Ah, a little fantasy on a Saturday morning!
The last twelve or so years of our national discussion have been marred by what amounts to a belligerent drunk at a cocktail party. Not JUST George…and I am not making a crack about his drinking. But the whole Republican Party of the last twelve years. A belligerent drunk at a cocktail party that had 50 million friends who were backing him up….until he got TOO far out of hand, and they had to slowly peel away from supporting him….and now are as eager to see him leave as everybody else.
Well….except for 25 million of his less observant friends who are also still drunk on whatever they it is they put in that Kool-aid. But now the vast majority of people at the party are tired of his antics, his schtick and his general obnoxiousness and just wish he would leave.
So here is todays question….what would, what WILL our country be like when the belligerent drunk has left the party? What would our political world be like with a cowed and defeated and marginalized Republican Party?
Yes, he will still be outside the house, on the lawn….and he will undoubtedly be mooning us…..but we will be able to ignore him and carry on OUR conversation and have fun and maybe even make some progress talking about new ideas and ways of living and directions for the future….without him bellowing and caterwauling and interrupting the conversation with his hatred and selfishness.
What would we talk about?
What would we decide to do?
What could we accomplish?
How would things be different?
71 comments
Skip to comment form
Author
But…necessary to get where you wanted to go!
Bush without his brain….
Dems in control of the WH and congress: Different pigs at the trough. No problems are solved. New problems are created.
Prediction: The next president will cause many in the USA to think shrub wasn’t so bad after all.
There seems to be some demand out there for right-wing corporate/military whores. If they call themselves Democrats, all the better for them. For instance, look at Joe Lieberman.
Is that really a good idea …even if the one Party is the Democratic Party? I would much rather see the debate continue with Democrats on the left, Republicans on the right, and those squirrelly Independents swinging both ways in between [i.e., D-I-R …good for the Country]. It keeps everyone honest with the multiple interest groups striving for acceptance by a majority.
…but before I started reading teh blogs, I would have said people would move toward some kind of european style social democracy. Now…I think people (democrats especially) are pretty centrist, pretty happy with the two million or so folks not like them in jail, not real fond of brown people, and respectful of the military and ticking time bomb scenarios. So I think sans republicans things would drift a little leftward in a very “common sense” way…and the worst of the looting would stop…but that’s it.
Sorry not to be more hopeful this morning!
but the apparatus that will install the next puppet is still in full tilt and seems to have shifted it’s bag of tricks to the left? if there is a left, left. The Emperial Presidency has been applied by both sides, negating the checks and balances that kept power distributed between the branches.
I worry because congress on the Democratic side has made no moves other then a few mavericks to address the extreme abuse of executive power. Since they all work for the same bosses what can we expect from the next don.
On the other hand better the god cop then the freakin sadistic psycho they installed last time. I also think they busted their coalition of looney religious and neocons. So maybe it will improve. The deep splits in our country will keep them hopping for awhile. People seem to really want change might sound corny but I feel it even when taking with previous cautious centerists and righties.
Lets hope the voters, keep turning out even if the wolves in sheeps clothing win they wont have the insane righties to back them up. So will we get back habeas corpus and the constitution, or will our ‘national’ interests crowd prevail?
Shaharazade and others above who have already posted to this effect are right. Because the fundamental problem isn’t the Republican Party per se (though heaven knows they have been problem enough), it’s corporate America. Corporate America is really the obnoxious drunk in the room; the Republican Party has only been its sock puppet. Corporate America has already bought most of the Democratic Party as well, including at least one of the likeliest Democratic contenders to become the next president, so the Democratic Party is likely to become the obnoxious drunk’s sock puppet for the next eight or twelve or twenty years. I wish this weren’t true, and that the Democratic Party would prove me wrong.