No More Nice Guy

Watching MSNBC tonight I was struck by the level of insult taken by this pull-the-wool-over-their-eyes election. Both Lawrence O'Donnell and Rachel Maddow seemed personally affronted that the Republicans got away with this.

I feel that way, too. I watched a smirking Eric Cantor gloat about "how we brought our message to the American people" yada yada. O'Donnell was miffed enough to say something to the effect of "Don't let the door hit you in the ass, Congressman."

The worst is over. This is what Obama most feared - that Republicans would do just exactly what they've done - stonewall everything and then go before the voters and say Washington is broken. I'm really angry at Republicans tonight, the way I felt when they stole the 2000 election.

for Democrats. The only question was how severe. Turned out to be pretty severe. Not much progress was made on the jobs front and it wasn't clear Democrats had figured out a way to start solving the problem. Too many people didn't see much hope. There didn't seem to be much emphasis on determining which jobs were lost, why they were lost, and how we could get them back. We just seem to be drifting and hoping on jobs.

Dems could have somewhat made up for the economy with some major accomplishments. But their main accomplishment, which took forever -- the health care legislation -- played into the hands of Republicans' spin machine with its mandates, "intrusive government" and "socialism." And also the fact that very little of it took effect.

Beyond that, Obama could have started us down the path to ending the wars. That would have been a great accomplishment, and would have appealed to his base. Polls show the country is against these wars. But he chose escalation and turned off many people, not just Democrats but independents too. There were many attractive arguments to be made about ending hostilities, bringing soldiers home, redirecting the country from war to peace, and ending the senseless waste of taxpayer money, but Obama turned down the opportunity to make them.

Obama also should have gone after the Wall Street fraudsters. There seemed to be no accountability for the massive fraud committed. He could have demonstrated a commitment to the rule of law. Instead, he refused to pursue the criminals and they got off scot free. It looks like there are no repercussions when the rich commit crimes.

He could have done something about outsourcing and the bad trade deals, as he promised to do. He should have at least acknowledged the problem -- everyone knows it's a problem -- and taken some steps to deal with it. Instead, he ignored the problem completely. Gave the impression it doesn't exist.

He turned off his base further with DADT, opening up more land to offshore oil drilling, creating a deficit reduction committee staffed with social security haters, ripping on teachers and unions, appointing Arne Duncan, and cutting deals with Big Pharma.

All of these things undermined Dems and contributed to the losses. IMO the Repubs had little to do with it. They were largely unsuccessful in stopping Obama on anything. They may have resisted, but they were not successful. They certainly didn't accomplish anything as an opposition party that would explain this result.

And complaining. Calling Obama a corporatist and not doing enough when they should have been out there talking about the good things Congress has done.

:shrug: