Top 5 Electoral Losers

Yesterday we presented our list of the top five electoral winners. Today, Demockracy would like to present our list of the top losers from Tuesday’s election:

5. Reaganomics

Reaganomics or Trickle-Down Economics was a clear loser this past Tuesday. John McCain argued eloquently that the rich must not bear the burden, that wealth will trickle down, and that we must invest in the top tax brackets. As the theory goes, if we invest in these Americans, they will spend more, create more jobs for middle class Americans, etc.

Unfortunately for McCain, Americans rejected such voodoo economics and voted to spread the wealth around.

4. Older Americans

Those over 65 were the only age group to vote for Senator McCain. It makes sense since he is in their age bracket. However, there is likely more to this then commonalities in age. It seems that those preferences are, in the words of Bob Dylan, rapidly changing. As every traditionalist is ‘replaced’ by a baby boomer or two or three, this age bracket will become much more progressive.

3. The Deep South

If the Midwest was the winner of this election, and the Mountain West represents the future of the Democratic Party, then the Deep South represents the big loser and the past. Not only is the Republican Party on the path to becoming a regional party of the south (plus 6 or 7 smaller western states), but the Old South itself is shrinking. Because of demographic changes, both Virginia and North Carolina went blue for the first time since 1964 and 1976, respectively. These changes will only intensify and are likely eventually to turn Georgia blue in the next 15 years. What is left? Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, and South Carolina. California alone has around the same number of electoral votes as the entire southern Republican base of the next decade.

2. Karl Rove

Was one electoral victory (2004) worth losing a generation of voters and forcing a political realignment that leaves your party in a semi-permanent minority state? Were four more years of George W. Bush really worth it? And here we thought Bill Clinton was bad for the Democratic Party.

1. Fear

Buoyed by millions of volunteers and the most progressive younger generation in over four decades, Americans picked hope over fear, progress over stagnation, and the future over the past.

What Today Means

Today is not just about voting Barack Obama into office. It’s like a national colon cleansing. Today, hopefully, we will vote to restore the rule of law and the Constitution to their rightful places. Today, we will vote to end the doctrine of preemptive war, dial down the militarism, and begin focusing on fixing the problems we have in this country rather than starting new problems in other countries. John McCain would indeed continue the failed policies of George W. Bush, but voting for Obama is not merely about making sure McCain doesn’t become president. It’s about removing the Republican Party from power and in so doing, sending its operatives a clear message that we will no longer stand idly by as our nation engages in war, terror, and torture in our names, under the moniker of protecting the “homeland.” We will no longer watch as we are told that the government is not here to help us, that we should not help each other, but that we should fend for ourselves, and if we lack the wealth or imagination to do so, then so be it.

For eight years I have not been proud of the United States. It has engaged in atrocities that I had never thought a country as grand as ours could engage in. Most cynically, the president, vice president, and the Republican Party used the spirit of cooperation that existed after September 11 (Karl Rove’s imagined memories to the contrary) as their ticket to pure, unbridled power. In attempting to analyze why things have happened the way they have, this is the conclusion I come to: power. Though we often want to ignore the more animalistic parts of our brains, the limbic systems of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and others are alive and well and thirsty for control. I can think of no other explanation.

The machinery that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton designed to prevent the concentration of power is failing us as the executive asserts ever more “powers” that are not to be found in statues or the Constitution. As long as the Republican Party remains in control of the country, that machinery will continue to deteriorate.

This is not to say that the Republican Party has always been bad. It was once the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. It was once the party of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who helped create the America we know today. Even Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency; but Nixon’s contempt for the law was his own, not the party’s.

But the Republican Party has mutated into something that none of the above people would recognize today. Even Ronald Reagan, the venerable godfather of modern conservatism, would not recognize the Republican Party. Its sleaze knows no bounds: like a feral dog, it resorts to its most primal responses when threatened. As it has sensed, over the past few weeks, that its time is up, it has tried to associate Barack Obama with terrorists, socialists, Marxists, Muslims, and anyone else it thinks are evil. When that has failed, experience has shown us that it will resort to trying to forcibly stop people from voting, by placing “observers” at polling places to question legitimate voters’ registrations (in swing states only), intentionally delivering too few voting machines to Democratic precincts, or attempting to cut Democrats from voter lists altogether.

Karl Rove’s attempts to create a “permanent majority” have led to an undeniable fact: the Republican Party of 2008 does not care about anyone but itself. It seeks to enrich itself, to place its operatives in positions of power so that those operatives can amass wealth, and most of all, power. The party that clothes itself in patriotism is, underneath the bloody flags it wears, virulently unpatriotic. “Patriotism” involves respect for the nation and its people. The modern Republican Party has nothing but contempt for the nation and its laws, especially when those laws get in the way of its quest for power. And the people? The modern Republican Party doesn’t care about anyone who is not an elite member of the party. George W. Bush would be perfectly happy to throw Joe the Plumber to the sharks — if, that is, he didn’t need Joe’s vote.

