OK, I'm not gonna try and sugar-coat this. It's been a truly shitful week for democrats, liberals, progressives and people who think that government should be something other than a tool for the wealthy to accrue more of said wealth on the backs of working people and those further down the socio-economic scale. Also not good for those who care about the environment, a women's right to choose, and the chance for us to stop the two wars and make sure that proper financial assistance gets to the people of Haiti.
#1-The election of Scott Brown to Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat gives the 60th vote for pretty much anything to a man who campaigned as a "tea partyer" which at this point is pretty much a code word for giving the farthest extreme of the far right everything they could possibly want.
Even worse, the Republicans and those self-same wing-bats are taking the opportunity to jump up and down like the savages they are and claim that the Obama's presidency is over, that this election is a complete repudiation of the progressive agenda and that they will take over the House and Senate in the next election with similar candidates.
Most of the Networks, aside from MSNBC are swallowing this tripe pretty whole and parroting it back, thereby creating the illusion that it's actually true. Unfortunately this shit CAN become self-fulfilling prophecy if the Democrats buy into it and start hedging on their policies to court this so called "angry conservatives."
#2-Air America, the attempt to have a progressive-minded radio network as a counter the hate-spewing of the Rush Limbaugh crowd ended live programming on January 21, 2010 and ceasing all operations altogether on Monday January 25, 2010.
Cue more obnoxious gloating from the right wingers.
#3-Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that erased longstanding limits on corporate and union campaign spending, thereby allowing big business to spend as much money as it wants to destroy their opponents.
All in all, a truly depressing and horrific week for the United States. I'm so grateful I spent most of it hanging out with my friends, so I was not able to do what I normally do in these cases which is watch the coverage obsessively.
Maybe that's the only reason I've currently got a modicum of perspective right now or it could just be my advanced age.
We've been here before, people.
So while I wasn't around for Herbert Hoover or the worst of J Edgar's excesses, I was around in 1980, when the "Reagan Revolution" and the Iran Hostage Crisis led to Jimmy Carter losing to Reagan followed by 12 years of incredibly destructive Republican Rule.
I cried my fucking eyes on election night 1988 when Bush Sr. beat Dukakis after an unbelievably nasty campaign, mostly run by Karl Rove's predecessor in scummery, Lee Atwter.
I watched the Newtonian "Contract With America" crap in 1994, when we lost the House in the midterms and listened to the Republicans say that Bill Clinton was "irrelevant" and guarantee they would beat in him 1996. AND GUESS WHAT???? It didn't happen. (OK Ross Perot helped, but I still think we could have beaten Bob Dole with no help at all.)
I went through Impeachment and watched Bill Clinton survive with record high poll numbers while Newt and a bunch of others had to resign when their own peccadilloes got revealed.
And my eyes have seen the glory of 2008, when our country did something I thought was at least 20 more years down the road.
So yeah, this week sucks. HARD. Things are going to get very, very ugly. The party in power always loses seats in the mid-term. It's going to happen again, although a complete loss of the House is unlikely.
There is an excellent chance that Sarah and her Tea-baggers could go berserk and try to form a third party if the mainstream manages to nominate Pawlenty or Romney or anybody else deemed insufficiently pure of Conservative Heart. And if that happens, WE WIN.
tl;dr: Be of good cheer. As my father used to say to me, THIS TOO SHALL PASS.