Becoming Easier To See How 1930s Germany Happened
In the general comfort zone of my upbringing, I've always had a hard time comprehending how the public was naive enough at points in world history to allow their nations to be taken over by tyrants and maniacs, with Hitler's Third Reich as a prime example. Even in the darkest days of public adulation over Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, it wasn't the same as the kinds of extremists that history has produced. And while it still isn't, the likely ascendancy of today's Tea Party candidates into elected office is the closest I've come to being able to understand the sets of circumstances in which lunatics rise to power.
In the state of Alaska, a reasonable center-right Republican incumbent appears likely to lose her seat after what looks to be a narrow primary defeat to some wingnut Tea Party novice who questions the constitutionality of unemployment benefits at a time of 10% unemployment.
In Connecticut, a respected war hero and blue-district former Republican Congressman lost his primary to the wife of wrestling guru Vince McMahon.
In Colorado, the state's GOP gubernatorial candidate has publicly stated that the development of bike paths in Denver is part of a United Nations conspiracy for one-world government.
In Kentucky, a libertarian Republican Senate candidate questions the validity of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and more recently, even in the wake of the worst U.S. mining tragedy in generations, is calling for wholesale unraveling of all government regulation of Kentucky coal mining.
And of course, there's Nevada, where the Republican Senate candidate waxes poetic about the need for "Second Amendment remedies" to deal with her challenger, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
And that's just the most extreme stuff coming out of America's more-irresponsible-by-the-day opposition party. The fact that they're calling for Social Security and Medicare to be handed over to Goldman Sachs and AIG to set up private accounts/vouchers manages to sound less than insane only because in the previous statement they were calling for gunning down the Senate Majority Leader.
There are few things more dangerous in life than misguided anger, and the American public's apparent willingness to hand over the keys to the castle to these monsters in another couple of months is some of the most obvious proof of that that we've seen in years. For all the whining that Congressional Democrats may do about being saddled with President Obama's unpopularity, if they can't make the sale that their efforts to fix what's wrong with the country are better than the people who wanted to let all U.S. auto manufacturing die, substitute a "too expensive" $800 billion economic stimulus package with a "more affordable" $3 trillion tax cut for the rich, AND believe that bike paths are a U.N. conspiracy, then there was never a chance they had the political skills to persevere beyond the 2010 election no matter how good or bad the hand of cards they were dealt.
Democrats, you are running against an unreasonable and irrational cohort of some of the biggest lunatics American politics has ever produced. If you are incapable of beating these freaks, you have nobody to blame but yourselves and will have the blood on your hands for ushering in as close to a modern-day equivalent of 1930s Germany as this nation has seen.
In the state of Alaska, a reasonable center-right Republican incumbent appears likely to lose her seat after what looks to be a narrow primary defeat to some wingnut Tea Party novice who questions the constitutionality of unemployment benefits at a time of 10% unemployment.
In Connecticut, a respected war hero and blue-district former Republican Congressman lost his primary to the wife of wrestling guru Vince McMahon.
In Colorado, the state's GOP gubernatorial candidate has publicly stated that the development of bike paths in Denver is part of a United Nations conspiracy for one-world government.
In Kentucky, a libertarian Republican Senate candidate questions the validity of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and more recently, even in the wake of the worst U.S. mining tragedy in generations, is calling for wholesale unraveling of all government regulation of Kentucky coal mining.
And of course, there's Nevada, where the Republican Senate candidate waxes poetic about the need for "Second Amendment remedies" to deal with her challenger, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
And that's just the most extreme stuff coming out of America's more-irresponsible-by-the-day opposition party. The fact that they're calling for Social Security and Medicare to be handed over to Goldman Sachs and AIG to set up private accounts/vouchers manages to sound less than insane only because in the previous statement they were calling for gunning down the Senate Majority Leader.
There are few things more dangerous in life than misguided anger, and the American public's apparent willingness to hand over the keys to the castle to these monsters in another couple of months is some of the most obvious proof of that that we've seen in years. For all the whining that Congressional Democrats may do about being saddled with President Obama's unpopularity, if they can't make the sale that their efforts to fix what's wrong with the country are better than the people who wanted to let all U.S. auto manufacturing die, substitute a "too expensive" $800 billion economic stimulus package with a "more affordable" $3 trillion tax cut for the rich, AND believe that bike paths are a U.N. conspiracy, then there was never a chance they had the political skills to persevere beyond the 2010 election no matter how good or bad the hand of cards they were dealt.
Democrats, you are running against an unreasonable and irrational cohort of some of the biggest lunatics American politics has ever produced. If you are incapable of beating these freaks, you have nobody to blame but yourselves and will have the blood on your hands for ushering in as close to a modern-day equivalent of 1930s Germany as this nation has seen.
posted by Mark at 12:01 PM
3 Comments:
Ive been thinking that it might be better to just let this country burn. Eventually people will regret the decision that they made.
Had McCain won in 2008, none of this would be happening. It was Obama that did this to us.
Your sentiment was right in the first paragraph. It has nothing to do with Obama. It has to do with the stupidity of the American people willing to hand the keys to the castle to these lunatics.
If McCain had won, there'd be nothing to protect as Congressional majorities by themselves are an irrelevancy when competing against a hostile executive branch. Remember those halcyon days of the 2007 and 2008 Democratic Congresses and all their accomplishments? Me neither.
Are there any accomplishments right now? No.
The Democratic Congress in 2007 and 2008 raised the minimum wage which helped me and many others get a living wage.
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