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defrogElection Day is today.
I haven’t been posting much on the mid-terms – partly because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bedsitter23 is providing better coverage than I ever could, so it’s easier for me to direct you here, and partly because no one is paying me to post something every single time some candidate somewhere does or says something outrageously batshit. I mean, I’d have to give up my day job to have the time. And as far as I know, Huffington Post isn’t hiring.
But with all the dithering over the Tea Party possibly getting seats in Congress on behalf of the GOP, I thought maybe I should say something.
I’m not all that worried about it.
Well, okay, I am. But not about the actual politicians. Yes, Joe Miller and Christine O’Donnell and Sharon Angle and Rand Paul et al say stupid, dumb and frequently bigoted things, and they’ll probably keep saying them once elected. They are full of bad ideas and they’re only getting an audience because blowhards and fear make good television.
And that’s the real problem: fear.
As I’ve said elsewhere on this blog, I have little patience for the Politics Of Fear. Fear is what got the state of US politics where it is right now, and it’s responsible for the polarized Us vs Them mentality permeating the political landscape. It’s also the sort of thing that leads to things like reporters getting arrested for asking questions, or security guards stomping on the heads of left-wing activists for being left-wing activists at a right-wing rally.
Fear will do that.
And I don’t just mean the Tea Party people. I’m also talking about the left-wing contingent trying to convince me that if the Tea Party wins any seats today, America is OMG DOOMED because these people are DANGEROUS NAZI LUNATICS who MUST BE STOPPED.
Well, no. Fuck that. Especially when, as John Scalzi points out better than I ever could, if the Demos actually lose control, they only have themselves to blame.
The good news – if you can call it that – is that in terms of actual legislation, the Tea Party victory dance won’t amount to much. They can blather about outsiders changing Washington all they want: they won’t. They can’t. No one can. The Washington Machine is what it is, and no one is ever going to change that without a constitutional convention or an armed uprising. The Tea Partiers will be co-opted into it like everyone else, if only because Republicans don’t especially like them, either.
Sure, they’ll bang on and on about The Gayz and The Foreignerz and the Gay Foreignerz and the Obama Sociast Doom Machine to keep their stupider constituents happy. But Michele Bachmann does that all the time. And name a single batshit bill she’s ever successfully rammed through Congress.
Think of it this way – we know what an all-GOP govt is like. And we know from the last two years that an all-Demo govt doesn’t make a huge difference, especially when it comes to correcting some of the GOP’s worst offenses. So a Tea Party victory won’t really change that dynamic one way or the other.
Besides, admit it – the Tea Party has livened things up considerably, and possibly done more to get both their supporters and their opponents to care about politics than anyone. Granted, they haven’t come up with anything as awesome as Jimmy McMillan’s The Rent Is Too Damn High Party. But they can’t be expected to think of everything.
So we’ll see how it goes. But don’t worry about them screwing the country. It’s pretty much screwed already. And that will be true even if the Democrats keep Congress. Just not as much.
Cold comfort for change,
This is dF
I haven’t been posting much on the mid-terms – partly because
bedsitter23 is providing better coverage than I ever could, so it’s easier for me to direct you here, and partly because no one is paying me to post something every single time some candidate somewhere does or says something outrageously batshit. I mean, I’d have to give up my day job to have the time. And as far as I know, Huffington Post isn’t hiring. But with all the dithering over the Tea Party possibly getting seats in Congress on behalf of the GOP, I thought maybe I should say something.
I’m not all that worried about it.
Well, okay, I am. But not about the actual politicians. Yes, Joe Miller and Christine O’Donnell and Sharon Angle and Rand Paul et al say stupid, dumb and frequently bigoted things, and they’ll probably keep saying them once elected. They are full of bad ideas and they’re only getting an audience because blowhards and fear make good television.
And that’s the real problem: fear.
As I’ve said elsewhere on this blog, I have little patience for the Politics Of Fear. Fear is what got the state of US politics where it is right now, and it’s responsible for the polarized Us vs Them mentality permeating the political landscape. It’s also the sort of thing that leads to things like reporters getting arrested for asking questions, or security guards stomping on the heads of left-wing activists for being left-wing activists at a right-wing rally.
Fear will do that.
And I don’t just mean the Tea Party people. I’m also talking about the left-wing contingent trying to convince me that if the Tea Party wins any seats today, America is OMG DOOMED because these people are DANGEROUS NAZI LUNATICS who MUST BE STOPPED.
Well, no. Fuck that. Especially when, as John Scalzi points out better than I ever could, if the Demos actually lose control, they only have themselves to blame.
The good news – if you can call it that – is that in terms of actual legislation, the Tea Party victory dance won’t amount to much. They can blather about outsiders changing Washington all they want: they won’t. They can’t. No one can. The Washington Machine is what it is, and no one is ever going to change that without a constitutional convention or an armed uprising. The Tea Partiers will be co-opted into it like everyone else, if only because Republicans don’t especially like them, either.
Sure, they’ll bang on and on about The Gayz and The Foreignerz and the Gay Foreignerz and the Obama Sociast Doom Machine to keep their stupider constituents happy. But Michele Bachmann does that all the time. And name a single batshit bill she’s ever successfully rammed through Congress.
Think of it this way – we know what an all-GOP govt is like. And we know from the last two years that an all-Demo govt doesn’t make a huge difference, especially when it comes to correcting some of the GOP’s worst offenses. So a Tea Party victory won’t really change that dynamic one way or the other.
Besides, admit it – the Tea Party has livened things up considerably, and possibly done more to get both their supporters and their opponents to care about politics than anyone. Granted, they haven’t come up with anything as awesome as Jimmy McMillan’s The Rent Is Too Damn High Party. But they can’t be expected to think of everything.
So we’ll see how it goes. But don’t worry about them screwing the country. It’s pretty much screwed already. And that will be true even if the Democrats keep Congress. Just not as much.
Cold comfort for change,
This is dF
