By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
We’ve arrived safely in a new year, most of us, and — at least politically — we will now repeat 2010. I’m not kidding. That’s the Republican plan. San Francisco social observer and favored word smith, Mark Morford, labeled 2010” …one of the wonkiest, wobbliest, most sputteringly interesting years in ages, full of sound and fury and shrill, insufferable conservatism signifying nothing.”
So true: top-heavy with Beck and Bachmann, Palin and Baggers, not to mention the stunted consciousness of small minds and hate groups undermining the good attempting to assert itself. After months of confusion and instability, the American people, miffed at politicians everywhere and voting with a voice echoing heavily with southern twang, cried, “Well, hot damn, let’s have us some more of that!”
Thanks to those voters, Republicans are now back in leadership of the House, the governing body that sets the legislative agenda by introducing bills and public discussion, so prepare yourself: everything that got passed in the last two years must now be repealed, all efforts at bipartisanship will now be scrapped in order to return to the halcyon days of Dubya’s minions under the heavy hand of fallen-Speaker and fascistic bully, Tom DeLay, and the march rightward can continue unabated because we’re really a conservative nation. Not.
Wait! More than that, my heart insists — we are NOT NOT NOT a conservative nation and growing less so by the moment! But the last person you could convince of that is a conservative, who thinks that if you treat them politely, they have a mandate to be insufferable. Oh, yeah — and the press. Don’t forget about them because they are highly paid enablers of such nonsense; you can’t help but wonder why it’s always the conservatives who benefit from media’s apparent inability to swat back a lie when they hear it. That would take courage, of course, something I don’t see a whole lot of these days. In this economy, standing up to the boss (or the editor, the network or the lobby that gave you all those perks) puts the paycheck in jeopardy, and how does one keep the Starbucks flowing, the kids in private school or the new set of veneers financed?