Looking back, now that it’s all over, one sees an inevitability in what happened in the recent presidential election. I find it hilarious that a good cross-section of Republicans are now attacking Romney almost as viciously as they did Obama before the election. I say hilarious because it’s the party of hysterical half-wits, not the candidate of greed and frustration that was at fault in the recent loss.
Just look what’s happening in the states while the Republican party leaders in Washington claim that they are going to take the party in a new direction, the clowns that run red states are back at the wheel, trying to create even more bigoted legislation than existed before the election. Indiana wants to triple down on gay marriage. It is already against the law in Indiana but now that want to get its prohibition into the state constitution. It would seem that Indiana doesn’t have any serious problems to solve.
In Ohio they are already pushing to defund Planned Parenthood and showing up every day with new laws against contraception. In Kansas they are trying to stop the children of illegal immigrants from going to college, in Wisconsin they are trying to push through four new anti-abortion laws, as they are in both Michigan and Arkansas. These bigoted, religious fanatics have learned nothing from the election or from the teachings of the God, they claim to worship.
The sane possibilities, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and those who didn’t run, were smart enough to stay home, realizing that they would have to face the maniacal Christian Conservatives and Tea Party freaks and their hysterical demands or not get through a primary. Those that did run looked like a the collection tattooed freaks and fat ladies from Hubert’s, 42nd Street Museum back in the 50’s & 60’s.
How can a party, any party, present a group of supposedly serious candidates that includes the likes of Rick Perry, Michelle Bachman, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain. These are not serious people and yet the fact remains that Bachman managed to retain her congressional seat. Makes you wonder, what kind of people inhabit this country and will vote for this demented harridan?
Well, I’ll tell you. They are the kind of people who forced Romney, a man with no ethical center to start with, to bounce all over the political universe, first catering to their bigoted needs and then switching those positions 100% in a vain try to garner enough thinking people’s votes to win the election. It was a futile attempt and all it did for Romney was to show that he is the kind of spoiled man-child who will do anything to get what he wants which is exactly what we don’t want running our country.
But what comes next? Can the saner heads in the Republican Party manage, somehow, to convince the true believers that some kind of cooperation is necessary if the nation is to survive. The great right wing battle cry of, “no second term for Obama,” no longer exists. They had the economy, the basic tool to get him out but they were too wound up in ludicrous social issues to allow it to happen. Now they have to decide whether they want to be part of the 21st century or if they would rather slide back into the 19th.
This is a great nation that has been on hold for ten years. It’s time to get the engine started and get it back on the tracks. The Republicans are facing a pivotal choice. They can get on board and help make the trip work or they can continue to stay wound up in fruitless legislation and misguided attempts to block progress and watch their party shatter.
The first thing the right has to do to clean up their act is to get the ministers out of the statehouses. I have the greatest respect for a man who believes in something but I have only distain for a man who demands that I believe in what he does simply because God talks to him. The kind of ego that allows a man to think that God speaks to him, is nothing but destructive. The right has to stop talking about freedom in one breath, and demanding that the rest of us do exactly what they want in the next.
Freedom is the American way, but if you want freedom from taxes, you have to accept freedom from good roads, quality education and proper medical care. If you want freedom from all government intervention you must accept freedom from safety and a pretty deep level of anarchy. Freedom demands balance and balance comes from men of good will making a serous attempt to understand what their political opponents are trying to say. So far we have had none of that in our government during the last four years. The loyal opposition has been anything but loyal.