I am approaching what could best be described as the contemplative stage of life. Savoring the adventures and the victories, dryly musing about the things I should have done differently – or should not have done at all.
Regrets? I have a few.
However, I will never regret wire brushing supporters of the tea party and misguided milbloggers who egged them on. Because if there is one thing that’s clear, since our tri-corner hat-wearing Galtian overlords made their first appearance on the national stage, has proven, is how truly selfish and cruel they were. Their faux outrage, their hypocritical crying “for the children,” and their deep embrace of economic theories that long ago proved false earned them every bit of scorn I gave them. I wrote back in 2009 of how I felt the Teabbaggers were the most dangerous thing to hit American politics since Joe McCarthy.
This week’s sham of a vote on a commission to investigate the January 6th insurrection – and the Republican opposition to it was the logical progression down the slope of deceit to the bottom of the well since they first showed up in February of 2009.
Steve M explains:
After two Trump impeachments and the early stages of this process, I’ve had enough. I think Democrats should simply give up on the notion that “accountability” is possible for Republicans. It’s not just that they resist it. They pay no price for resisting it. Resisting it endears them to their voters.
Nothing Democrats do and nothing they reveal will lead to second thoughts among Republican voters. We know this because nothing revealed in either of Trump’s impeachments disillusioned them. Quite the opposite: It unified them in opposition to the accountability seekers.
When Democrats beg Republicans to put the country over party, they reinforce the mistaken notion that the GOP might someday actually do that. That sends a signal that if Democrats can’t come to terms with Republicans, then it must be the Democrats’ fault — after all, the Democrats say it’s possible to reason with the GOP.
Enough. Better for Democrats to just accept that accountability is impossible, and to tell the public that a real reckoning can’t happen because Republicans will always prevent it from happening. The only way to get to the truth is to vote Republicans out.
Now, to be fair- the demise of the Republican party did not begin with the teabaggers. Its foundations were laid in the 80s’ with the foolish policies of Ronald Reagan and his unique ability to avoid consequences for the grave undermining of the middle class his economic policies created. The election of George H.W. Bush gave the party a chance to redeem itself, but it was here that disinformation – started by talk radio – and later driven into overdrive by Fox News showed some pretty evil folks how easy it was to dupe a large segment of American society. When Bush Sr, understood that a tax increase was necessary to offset the crime of Reagan’s reckless spending, he was attacked viciously by members of his own party. All for trying to do the right thing.
The lesson we should have learned then, but didn’t, was that doing the right thing has never been high on the Republican priority list. The entire administration of Bill Clinton proved that and things went into overdrive when George Bush was installed as President in spite of losing the election. We should probably remember the election of 2000 because it gave the GOP their first taste of simply overturning election results they didn’t like.
The unhappy and tragic events of 9-11 and the subsequent policy failures that led to both the mistake of invading Iraq and the undermining of the US economy were shielded by the fervor of the Republican’s claim to false patriotism.
Republicans gained seats in George W. Bush’s first midterm cycle because the country had rallied around him after 9/11. But it was more than that: Republicans made it clear that they believed their party had a monopoly on patriotism, mostly because some Democrats opposed a war with Iraq. (You remember the war in Iraq. It’s one of those wars Republican voters now pride themselves on opposing, after spending years describing opponents as traitors.)
I lived through verbal and written beatings because I had the temerity to point out that the Iraq war was giving our real adversaries a free pass on the world stage – as well as being taken to task for pointing out how immoral it is to squander American lives in a pointless war of choice. The intervening years have proven me quite correct on that score as well as how the Bush Administration tried to dodge any responsibility for creating the backdrop that allowed it to happen in the first place.
The It-Didn’t-Start-With-Trump element of the Republican recalcitrance on a proposed bipartisan (Gawd!) commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection is to recall that George W. Bush did all he could to derail the 9/11 commission that everyone now pretends to adore, and that C-Plus Augustus refused to testify under oath to that commission, and wouldn’t even sit for an unrecorded interview except in the White House with Dick Cheney, father of St. Liz of the Holy Soundbite, sitting next to him working the levers. And let’s not even get into the government-wide stonewalling of the Iran-Contra investigations before that, and let’s also remember that there were 33 investigations into Benghazi, BENGHAZI, BENGHAZI!
However, when Mitch McConnell came out on Tuesday as the devious reptile he’s always been, and announced that he was joining House Republican honcho Kevin McCarthy over in Coward’s Corner, the difference was an order of magnitude. These guys were shirking their constitutional obligation and abandoning their moral compasses because a) they lead a party that is very likely complicit in the events, and b) they’re doing so to cover for a crook and a liar who’s in so many crosshairs he looks like Bonnie and Clyde at the end of that movie.
In retrospect, the way we allowed ourselves to be drawn into a completely avoidable economic fracas was pretty obvious. The thing I did not correctly assess at the time was both the petty racism and appetite for cruelty that was present among the 27 percenters when Obama was sworn into office.
“What is it going to take?” was the question I kept asking myself after 2010 when it became readily apparent that facts and figures did not matter to the tea swilling crowd – having repeatedly used said facts to prove how disgustingly wrong they were. Turns out I knew the answer then, but could not really bring myself to admit it then, namely that nothing short of a threat to their very existence would ever make them understand how insane these policies really were. And that contrary to their wild-eyed ravings, Obama was pretty moderate as President.
And the rest is history. The country spiraled down deeper and deeper leading to the electoral disaster of 2016 and the installation of a demagogue who meant to destroy American Democracy. I was a noisy voice who understood how truly dangerous Trump was and is and took every opportunity to express my contempt for him and those who served him. It truly is a miracle that we escaped in the last election and I am deeply worried that the danger still lurks within the land.
To those who say I am too emotional about this or overwrought, after I get through with the cheery, “fuck you’s” I would remind you of this one fact. I am old enough now to have seen in actuality something I never thought would happen. And too many on the teabagger side are willing to give a pass on.
So yes, I’m going to gloat a little and tell all of them, ” I TOLD YOU SO!” – because I did tell you so.
The United States has squandered the first 20 years of the 21st century and become progressively a failure that never had to occur. That is what fuels my anger. I know we can be better than we are. We have the resources to take care of our people and to be better members of the world community. We brought this misery all on ourselves – and we have no one to blame but ourselves for our failure to be better as a country.
They were wrong then and they remain wrong now.