What Logic Tells Us in the Face of Disaster

The right wing would have you believe that Democrats are in for it this Fall. Their base is energized, there's a black man in the White House, and his job approval is down. People are upset about all kinds of things and they're looking for someone to blame. Yes, indeed, it looks like the left wing is in for a letdown in 2010, with Republicans just licking their chops anticipating their ascendancy back into power.
Yay. A change in the seat of government! Yay. A new order in Washington! Yay. A political message to the president and his liberal agenda! Yay. A mini-revolution for a center-right nation! Yay...rrr...ray...
Rape. That's the word for it, because if the right wing rides economic discontent into office this November, it will be a Republican political rape. Rape, as most people agree, is a crime predicated by a need for power, in which someone is sexually violated, and that is just want the Republicans want politically. If they wanted to join the political process of governance, they've had plenty of opportunities. They could've worked with Obama and the Democrats on the road to economic recovery, health care reform, financial regulation, and even tax restructuring. Instead, they chose to filibuster, complain, and raise false concerns while slandering our president to the point where 18% of this country believes he is actually a Muslim.
In this sense, the Republican party has violated the American people forcefully, delaying economic recovery by stalling unemployment checks, making effective health care reform impossible, and refusing to cooperate with necessary legislation regarding the myriad problems we face as a nation. They have violated the American people forcefully and purposefully, knowing that if government was stalled, and made to seem corrupt and ineffective, they could use public anger to manipulate the emotions of the American electorate to vote them back into power in Washington. They have raped the American people, robbing them of the responsible governance to which they are entitled in order to gain political power. And, as of right now, it looks as if they'll get away with it.
The true tragedy is that nothing will get done if and when they do assume power. Government will be made to stall for another 2 years in an effort to make Obama look bad so that he can be unseated in 2012. The economy will continue to stagnate with 10% unemployment, while we wait, floundering, for the kind of decisive action that it will take to finally pull us out of this recession. Yay.
The irony is that the Republicans are using a public sentiment which they almost wholly created. The correct notion that our government is corrupt and broken was made clear during their reign, under Bush, that forged many of the causes of the current recession, and at the very least, failed to mitigate the harmful market forces in play that were foriegn, endemic, or pre-existing. Unfortunately, many Americans seem to have forgotten this, and in the interim have had their emotions manipulated by the conservative media, looking now poised to vote with their hearts rather than their heads in November. If so, the results, as stated above, won't be good ones.
The only consolation for the cognitive American is that in the end, regardless of the political outcome, people who embrace intelligence will alway survive and prosper. Those who use proven facts, science, and reason will always succeed, because even if government changes based on the manipulation of emotion and information, markets don't. Successful companies don't scorn the latest data and research, as conservative media outlets do; they embrace them. Competitive corporations seek the most talented people, not those who've forsaken knowledge, as the right wing has. The best and most prosperous businesses operate in a world where reality matters, because it exists as a key to their prosperity, regardless of what people want to believe.
In this sense, ultimately, most mainstream Republicans are screwed. They don't operate in a fact based reality. They scoff at edcuated individuals and discredit intellectuals, professors, and scientists. They lean on faith and religious hubris rather than admitting or acknowledging legitimate, secular philosophical truths. They live in the dark. They refuse to change course, admit mistakes, or listen to dynamic and diverse viewpoints. These aren't the characteristics of winners, entreprenuers, and innovators--they're the foundational flaws the have ended the reigns of monarchs, unseated politicians, and toppled empires. Their the traits of bullies--the excuses that losers make.
Indeed, while it may serve Republican political interests for people to be ignorant and ill-informed, it's hardly a leap to surmise that it won't be very advantageous for the people with their heads in the sand. And while large corporations may throw money to the GOP because of their economic interests in tax cuts, tax breaks, and deregulation, they aren't going to hire the rubes they fool to develop their business plans or engineer the next factory. They're going to hire smart people for that.
Thus, while those of us that live in a fact-based reality have become frustrated with the right wing base and their tendancy to vote on emotion and ignorance, the truth is that is is precisely these people who are in the worst position, and who will invariably find themselves at the bottom of Republican economic policy.
Make no mistake: it won't be good. If Republicans gain offices in 2010, schools, services, and jobs will continue to be cut. Perhaps this time they'll even succeed at privatizing social security, or cutting medicare benefits. The people that will be hurt most by it? The people that will feel the violation of the Republican political rape in the worst way? The same fools that voted them into office. Yay.