Throughout much of my life, I’ve been apolitical. I was either too busy chasing ladies to pay any attention to politics or else I didn’t perceive any difference between the candidates: they were all a bunch of crooks. I didn’t bother to vote, though there was one exception. In the late 1960s, during my more wild and rebellious days, I took the advise of pop-subversive Abbie Hoffman and I voted for his pig.
It wasn’t until the Reagan Presidency in the mid-1980s that my perception changed. Perhaps I just matured a bit. For whatever reason, political matters begin to snag my attention. I voted for Clinton in 1992 and I’ve voted in every election since.
Though I generally lean toward the left side of the political spectrum, on occasion I’ve swung with the right-wing agenda, particularly in state and local elections. However, during the past 10 years I’ve become increasingly alienated from the Republican Party.
Riding on their gains in the last national election, the GOP thinks the public in general has turned against Obama and his positions – in particular, his new health care program – though there really aren’t any extensive polls or other reliable evidence to indicate this is necessarily true. Nevertheless, Republicans feel Americans are weary of the president’s “socialist” agenda.
And so, since they’re still the minority party in the Senate, they’ve decided to close ranks. With few exceptions, Republicans have fallen in lock step behind their party leaders and when Republicans close ranks – which is something Democrats haven’t been especially good at during the last 60 years (not since FDR) – they become a significant political force. They’ve refused to debate or compromise on many of the issues and act as though their way is the right way and the only way.
On top of that, for the last few years the GOP has tended to attract the lunatic fringe; that is, those goofy people who believe what they believe simply because they believe it. No matter how many contrary facts you throw at them, no amount of reason or evidence will change their minds. For example, some Tea Party followers continue to believe our president is a Muslim and was born in Kenya. No number of official birth certificates will alter this conviction. They won’t allow their theories to be cluttered up with facts. And how about those screwballs who stand in front of the post office and have the gall to compare Obama to Hitler? I mean, really now, that’s quite a stretch. Just ask any Jew.
There are deep and abiding differences between the two parties on nearly every issue. The national government seems to be more polarized than this young fella can ever remember. This will make it difficult to accomplish anything between now and the next national election. Our government was founded on the idea of discussion and reason and debate and arguments and, finally, compromise. However, to the contrary, our representatives act like a bunch of 5-year-olds lapsing into temper tantrums whenever they don’t get their way. Either that or they start crying, literally, as exampled by Speaker of the House John Boehner.
The country has a lot of problems and projects that should be tended to, like the environment, the energy crunch, high-speed rail, our decaying infrastructure, etc. Don’t expect any of them to be tackled for at least two years.
