The Reality of the Midterms

A Skeptic’s View of the Midterm Elections
Published on Thursday, November 16, 2006.
By Joel S. Hirschhorn - BLN Contributing Writer

Forget political correctness. As a progressive that did not drink the Democratic Kool-Aid I remain skeptical about what will now happen. To begin with, the revolution has NOT arrived! Bush is still president. The corporate state is safe. The Upper Class has little to fear. Lobbyists will be writing different names on checks. Winning Democrats will entertain more than they will produce historic restorative reforms. Did Republicans deserve to lose? Of course! Was there a set of promised political and policy reforms by the Democrats to justify enthusiastic voting for them? No. Appropriate rejection of Republicans should not be conflated with passionate embrace of Democrats.

Those Americans who thought their votes would bring much needed systemic change to our political system lost. They just don't know or admit it yet. As usual, the third-party movement lost, because the two-party duopoly maintained its stranglehold on our political system. Populists and true progressives lost. Who or what was the biggest winner? The short-term and delusional tactic of lesser-evil voting won big.

On the liberal left, millions of anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war voters held their noses, repressed the truth about cowardly and compromised Democrats. They rationalized why beating Republicans was the most important goal. They did not focus on how Democrats in congress enabled the Iraq war, and that many voted in favor of the worst new laws that have given Bush anti-freedom powers.

Fake, neo-progressives, little more than embarrassed Democrats, finally showed their true blue commitment. They drank the Democratic Kool-Aid; in fact they slurped it up in massive amounts. Most still remain intoxicated, even as Democratic leaders shunned impeachment of Bush.

Read it here.