Obama has done it! Can you believe it? It’s a day we’ve all been waiting for far too long. It still has barely sunk in yet. Now the real fight begins.
The Progressives have been waiting for a new champion since the demise of LBJ. Today we stand united with a new transformative President who has brought the Conservative faction to its knees. A man who will restore the Progressive order and stop the Republican regression with the greatest weapon we have, Progress!
So it begins! Obama’s very satisfying and sweeping victory over Republican John McCain is the birth of a new era in American politics. It’s not just a Democratic landslide, it’s a political realignment so great, the Republican pundits are having to claim it’s not a major strategic shift in America.
We Progressives know better. Republicans are the masters of deceit and spin. They defeat the truth by changing the story, never acknowledging a loss, that is, until it’s unavoidable. Then they begin tearing it down with talking points. This time, they are claiming the anti-gay marriage initiatives are a message to Obama that his mandate is strictly economic. Well, you Republicans just suffered the biggest loss in the Senate and House since Reagan’s 1982 disaster, you lost a majority of the Governorships and got trounced in the Presidential Election in what can only be called a landslide, and you’re in no position to proclaim anything more than sour grapes.
In fact, they not only are the incredible shrinking party, they are becoming nothing more than a party of the Southern backwaters, and sparsely populated Bible Belt, not even able to hang on to the capital of the old Confederacy, Virginia. Their pundits are intellectually exhausted, offering up the same old tired lines in the face of overwhelming defeat. It’s a sad and sorry day for Conservatives.
They claim they should have stuck to Reagan’s principles of smaller government and tax cuts, that Bush’s deviation is what caused defeat. What are they talking about? Reagan was a HUGE spender and tripled the national debt with his failed SDI or Star Wars program and corporate welfare defense contracts. Tax cut and spend is the Reagan way, and Bush followed it to the T, even going further than his mentor. Regan’s bad policies led to the recession of 1992, now Bush’s policies have led us to the Depression of 2008. Bush had to turn Socialist to undo the overwhelming failure of Neo-Capitalism.
So the Republicans will likely shift even further to the Right, and will in-turn, follow the path of the California Republican party, which is now almost completely irrelevant with no end in sight (as the Dems took even more seats in the Legislature). On election night, the California Republicans looked pathetic. These nerdy looking, white, soft-handed rich boys got up to the podium in oversized suits. They looked ridiculous as they verbosely ranted on and on about the free market and deregulation as if they had no clue as to what was happening in this country. Out of touch, out of step and out of time, these yahoos are now finding they are out of power, and boy does it feel good to see them flounder around like dying fish, gasping for media oxygen.
This is the beginning of the Progressive Movement I have been predicting for almost 10 years. I had hoped things wouldn’t get better before they got worse, but they did. This proved to be advantageous as we watched the Republicans hang themselves as they pushed Latinos away, as they spent the country into ruin and deregulated industry, as they started wars they had no idea how to wage, as they continually intruded on the rights of individuals which pissed off the Libertarians and as they corrupted the halls of power with bribes, kick-backs and felonies of all kind. Let’s face it folks, the Republicans achieved nothing but placing more power in the hands of the few, which doesn’t work.
That is the essence of Conservatism, power in the hands of the few (top-down), while Liberals believe power rests more with the people and Socialists believe power rests squarely with the people (bottom-up). Conservatism otherwise, is a reaction, a slowing down of change if you will. It works poorly as an ideology because it harkens to a time that never existed. It’s a push backwards when it’s activist, as it is now. You cannot turn back the clock, especially when it’s to fantasy land.
So now the work begins. Now we fight for change, now, with our new leader, Barack Obama, we have a leader who shares our ideas, our ambitions our hope. We can get healthcare done this time, reinstate the Progressive Tax System, improve failing schools and invest in the Green technologies that will make us responsible and great. We can build new transportation systems that will move this country beyond the reliance on the failing airline and auto industries and limit the hemorrhaging of jobs in this country by protecting the American workers and punishing the multi-national interest’s global tax shelters and exploitation of cheap labor
It’s a new era my friends. It’s been a long time coming. Now we show those do-nothing elitists on the Right what true Progress is.