What The Hell Happened?

That sight you saw the other night was the sun being blotted out of the sky.

Once again, for what must been the eighth time in the past thirty years and change, the people of this country, in their infant wisdom,  have let reactionaries take over the reins of government, reactionaries that are prepared run roughshod over them, make them squeal (congratulations, Joni Ernst! :-p), and wipe out all of the amenities that make a country worth living in.  An ignorant, bellicose culture that makes this possible is, quite frankly, not for me.  I can't take it anymore.  The Republicans are corn-pone Nazis and the Democrats are a faux-populist party that pretends to care about the working people and doesn't even know how to win elections with the correct stands on the issues.  Sure, I expected the midterms to be bad.  But this bad?  Sure, I expected Republican gains in the Senate.  But seven to nine seats?  Yes, I expected some Republican governors to survive.  But Sam Brownback?  Rick Scott?  Paul LePage?  Scott Walker?  SCOTT F*#@##IN' WALKKKER??

Okay, there was some good news in Tuesday's poll results.  The minimum wage was approved in four states - all predominately Republican states.  Cory Booker won big in his bid for a full Senate term in my home state of New Jersey, Democrat Tom Wolf ousted Tom Corbett in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial race,  New Jersey approved dedicated funding for open space, and Oregon and Washington, D.C. legalized marijuana.  Also, Oregon's Jeff Merkley,  Minnesota's Al Franken, and at least one Udall - Tom, of New Mexico - are going back to the Senate.  Wisconsin may have re-elected Scottzo the Clown, but New Hampshire rejected giving its Senate seat to Scottzo the Brown.  And incoming Senator Gary Peters of Michigan is the chairman of the Democratic freshman Senate class of 2014.  He's also its vice chairman, its treasurer, its spokesman, its policy director . . ..  Oh, all right, he's the only Democrat in an otherwise Republican freshman class of eleven!  But let's face it, with the Republicans in command of both houses of Congress, a majority of governorships and state legislatures, it's quite obvious that, if there ever was a twenty-first-century progressive movement in this country, it's over.

The Republicans will thrive and prosper, now that they know how to survive the demographic changes in the country that are working against them - by simply suppressing the vote.  The Democratic Party, no doubt, will wither and die a richly deserved death, with a real liberal party hopefully taking its place.  (Not likely!)  

I give up.  If I have any alternatives to Republicans to vote for, I'll likely do so knowing it won't matter.  And then there is my Republican hometown of West Caldwell, New Jersey, which regularly holds municipal elections with no Democratic opposition on the ballot - something former resident Samuel Alito would most likely love to see nationwide, Soviet-style politics mated to a Tea Party ideology.  Up to now, I have always written in neighbors and associates among the progressive minority in town whom I thought could do a better job than the Republican nominees, knowing they wouldn't win but still wanting to protest the lack of choice.  No more.  I'll still vote in elections, but I'm not casting a ballot in municipal elections anymore.  It's not worth it.     

Nor, one day, will it be worth it to vote in elections of any other sort, I'm afraid.    

I'm so pissed off . . .