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Polar bear with carrot

Saturday, November 10, 2012

It was a new day yesterday...


They're certainly not taking this very well. All the models were wrong, they had miscalculated their strength and support, there were traitors in the midst, not to mention noncooperative tropical events. It was obviously not enough to hate a foreign, marxist president, who knew that it was America herself that bore the blame for her fall and transgression? - sheer ignorance from a class that would rather believe in Santa Claus and an entitlement state than time honored American traditions like work and self reliance. Americans are after all, nothing if not a misguided and ignorant electorate.

No sooner did the results come in than Wall Street started swooning and industrialists started laying off and terminating the workforce, battering up the storm windows to seal off the coming apocalypse. My GOP pals are tearing their shirts, sitting shiva for the late republic, end times clearly being nigh at hand.

I am reminded of two things, when considering the import of the shifting demographic everyone is discussing. I read a remarkable biography on Jesse James a few years ago that recast the man as a confederate soldier who couldn't give up the ghost for many years after the war, a crony of Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson. For some, the war truly never ends.

Did you ever see the Beverly Hillbillies episode where Granny takes the family to the beach to fight off the dreaded invasion of the enemy interlopers named the grunions? It was classic television.

We spend so much time demonizing the other guy that we make progress in this country very difficult. We do it with a compartmentalized news filter that shuns contrary views from the other side and merely reinforces our pre-existing individual precepts.

Losing sucks. We are confident in the integrity and  certainty of our belief systems and models. Now we find ourselves at a national standstill and clear and cool heads must prevail if we have any hope of getting out of our current morass. Or we wait another four years and do nothing but muck up the works.

I would advise everybody on the right to chill and get over it. There weren't as many of you as you thought and you will have to deal with it for at least two more years, when there are quite a few senate democrat seats opening up and four years to go for the big enchilada. Maybe they will buy it next time. With all the money Shelly and the Koch's threw at it, they just weren't buying.

America didn't care for what you were selling this time or at least 51% of us didn't and that's all it takes around these parts. We may have despised Bush and Reagan but I don't recall us getting so verklempt. So ease up and let's work together for a bit. That doesn't mean John Boehner can do a Lucy Van Pelt kick the football routine on Obama. The President's too smart and won't fall for that.

It's going to be real tax revenue, you lost the election, you don't get to do it your way this time. Coming to the center doesn't mean conceding position to the loser. It means let's meet in the true middle. You will have to give something up. Obama will give something up. We will show America that the thing can still work if we remember the lessons of kindergarten. It's not always going to go your way but you still shouldn't crap in the sandbox.

You got filthy rich before the tax rates were changed, you will get filthy rich again, believe me. I call it American exceptionalism. Just don't flip out. Crawl out from under the sheets, get out of bed and take a walk around. It might not turn out as bad as you imagined. Tomorrow brings a new day. We can make this work.


4 comments:

Ken Seals said...

51-49... Such a tiny margin.
Ken Seals

Anonymous said...

Thank you I'm calming down now.
I've been thinking the Dow and Naz, should just be Email reports and not in the news.. The vast majority have no horse in that race and only know that their supposed to worry but are not sure why.
Why can't we all just get along?
Peace, deli guy.

Blue Heron said...

Just enough, Ken. That's how democracy works.

Anonymous said...

Re: Making it work - Sorry Robert - Libertarians can't do the above as the current socio/politico/economic system violates every single one of their (my) basic principles. There aren't yet enough of us to "pull down the pillars" but given the nature of the system (in it's ever-increasing demands for "more") it's my guess that there soon will be. "Who Is John Galt?"

r