Seriously, no matter how crazy they are, I honestly never really believed that the Republicans would take the economy down on purpose. These are the people who have been entrusted with the responsibility for running our country...and it's not that they don't know what to do. They are consciously (or what passes for consciously with them) going to bring the country -- and possibly the world -- to its knees, for petty, partisan, ideological, political reasons.
There are NO good reasons for this -- just petty, spiteful, I'd-say-third-graderlike-if-it-weren't-insulting-to-third-graders reasons.
No matter how much they've disgusted and repelled me before, I have to say -- I really didn't believe it would come to this. This is so far beyond appalling that I am having trouble finding words for it.
I'm not all that happy with the Democrats, either. Yes, I realize that it's hard to be the adults in the room, when your "loyal opposition" is actually a bunch of children, sniveling and whining about everything and almost literally willing to say that the sky is red if you say it's blue. But, when your "partners" have gone insane, you do have a responsibility to tell the country -- "these people are insane. Please call your Senator or Representative before they drive the country irretrievably off the cliff!" -- and there doesn't seem to be any effective messaging going on here.
The Democrats seem so stunned by these developments that it makes me wonder just what they've been seeing for the past almost 2 years? How is it that they haven't said -- EVERY TIME THEY STEP IN FRONT OF A MICROPHONE -- "The Republican party of yesteryear is no more. Today's Republican party doesn't want to govern, they don't want to find solutions, they don't want to help the middle class -- let alone the poor! -- they just want to WIN and make the President LOSE. They have literally said that out loud, thinking that no one would notice. "
There should be an endless drumbeat of Dems saying that, in person, in ads, on TV and radio...everywhere. I'm starting to believe that it wouldn't impact the behavior of the Republicans, but if every Democrat/progressive/liberal with a microphone or pulpit of some kind repeated this message and asked everyone to call their Senator/Representative/Governor and demand that this partisan, petty fighting stop, at least maybe most of the country would understand what's going on. Those of us who pay close attention to politics know what's happening, but many (altho obviously not all!) of those struggling to pay the mortgage, find a job, feed the kids, and avoid bankruptcy, don't pay attention to things that don't immediately impact those priorities -- and until now, it hasn't been immediately impacting on them. They need it to be yelled from the rooftops, and that's not happening.
At this point, the Republicans seem so out of touch with reality and what's happening to their constituents that I'm not sure even having people phoning them every hour telling them to compromise or lose their jobs would work. I'm starting to believe that the only thing to hope for is that there's still something left to work with when we get them voted out of office in the next elections.
But, even that's not going to happen if Democrats don't start stating the plain truth -- these Republicans aren't interested in making things better unless it has a political benefit to them.