By Matt McCarten
I’ve come to the conclusion that the American voters are stupid. There is a naivete and proud ignorance in the conservative adults who vote.
This week they delivered the Democrats the biggest electorate defeat since before World War II. Barack Obama wasn’t on the ballot but it was aimed at him.
Two years ago the Republicans, led by that boofhead, George Bush the younger, idiotically ran their own form of Rogernomics: giving the rich huge tax refunds; slashing public services; going to war against two countries and then running up record debts to pay for it all.
After the country was on the brink of bankruptcy they decided on an intelligent, sophisticated black man to fix it.
He used his majority in both houses of Congress to get an economic stimulus to save greedy capitalists from themselves and then introduced a health system to cover just about everyone who got sick.
Obama also saved millions of skilled jobs by nationalising the car industry.
But you’d think he was the one who got them into the mess. To punish him for not fixing everything immediately they gave the car keys back to the party who smashed up their car in the first place.
Now I understand how Homer Simpson became an American icon.
Of course, Obama is trapped by the spinelessness of most of the Democratic senators and house representatives. But who is he going to blame for the stacking of his Administration with traditional insiders and conservative hacks?
The liberals and progressives have been sidelined to a large degree.
In New Zealand, the power of corporations and wealthy individuals in United States politics seems extraordinary.
Can you imagine a corporation in this country being able to spend as much money as they liked to get a policy they want adopted, or unlimited funds to get a favourite candidate elected? No wonder the corporations are spending billions of dollars – it’s not a cost; it’s an investment.
Every candidate funded by the US Chamber of Commerce got elected.
Before the final election results were announced, their chief executive issued a list of instructions to the successful donees who are now expected to put their hands up dutifully when these policies come up in Congress. It’s blatant … and legal.
But legalised corruption aside, the calibre of the “teabag party” Republican candidates are just plain scary. Many of their serious contenders oppose abortion openly, even in cases of child rape or incest on the basis that it is “God’s plan”.
One of them opposed masturbation. Others argued that if they didn’t get elected their supporters would take up arms to overthrow the country. Attendees at their rallies carried assault weapons.
The leader of the Congress Republicans campaigned actively for a candidate who dressed in Nazi regalia, and other candidates who assaulted journalists or peaceful demonstrators.
Their thuggish candidate for New York governor swaggered around with a baseball bat and threatened reporters and anyone else who annoyed him.
Some of these goons actually got elected. Truly bizarre. In this country we’d have them arrested.
Admittedly, Obama has demotivated his support base. He’s still in Afghanistan propping up a corrupt regime (as are we), gays are still expelled from the armed forces, almost all of the bailout money went to Wall Street banks and finance houses who are raking in taxpayer money for themselves and still screwing the poor.
One in 10 people are officially unemployed with no end in sight. Like the Labour Party in this country, the Democrats were hoping their support base would still come out to vote for the “lesser of the two evils”.
They didn’t buy it and stayed home. Consequently, the nuts took over the asylum. I’m not sure if Obama got the message. I hope Phil Goff has. Working people need a party with specific visionary policies. Merely being a more pastel version of the other party won’t get you elected next year, Phil.
You have to stand for something, or you are toast.
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