Let’s not mince words here. Last Tuesday’s election was a blow-out for the Republicans. Well, at least for those who voted. President Obama, his policies and leadership were thoroughly trounced by a so-called “wave election.” However, Republicans should also not fool themselves that the latest re-arrangement of deck chairs means much of anything will change in the next two years. There is nothing in this election that says “America Wins.” This was the lowest turn-out election, at 36.4%, since 1942!! There was no “shift to the right” in the country. It was more like very few were able to “shift off the couch” to get out and vote. The political class is just playing musical chairs in Washington.
With that turn-out Republicans retook the Senate and the Governorships with the votes of a little bit more than 18% of the registered electorate, on average. Since 31% of the adult population never registers to vote even once that means that less than 13% of the eligible adult population decided this election. Wave election? What utter Bullroar! What a democracy we’ve got, eh?
Unfortunately, many of those folks (the couch potatoes) WILL likely come out in much larger numbers to vote in 2016 as they did in 2008 and 2012, particularly as more chaos ensues in 2015 and 2016. If the Repubs get nothing done in the next two years, they’ll be toast AGAIN. They’ve got just two years until the next “wave” comes along. Good luck with that! With lots of bluster and false flourishes we’ll soon see again that neither Republican or Democrat “waves” have any real impact on changing the rate of growth of government, the federal budget or Washington’s control of the economy and the country. Capitol City is in control throughout the federal districts.
Republicans trying to claim otherwise are engaging in nothing but smoke and mirrors. The only thing proved in this election, across the nation, is that Republicans won. However, not conservatives. IN THIS Republican Party that’s a severe and clear distinction. Maybe 2016 will prove to be the time for that once-in-100-years 3rd party wave. I guess only if Americans with some real cojones get off the couch.
In the meantime, ObamaCare will not be repealed (though the Supreme Court may knock it down a few notches), the budget will not be cut, no government programs will end. Debts will continue to spiral, the currency, commodity and equity markets to oscillate all over the landscape and, meanwhile, the false recovery to sputter out into the next big downslide.
But please take note from 2008: Has any debt been reduced? Any liabilities cleared? Any jobs returned? NO? Then where does recovery come from other than falsified statistics, outright lies and verbal sleight-of-hand? Where, in fact, has anything been fixed or government reduced in the last 40 years by this crazy see-saw of so-called “wave elections?”
Our overseas interventions and deployments will continue apace wherever the President deems necessary and the “War Lovers” of the Left and Right collude in Congress to allow it. Our forces will remain dangerously spread out and overextended around the world meddling in countries where we should have never been in the first place. Especially not for most of the last century. We are now dangerously close to having the whole mess collapse around our ears in the form of unrelenting “blowback.” And where will the money come from for that? While the beat goes on…
In my home state of Idaho, possibly the worst candidate Republicans have ever put up for statewide election barely won a narrow victory over her Democrat opponent in the State Superintendent of Public Instruction race. The incumbent Governor, along with nearly every other Republican establishment hack in the state, won re-election. Idaho will remain dependent on 35+% of it budget from federal spending. We will remain at or near dead last in almost any important category of economic, educational and independent indicator of freedom. The state will remain an 86,000 square-mile federal reservation and the beat goes on…
All the silly trumpeting going on by mainstream Republicans and a few rockhead “conservatives” will not make it much past March, 2015 as ongoing reality continues to crash the Party. Americans will see for the umpteenth time how badly served they are by both sides. Will they repeat the insanity again or perhaps finally wise up and actually change direction. There is little time to move away from the conventional wisdom, status quo thinkers dragging us to our doom in this country. Stay tuned…..