehner takes up the Speaker's gavel, he will have to do more than just say no in order to get anything done during the net two years. And while most of the tea party wackos who ran on lesser government will certainly cave in to their own hypocrisy, they will still have to deal with their angry base, which if it is anything like what they did during the campaigns, will eventually rupture the GOP and only be helpful to the Democrats.
By the way, the conventional wisdom floating around the Beltway back in late November 2006 was that Hillary Clinton was easily going to be the Democratic nominee for President while Rudy Guilianni would ride his New York City 9/11 hero's coattails to become the GOP nominee for President. Of course, it was also assumed at that time that the real estate boom, while maybe slowing down somewhat, would not result in collapsing home prices and massive home foreclosures. Well, we know how those events turned out, don't we.
I already see a huge number of people on this site in utter despair over what may happen in the next year or two, but frankly I'm not sure what will happen in the next two months, let alone two years. For all we know, the economy may improve dramatically, or all those huge corporations who chose to outsource jobs to China and India may have to deal with labor uprisings in those countries which may force them to move jobs back home. Or better yet, some enterprising manufacturing geek may come up with that killer app that makes home manufacturing a reality and outsourcing irrelevant.
The truth is, I'm not sure what is going to happen in the next two years, but what I am willing to do is continue to champion the progressive cause, whether it's educating my fellow citizens about the good things our government has done, or working to protect Social Security and Medicare, or encouraging our local leaders to pursue green jobs here at home to save our environment. Maybe things will get better; maybe the USA will collapse into an apocalyptic, dystopian mess. But that doesn't mean I plan to put my head into the sand and opine about things should have been.