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[Casual political analysis from Team Def Political Batshit Curator editor Lucky Bensonhurst]
The midterms happened last week, and as usual, the statistics wonks were right – much to the surprise and indignant outrage of every liberal I know who were convinced that the GOP would have their ass handed to them thanks to the Hobby Lobby ruling rallying the Demo base.
Turns out not.
The reactions have followed the usual templates: Republicans are being smug to the point of sanctimony and Demos are predicting horrible GOPocalypse and the beginning of Misogynist Old Rich White Man’s Theocracy. Which they do every time the GOP wins something.
Here’s a few unsolicited thoughts from me:
1. Calm the fuck down. The results don’t mean what you think they mean.
2. It’s not a repudiation of Presidente Obama’s entire presidency, as my Repub friends have said. For a start, the Republican Senate majority is only a few seats wide. Also, as many have pointed out already, the GOP took the Senate because many of the key races in play this year were red states, and the few blue states they won were due in part to Democrats running seriously terrible campaigns.
Also, it’s not uncommon for voters to punish the party in the White House during the midterms when things aren’t going well. This is incomprehensible to people who vote along party lines. Just because you vote according to narrow party ideologies doesn’t mean everyone else does.
3. It’s also not a green light for the Republicans to establish the Misogynist Old Rich White Man’s Theocracy that liberals claim they want. The GOP could have done that in 2000 when they controlled all three branches of govt. Granted, we didn’t have the Tea Party then. But we did have neocons, who were just as batshit. That said, the fact that the Tea Party, for the most part, failed to make a big impact this election against the GOP Establishment is a good sign. On the other hand, they're not going anywhere, either.
4. It is a green light for Anti-Obama Obstructionist Batshit, but that’s not any different than what we’ve had since January 2009. The only real difference you’ll see is that some of the GOP’s more extreme legislative ideas might actually pass both houses. The good news is that most (or possibly all) of them won’t become law because Obama will veto them. The same goes for their next inevitable attempt to repeal Obamacare.
Probably the worst thing you’ll see the GOP do the next two years is impeach Obama. Which, politically speaking, would be a very, very dumb thing for them to do. But then so is suing Obama. So you never know. And by the way, an impeachment bid will fail too, because they don’t have the two-thirds majority needed in the Senate to pull it off.
4. There’s been talk about how the GOP would have lost if the youth of America had voted. That may be true. But aside from the fact that youth turnout is traditionally low during midterms, another likely factor is serious voter apathy in the face of what is arguably a pointless exercise. Congress’ overall approval rating sucks, as do the ratings of the parties themselves. And when the kids want you to give them a reason to vote for you, the general response from either party is: “Because the OTHER party is fucking evil batshit crazy.”
Between that and the fact that no third party candidate has a chance in hell of beating either of these yahoos, it’s no wonder young people don’t turn up. If yr only choice is the lesser of two evils, then fuck it, why bother?
5. There’s also been talk about those same youth voters will turn out in droves for 2016, and the GOP will get clobbered if they stick to the Hysterical Batshit playbook. That may be true, though historically the midterms tend not to have a huge impact on the next POTUS election. There’s just too much space between them, and political fortunes can generally turn on a dime.
The wild cards for 2016 look more likely to be (1) the state of the economy, (2) Obama’s popularity and (3) how much batshit the GOP shovels between now and then.
That third one isn’t just me being snotty. The big challenge for the GOP right now is that they have yet to be punished collectively at the polls for pandering to the Batshit wing. Obama vs Romney doesn’t count because Romney was an Establishment moderate, and in fact many conservative Republicans seem convinced they don’t need the mod vote to win.
Personally I think if they try to go full Tea Party in the POTUS 2016 race, they’re in for a nasty shock, Jim. But they’re welcome to try. The ass-kicking will be good for them.
– L. Bensonhurst
The midterms happened last week, and as usual, the statistics wonks were right – much to the surprise and indignant outrage of every liberal I know who were convinced that the GOP would have their ass handed to them thanks to the Hobby Lobby ruling rallying the Demo base.
Turns out not.
The reactions have followed the usual templates: Republicans are being smug to the point of sanctimony and Demos are predicting horrible GOPocalypse and the beginning of Misogynist Old Rich White Man’s Theocracy. Which they do every time the GOP wins something.
Here’s a few unsolicited thoughts from me:
1. Calm the fuck down. The results don’t mean what you think they mean.
2. It’s not a repudiation of Presidente Obama’s entire presidency, as my Repub friends have said. For a start, the Republican Senate majority is only a few seats wide. Also, as many have pointed out already, the GOP took the Senate because many of the key races in play this year were red states, and the few blue states they won were due in part to Democrats running seriously terrible campaigns.
Also, it’s not uncommon for voters to punish the party in the White House during the midterms when things aren’t going well. This is incomprehensible to people who vote along party lines. Just because you vote according to narrow party ideologies doesn’t mean everyone else does.
3. It’s also not a green light for the Republicans to establish the Misogynist Old Rich White Man’s Theocracy that liberals claim they want. The GOP could have done that in 2000 when they controlled all three branches of govt. Granted, we didn’t have the Tea Party then. But we did have neocons, who were just as batshit. That said, the fact that the Tea Party, for the most part, failed to make a big impact this election against the GOP Establishment is a good sign. On the other hand, they're not going anywhere, either.
4. It is a green light for Anti-Obama Obstructionist Batshit, but that’s not any different than what we’ve had since January 2009. The only real difference you’ll see is that some of the GOP’s more extreme legislative ideas might actually pass both houses. The good news is that most (or possibly all) of them won’t become law because Obama will veto them. The same goes for their next inevitable attempt to repeal Obamacare.
Probably the worst thing you’ll see the GOP do the next two years is impeach Obama. Which, politically speaking, would be a very, very dumb thing for them to do. But then so is suing Obama. So you never know. And by the way, an impeachment bid will fail too, because they don’t have the two-thirds majority needed in the Senate to pull it off.
4. There’s been talk about how the GOP would have lost if the youth of America had voted. That may be true. But aside from the fact that youth turnout is traditionally low during midterms, another likely factor is serious voter apathy in the face of what is arguably a pointless exercise. Congress’ overall approval rating sucks, as do the ratings of the parties themselves. And when the kids want you to give them a reason to vote for you, the general response from either party is: “Because the OTHER party is fucking evil batshit crazy.”
Between that and the fact that no third party candidate has a chance in hell of beating either of these yahoos, it’s no wonder young people don’t turn up. If yr only choice is the lesser of two evils, then fuck it, why bother?
5. There’s also been talk about those same youth voters will turn out in droves for 2016, and the GOP will get clobbered if they stick to the Hysterical Batshit playbook. That may be true, though historically the midterms tend not to have a huge impact on the next POTUS election. There’s just too much space between them, and political fortunes can generally turn on a dime.
The wild cards for 2016 look more likely to be (1) the state of the economy, (2) Obama’s popularity and (3) how much batshit the GOP shovels between now and then.
That third one isn’t just me being snotty. The big challenge for the GOP right now is that they have yet to be punished collectively at the polls for pandering to the Batshit wing. Obama vs Romney doesn’t count because Romney was an Establishment moderate, and in fact many conservative Republicans seem convinced they don’t need the mod vote to win.
Personally I think if they try to go full Tea Party in the POTUS 2016 race, they’re in for a nasty shock, Jim. But they’re welcome to try. The ass-kicking will be good for them.
– L. Bensonhurst