And then we come to soldiers. Time and time again, President Bush has shown that he doesn’t care about soldiers. He wants meat that can absorb bullets in his ill-begotten, ill-fated War on Terrorism. Once the meat comes home to its family, brimming with trauma — both physical and mental — from the experience of war, President Bush has fought as hard as he can against paying for that meat, which it turns out, is a living, breathing human being that must now be taken care of.

Today is probably the nation’s most important day in many, many years. A vote for Obama is a tourniquet to stop eight years’ worth of hemorrhaging caused by a party that couldn’t care less about anyone but itself. A vote for McCain is a vote to continue things as they have been, despite his protestations to the contrary. McCain has demonstrated — not the least through the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate — that the modern Republican Party will continue to play an intimate role in the operation of the United States, as it has for eight years. Four more years of that will run our country’s veins dry.

Barack Obama does represent change. He represents hope. He represents a return to the Constitution, a return to the values of equal protection under the law, a return to a nation that defends itself when actually threatened and not a nation that attacks other countries due to perceived threats. A President Obama will lead a nation that we can be proud of again.

My Conditions for Voting Republican

I’ve been stewing over the last several days about this election season. Who can blame me? Political feelings are at their height with the two conventions so close together, and so people from all sides of the political continuum find this to be a very convenient time to throw their opinions into the public forum. I’ve wanted to do it in a more complete manner than by simply typing in heated status updates on Facebook, but haven’t entirely known what to say until now. I suppose this bit of writing is a first attempt at expressing my political expectations and reactions so far for this season.

In the end I decided on a sort of list of ‘demands,’ things that the Republican Party would have to do or work towards if they wanted to gain the vote of a slightly left-of-center independent voter such as myself. Here they are, in no particular order:

-Ditch the Rove: There is no one, and I mean no one, in the Republican machine whom I despise more (even including Cheney and Bush) than Karl Rove. The man must be absolutely soulless to have come up with the Republican election scheme of divide and conquer, watering down a complex world of issues and concerns, and slandering your political opponents through a mix of 3rd party “swift boaters” and sleazy push-polling tactics. Seriously, I see the man or hear his voice and I feel a mix of nausea and rage all wrapped up together. I understand that there are other masterminds and think-tanks involved in Bush’s otherwise unexplainable hold on power over the last eight years, but Rove is the most vocal and the most visible. If McCain had told Rove ‘thanks, but no thanks’ from the very beginning of his campaign, I would have had a great deal more respect for him, but as it happens, McCain has involved Rove in his campaign, I don’t know in what exact capacity, but he’s behind the scenes somewhere. I will not vote for a Republican, even at the state level, until that jerk-off is publicly shunned by the party leadership.

- Drop the “I’m-so-white-it-hurts” smack talk: Did Palin say anything about the issues in her VP acceptance speech? Or did she just walk up to the podium, give a shout out to her sisters in the AK, form gang symbols with her hands and challenge Harry Reid to an all-out rumble with John McCain? This is another tactic widely used by Republicans in recent years: when you realize that you either have no new platform or your platform is so extreme that it will scare off the majority of American moderates, just talk trash about the other party and hope that no one notices that you said nothing about the actual issues. Sarah Palin did just that at the convention. I know that there have been accusations from the Republican side (and even from people like Jon Stewart) that people are only following Obama because he is promising change and hope and a place on the Big Rock Candy Mountain, but that is not at all why I have supported him from the beginning. I supported him because he was more concerned with talking about the issues as if we were in this together. Imagine that. Americans of all creeds and races sharing many of the same problems. Could it be because, despite our ideological differences, we might share a common humanity and country? Why don’t we drop the smack talk, Obama says, and focus on our approaches and solutions to the issues? What a fresh idea!

- Rupture with the Rapturists: I understand that religion, faith and morals will always have a place in the public forum. There are ideals that many of us hold very close to our hearts and consider the foundations of our lives. I have a problem, though, when religious leaders realize how much power they can potentially exercise from the political podium rather than from the pulpit. I strongly disagree with the recent practice of Republicans going before religious leaders (and only conservative religious leaders at that) to accept their blessing from that leader. It reminds me just a wee-bit too much of the Holy Roman emperors going before the Pope to have him bless their kingship. Let me reintroduce a neglected idea: a person can be a very capable leader and public administrator without holding to religiously orthodox views, or any religious view for that matter. Even John Paul II was not fond of the Republican Party’s policies, a mood shared by the current pontiff, facts that many conservative American Catholics tend to conveniently ignore. It’s one thing when religious leaders and institutions try to voice their concerns in the public forum of American politics. They have every right to do so, so long as they frame their arguments as the concerns of their particular group. When I’m told by those leaders that I’ll rot in Hell for voting for a candidate who happens to be pro-choice with an otherwise amazing platform, I tend to shy away from them. I’m an adult, and I have the right and the ability to form moral judgments for myself. Don’t try to guilt me into voting for your Republican candidate by threatening my soul with eternal damnation.

