Ugly Realizations

Scootmaroo is in despair, for reasons that have been making more and more of an appearance in the blogsphere and even in the news: a president who is out of control and a government apparatus that is going along with it. What sparked it in his case was this e-mail on Andrew Sullivan:

When I saw the pictures from Abu Ghraib (and Gitmo?) my eyes filled up and I began to weep slowly. For my country. Americans don't do things like this! (Yes, I remember My Lai but when it was revealed, the country was shocked and outraged.)

Spencer Windes, at LeftCoastBreakdown, has a more general complaint. Call it politics burnout. I'm close to what he's been feeling, which is why the posts here have been wandering a little bit. (I can't summon up the energy to comment on Shotgun Dick, except to note that, with all the other stories that should have been screaming on the front pages, to be pushing this one smacks just the least little bit of "deflect, deflect." Just a bit.)

You hit a point where it all just blends into one big nightmare of graft, corruption, incompetence, stupidity, arrogance, venality, and on and on. Separate issues just don't register any more.

And you sit there and think, "We voted for this." Not all of us, but you can't really say "he's not my president." He is. We're all being tarred with this brush, and we're stuck with him for another couple of years, unless he manages a coup of some sort -- and he's well on his way. He now has the White House, Congress, the courts, and Diebold. What's left?

And frankly, think about the alternatives -- Frist? Santorum? Romney? Kerry? Clinton?

What alternatives?

I, however, am the eternal optimist. Not only an optimist, but an optimist with a fair acquaintance with history. History is a series of reactions. As communications get better, the reactions happen faster. What we're in now is a reaction to the 1960s and 70s, in which liberalism was king and anything went. Granted, the Bush administration is a nightmare, but we've had those before and survived them. What's going to happen is that the totalitarians and Christianists are going to get tossed out, one way or another. The Republican party is already starting to fragment, as Bush's ratings continue to drop and those in office start to figure out that they're really, really vulnerable the more they are identified with him.

I'm not so depressed about the courts, mostly because federal judges tend to get really independent once they're on the bench. It was, after all, a Bush appointee who nixed intelligent design in Dover, PA. Of course, you have clowns like Scalia and Thomas who never should have been confirmed to start with, but look at Kennedy and Souter. They didn't turn out so bad, all things considered.

The Republicans will lose their majority within the next two elections, if the Democrats can keep from fucking it up, which is by no means assured. (Pushing Hackett out of the Senate race in Ohio was really stupid, but there is hope of getting rid of Santorum in Pennsylvania. I am somewhat smug, because Illinois is smart enough to have two Democrats in the Senate, one of whom, at least, is a hell-raiser.)

We survive it all, somehow. One thing that's always true is that the majority can be swayed. That's how we got into this mess in the first place. If over 50% of the people think that Bush is doing a lousy job and that the Republicans are a bunch of crooks, that sort of gives you an indicator. Of course, they'll try to steal the next election, too, but I think too many people will be watching for them to get away with it. Even the brain-dead are starting to get it.

What you need to look at is not what's happening in Washington, which is, after all, the national circus, but what's happening outside Washington. A legislator in Wisconsin wants to outlaw teaching intelligent design in science classes. Florida is actually moving toward repealing its anti-gay adoption law. (Slowly, but the subject has been broached.) The governor of Utah has established domestic partner benefits for state employees. The Florida and California anti-marriage amendments couldn't get enough signatures to get on the ballots. The government has repeatedly been blocked from drilling in ANWR.

It's going to get nasty for a while, and the next administration is going to have a lot of repair work to do, not only in getting rid of Bush's policies across the board, but in convincing the American people that the government is worth having.

That's going to be the hardest.

So, cheer up, Scoot. It'll get better.

Eventually.