Welcome Back, 1929!

...we haven't missed you... I refer of course to the election, and the Republicans retaking the House of Representatives. I certainly understand the frustration with the continued difficulties the economy is in - I don't understand why anyone would think that electing Republicans would help. And it's particularly frustrating given that the house has been the most reliably positive branch of government these two years - Obama (to quote Roy Edroso) is a "trimmer and a pudding" - the Senate has been as obstructionist (with 59 or 60 nominal Democrats, or Democrat allies) as any opposition party - the Supreme Court has been quite effectively moved right for decades.... Pelosi was about all you could hang on to.

Well? if 2 years of disappointment cause a huge shift from Democrat to Republican, maybe the next two years will cause a huge shift back - not likely, I'm afraid, but we can cling to it. One of the more annoying traits in recent decades is the tendency to treat the president like a prime minister (if not a king) - to ignore what happens in the legislature, and blame or credit the president for everything. So - if things get much much worse in the next 2 years - a not unlikely possibility - the president will probably be blamed, no matter how much congress is to blame.... or - what is even stranger - the president will be blamed, but reelected anyway, while Democrats in congress will lose seats... It's happened before.

I admit - I don't particularly trust the voters to act sensibly. I don't know how that can be fixed. I think this state of affairs is very carefully supported by the powers that are (mainly lobbyists, though a good many of the actual politicians in power seem to concur) - they work very hard to keep people from voting rationally, to convince people that elections are symbols, that politics is posture, and policy is too complicated for our little heads to worry about. And that this cynicism and inherent corruption is, in fact, inherent, inevitable, and What Politics Is, and stop worrying about it. The stronger minded ignore politics - the weaker minded find someone to hate and cheer for the slogans.... That's a hard attitude to counter, since the only way to counter it is by grinding away at simple stuff - "but what policies do the Republicans hold that you like?" as someone I know kept asking in a recent political argument with someone determined to get rid of the Dems... Maybe John Stewart can save us, I don't know...