- Stop Rudy from talking about 9/11: Seriously, Rudy, shut your mouth. You were rightfully popular for your immediate response to said national tragedy in the days and weeks following, not to mention for your record against crime in New York City, but quit framing the entire political discussion in terms of “I’m the hero of 9/11, so if you vote for the other guys, you’ll find a 737 barreling into your city’s office buildings.” Your party does not hold a monopoly on the willingness and ability to exercise military resources to protect this country. I believe that Joe Biden and his years of foreign affairs experience is just one of many other potential examples to demonstrate that Democrats know a thing or two about national security. What fear mongering and baiting we’re hearing when Bush implies that the other party will leave you for dead to the terrorists, or will let the terrorists win! For those of you who argue that the Republicans have a stronger record on national security and the use of military force, and that they were simply arguing that they would be the more experienced party for handling security issues, I have just one question. Why didn’t the Republicans just say that, rather that insinuating that a vote for the other guys was a vote for defeat? The first involves cool and calm dialogue, the second fear and powerlessness. It’s obvious that they were trying to scare people into the GOP camp.

- Stop parading minorities and women around on the platform to get votes: From the moment I saw that McCain selected a woman to be his vice presidential pick, I suspected that it was raw, political pandering for the votes of former Hillary supporters. It reminds me of how Bush selected people like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice for his administration, two highly-qualified public servants to be sure, but also people who were conservative enough to have very little in common with most of the African-Americans whom they were breaking ground for. I know that some critics wondered if Bush had selected them mostly to make his administration and party look more progressive and diverse. Palin strikes me as more of the same. It’s like they thought that the progressive women who had sincerely hoped that Hillary would shatter the glass ceiling would vote for McCain to get back at the “patriarchal” Obama-Biden ticket. Does McCain expect those same, progressive women to review Palin’s beliefs on contraceptives and gun control and not be paralyzed with fear? Yes, Palin has experience as a governor and mayor. She’s not, admittedly, completely green. But I really believe that her selection by McCain was more about her reproductive organs and hard-hitting hockey mom rhetoric rather than anything that she has previously accomplished. Yet another Republican minority member or member of the historically-excluded gender using their power to go against what most of their confederates believe in. Nice going.

Last, but certainly not the least:

- Kick the Neo-cons to the curb, baby: These people, the neo-conservatives, are not in the mold of Reagan. They are not like Ike was, and they are not your traditional, fiscal conservatives. They are frightening, frightening people whose political motivation lies in the apparent humiliation of the American military during the Vietnam War, and they would love nothing more than to pay the world back (except for Britain, of course) for that loss of power that we experienced. And how do they plan to do this? One, by turning the world into an American commercial and quasi-military empire. In this way, they are no better than Vladimir Putin and his recent nationalistic expeditions into Georgia, and Putin has wasted no time in pointing out the hypocrisy of us chastising Russia for invading a sovereign nation when we did the same with Iraq. Two, they believe that stronger executive power will absolve the office of the Presidency of the embarrassment it suffered during Watergate. If only the judicial and legislative branches of government would bow down obediently before the president and his cabinet, they argue, the loss of faith in the office of the Presidency that happened when Bill Clinton was gettin’ his piece would never have happened. This means, of course, that the two branches which are designed to introduce our ideas for legislation and to protect and define our rights by law are being subordinated by the branch which can, according to neo-conservative theory, do whatever the hell it wants, so long as there are signing statements and war powers to fall back on. They’re not interested in your well-being. In fact, they have a distaste for your intelligence and your criticism of the executive office. In their model, as well, only the biggest businesses are vital to the success and well-being of the American dynamo. Without big money and investments to trickle down to the middle and working classes, America is hopeless and worthless (and that includes you, the average, middle-class American voter who was too stupid not to invest money in the stock market to make yourself independently wealthy). They are not Christian in practice, even if they sometimes promote that image for their policies. They are cold-hearted, aggressive and extremely ambitious. We should be terribly afraid of them and angry with them. They tend to destroy everything grass-roots and diverse about this nation. And they were behind the scenes of most of the Republicans in the primary, including McCain. If you think that McCain will bring change, think again. The cancer that made Bush’s presidency such a disaster has spread to the McCain camp. Don’t think that he won’t be influenced by them.

So there you have it, my demands, my manifesto, so to speak. These days, I feel as if I am defining myself by what I hate in the Republican Party rather than what I admire in the Democratic one. Many people reading this would probably think that I am a die-hard Democrat. That’s not true. They don’t fully speak for me. I am an anti-Republican by virtue of the things listed above, and in this two party system of ours, what other alternative do I have when I turn away from the current stench of the GOP? You tell me.