Republicans in 2012

Now let’s take a look at what a GOP comeback in 2012 would mean.

It means that the progress we’ve made stops, and we throw everything into reverse, especially if the Republicans win the Senate. Congress repeals health reform, we make no progress on health care or immigration or energy or anything else. It means failing to keep our financial system safe or enforce product safety laws. And then the GOP completes its effort to destroy Medicare and Social Security.

It means a return to Reaganomics: extending the Bush tax cuts, trillions in new debt, billions in taxpayer money to oil companies who are making record profits, and maybe even some new unfunded expenses like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Medicare part D. All while they holler that only the GOP can be trusted to run the budget.

It means that the GOP will use the full power of the federal government to wage a culture war that most of America doesn’t want: a holy war on abortion, school vouchers, school prayer, intelligent design, putting the Commandments in courtrooms, stem cell research, euthanasia, cloning, civil unions, HPV shots, contraception, sex education, faith-based initiatives, banning books, assisted suicide. It means rewriting the history books in our schools, replacing facts with rightwing propaganda.

It means less safety for all of us: it means handing the Department of Homeland Security to the same idiots who mismanaged the launch of DHS in the first place, making the border less secure right after 911, botching the Katrina response and then admitting that they deliberately smeared the governor of Louisiana because she was a female Democrat. Heckuva job!

It means handing the Pentagon over to people who have proved they don’t give a damn about our troops: people who are okay with ignoring the needs of our troops for armor and equipment and health care and family support, endangering the troops for political advantage, ignoring our veterans at Walter Reed, all while screaming that Democrats hate the troops.

It means risking our national security by bringing back the team that mismanaged two wars, losing track of billions in contractor fraud, missing the estimated cost by about two trillion, lying to Congress about WMDs, Abu Ghuraib, losing Usama in the mountains, prolonging the war for years by disarming and then mismanaging the Iraqi Sunni forces, the torture, failing to foresee the Iranian role, “Mission Accomplished”, claiming Saddam was in bed with al-Qa’ida, Blackwater, the secret prisons in Europe, the violations of the ABM Treaty, fouling up Iran, fouling up Korea, ignoring the Middle East peace process, ruining America’s international reputation.

It means undertaking an illegal campaign to take the vote away from groups the GOP doesn’t like: declaring war on unions, trying to criminalize being black or Mexican so as to keep the “unwanted” from voting, blocking students from voting, peddling the racist myth of voter fraud, voter caging, and an endless series of thuglike tactics and dirty tricks: robo-call lies, smearboaters, deliberate legislative gridlock, empty judge’s benches, unprecedented filibuster threats.

It means the American people are rewarding the GOP for their endless stream of lies: about birth certificates, Sotomayor, the stimulus, torture; and the warnings that Obama the Kenyan Muslim Marxist will kill seniors, kill our troops, kill Republicans, promote suicide, let people go blind, invade your home and decide how to raise your kids, impose martial law; the myth about the government takeover plan that will decide when you get to live and die. It means we’re telling the world: “we believe this stuff and it must be true.” You will be affirming the Republican sentiment that Democrats are traitors and any effort by Democrats to govern, even when they are elected to do so, is illegitimate.

It means rewarding the Republicans for sending armed thugs to Obama events, launching violent attacks, shouting down all real debate, committing acts of vandalism, smashing our windows with bricks, trying to bomb the homes of the relatives of Congressmen, painting swastikas on the doors of black Congressmen, making death threats, joking about killing Democrats, screeching insults during a Presidential address to Congress. It means we’re saying “It’s okay to use violence to destroy the government, as long as the government is being run by people we don’t like.”

It means the Republican crime wave resumes: illegally perverting the executive branch into a partisan political weapon to attack enemies, which among other things did lasting damage to the CIA; it means illegally prosecuting Democratic politicians and firing Democratic attorneys, directing government offices to spread dishonest political propaganda, sending thugs to disrupt officials from counting votes while screaming “don’t count the votes!”

It means another president who says “I’m the president, and I don’t care about the law. I can illegally spy on you, detain you, torture you, and you can’t stop us. My Attorney General says I can ignore not only international law but US law if I decide it’s a national security issue, however I define it. If I don’t like a law passed by Congress, I can attach one of my hundreds of illegal signing statements, saying I can re-write the law any old way I want, even if it contravenes the law. I’ll launch an FBI raid in Capitol Hill, even if the GOP members of Congress think it’s crazy. I will break any law to win, destroying evidence, illegal prisons, exposing a CIA agent for political reasons. And you can take your Congressional subpoenas and shove ‘em”.

It means handing the government over to the same criminal thugs as last time. Look for people cut from the same putrid cloth as Alberto Gonzalez, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Harriet Miers, “Heckuva Job” Brown, George “Macaca” Allen, Karl Rove, Tom Delay, Trent Lott, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Armey, Ted Stevens, Dick Cheney, Larry Craig, John Ensign, Mark Foley, Jack Abramoff, Scooter Libby.

In short, it means a return of Bush’s titanic deficits, the death of Medicare and Social Security, holy wars against women and gays, incompetence and dishonesty on security issues, efforts to destroy or democracy by using the power of the government to destroy political opponents; it means years of destructive political thuggery and lies, and many, many destructive crimes.


Finally, to paraphrase the immortal Driftglass --

Answer: Chrysler, Medicare, the Wisconsin teachers' union, Usama bin Laden.
Question: Name four things the GOP failed to kill.