The Republicans know that they can't really win on the issues, on the success of their policies. First, they haven't really passed anything themselves, Second, whatever they did pass before was absolute crap in terms of its results. They well and truly drove the country into a ditch.
Guess what? They want the keys back. And they know they won't get them by reasoning with people. So do you know what they've decided to do? Break your heart, blow your mind, do anything and everything to make you feel like it's not worth it, futile to go to the voting booth and vote for Democrats.
Republicans have let the world's loudest, nastiest, paint-peelingest, most corrosive and nasty fart into the atmosphere of politics. But let me tell you what: even if you have to wear a hazmat suit to walk back into that public forum, you better do that if you care about anything.
The Republicans have been filibustering legislation left and right, if you've been paying attention, letting barely anything past. Many of your favorite pieces of legislation, like DADT repeals, the Public Option, stronger regulations for Wall Street have been victims of it.
They've done that not for the last year, not just since Obama got into office, but since the Democrats took the majority. Now, it doesn't help that we got many weak Democrats and Mr. Lieberman in Congress, but to say the least, if it weren't for the Republican's blockade of the Senate, we'd have actually gotten done much of what we wanted to do.
Rather than let us win, though, they've decided to make this a constant legislative fight so nasty that it's really demoralized us as a party, and deprived the public of the action they so badly wanted. The Republicans have deliberately worked to deprive the Democrats of achievement, deliberately put pressure on the few weak or ideologically rightward Democrats so that Democrats attack Democrats, and the American people get frustrated with this congress.
Understand that. Feel that. Get the level of cynicism that takes in a time like ours, with 9.6% unemployment, with the climate going the way it is, with all the bullshit going on in the world, they are content to effectively decapitate America's legislative leadership, leaving Americans with no real options for reform, nor response to the troubles we face in the world.
Why the hell aren't you angry? Why isn't this fact feeding your stubborn willingness to beat the crap out of the Republican Party in the election? Aren't you outraged with them?
Oh, I know, you want to politically beat up those who helped put this party in a weaker position. Fine, great, I wish you the best of luck. But if you take the fight just to them, or even primarily to them, you're part of the weakness yourself, despite your best intentions (and no doubt, they're good intentions.)
The reality of your situation is, party loyalty means a hell of a lot more if you keep the Senate, keep the House. Lose them, and I guarantee the weaklings in the Democratic Congress will be pushing for Democrats to head to the right. These Democrats in Congress are of a different time, a different generation, and they feed their assumptions from a different source. Until we get politicians of our generation or closer, we will see the hippies punched rather than the Blue Dogs kicked. It's tiresome, it's pointless, but until we become the new normal of the Democratic party, it's inevitable. You should just tell yourself that this is what the older generation is like, and get over it.
Why should you get over it? Oh, not because you're wrong. No, more because you're right, and you don't need to get distracted by what really isn't a very important controversy. What's the point of defeating the hippie-punchers of this party if the hippie-hunters of the other party get to be in charge instead?
Priorities people. Look at what they're trying to say, however inartfully ;-) (seems to be a favorite word nowadays). They're trying to tell you that if you feel that certain things are important, you need to show up on election day, and fight for them.
If you only show up when everything's nice and popular, and you don't have the baggage of bitter compromises and everything else, well then you'll be easy to defeat. Why? It's pretty simple: because the other side will stir up a shitstorm of controversy any time something important goes on. They'll drag their heals, play the boat anchor, and out there in the public forums, they'll let out such nasty corrosive farts of political demagoguery that eyes will water in Moscow.
What do you think Glenn Beck is? A nasty, shit-smelling pants-squeaker of ass-gas, whose program is specifically about generating as much useless, pointless and simply wrong controversy as he can. Rush Limbaugh? A nasty eye-waterer of an antibiotic fart that requires one to check the shorts.
I could go on, but I'm sure you get the point. But what they're trying to do is make the political environment so hostile that moderates, liberals, and other people just simply feel like leaving this politics thing altogether. They want people exhausted. They want people screaming in frustration of what's not getting passed, and the polls that are trending lower. They want you to despair and give up on politics so they can take your place, take power away from you, make you think that this was all just a futile little escape from their rule.
They don't just want to beat you in this election, they want you suppressed for the next generation. They want you to blame everybody else but them. They want you to hang around in the background and do nothing, because you know that if you succeed you will be disappointed, and the other side will rise, like a wafting, upset stomach smell, to make you want to gag and run off.
Your own side won't help that much, it's true. They're part, though, of what you have to push against, defeat. We have far too many Democrats around who don't trust in their core liberal and progressive policies. They're too stuck in the past. They've been a ball and chain around our ankle these past few years.
However, we should not exchange walking around with balls and chains around our ankles for being chained to the wall as a minority. We can always filter out the Democrats who aren't dependable. That will be easier than trying to win back a house of Congress.
And really, don't we do a favor for those Democrats who collaborate with the Republicans if we let the Republicans win majorities? They get to be the brokers once again of political power, if they survive this election, the people who can get things done. A majority for the Republicans makes it harder to get rid of them, because they will once again be necessary.
No, we have to think better about long term policy than that.
It's time to put on your gasmask, and step out into the public forum. It's time to don the HazMat Suit, and step into the foul wind of Republican hot air.
Start fighting the people who are at war with you, who are bombarding you with all these stink bombs to make you submit to their rule, resign yourself to a corrupted government.
Start raising the stink against them that they have raised against you.