TERRIBLE TUESDAY Upon seeing the Nazis march into Paris, Camus – to paraphrase, as best I can remember, wrote that “The hour of The Beast is upon us.” At the risk of engaging in extrapolative hyperbole, that is how I feel about yesterday’s elections. Many liberal friends and I have had spirited debate as to whether it is best to vote third party in the hope of building a genuinely progressive movement for the future, or cast defensive votes now, for the lesser of two evils. While some condemn the option with which they disagree, I have always found them both to be valid choices, but given the grave political exigencies of our day, almost always (probably 98-99% of the time) support the lesser of two evils option, and therefore voted a straight Democratic ticket yesterday. It seems, however, this election was the proverbial proof in the pudding that the moneyed weight of corporate power, and its indispensible concomitant disseminator of propaganda, our beloved mainstream media, the sine qua non enabling that power to exist, has taken complete control of America. Corporate fascism came out of the closet yesterday, with Republicans butchering Democratic candidates from coast to coast, in spite of the fact that most Democrats long ago became moderate Republicans in an effort to remain viable in the rightward tsunami of American politics. It seems Koch and other 1% money has succeeded in convincing the unfathomably ignorant voting public (largely rendered so by, first the dumbing down, and then the de facto destruction of public education) that even moderate Republican Democrats are too liberal to be trusted in office. Perhaps, experiencing the electoral devastation that slouching toward Republican Lite has wrought, Democrats will soon return to their original progressive roots, but that is a matter for another post. Even I, who arrogantly consider myself politically sophisticated, was stunned by some of the Republican victories. Two examples should suffice. In my current home state of North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race, Thom Tillis defeated incumbent Kay Hagan, as moderately Republicanized a Democrat as one could ever hope to find, in spite of the fact that Mr. Tillis’s tenure as Speaker of the North Carolina House included his overseeing a profoundly reactionary overhauling of the state tax code, as well as building a horrible environmental record (although Hagan’s wasn’t much better), making thinly veiled racist comments about immigrants, successfully pushing for the state’s terrible new voter ID law, which will apply to the 2016 elections, and assisting in the enactment of antediluvian legislation restricting the rights of women. In Iowa, Joanie Ernst cruised to a U.S. Senate victory against yet another pablum-like candidacy of one more fungibly moderate Democrat, on the basis of her valuable experience as a castrator of hogs (I jest you not) and an agenda so far to the right that it borders on sheer lunacy. Let us not kid ourselves: Dark days are ahead for America. While I am admittedly one of Mr. Obama’s harshest (although anemically little-read) critics from the left, I have tried to give him credit when it was due, but even if the president does attempt to commit progressive acts in his final two White House years, there is virtually no chance he can succeed in getting any legislation through Congress. We are also left to wonder and worry if any federal appointments requiring Congressional approval – including a possible Supreme Court nomination – can be gotten through the Congress now in power, given the Republican inclination to work toward a complete break-down of government, even though its right-wing operatives now control the government they seek to destroy. On yesterday’s Election Day, I turned 69 years old. I shall continue, along with other members of my aging generation, to work, as best we meagerly can, toward a more enlightened national politic, but it is our youth, those half a century younger than I, whose energy, optimism and boldness will be required to save America from itself. Perhaps the most important thing the rest of us can now do is imbue the young with an understanding of the crucial need for them to undertake that effort, and arm them with the knowledge and skills necessary to do so. Even then, however, the odds of the monumental task of saving American democracy being achieved are long and daunting.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 17:40:54 +0000
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