Eve of Election...

It is the eve of election, finally. More than anything else I will just be glad that it is over ... and I don't watch TV. Those who do must have endured an onslaught of ugly these past few months, an onslaught that darkened their eyes and turned their stomachs. In any case I am going to take a bit of encouragement from one simple fact, no matter who wins in a few hours not much will change.

If Obama wins he will be facing a Congress even more hostile than that of the last two years. Republicans have spewed way to much bile to act any other way. Those who hold their seats in the House, (and my guess is they will still be a majority) got elected for one purpose only, to try and make sure Obama fails. Nothing will get past the House that Obama wants. It is hard to imagine that anything that gets through the House will be signed by Obama. He is in his second term. Vetoing nearly everything a lunatic House comes up with may be the best thing he could do for his place in history. After all, there is no institution on the planet more reviled than the US House of Representatives. No one in the country thinks these people are worth a shit. Obama could be ranked as one of the best Presidents in history by simply stating the obvious, "The House is broken, anything they do is going to be fucked up, so I'll protect the us from them with my veto pen." In doing so he would come closer to telling the truth than he has since the day he took office.

It is true that an Obama second term may have its biggest impact on the Supreme Court, and that is a reason for a little optimism. But just a little. Not even a moderate candidate will get by the Senate, even if the Democrats hold a small majority. The best we can hope for are judges that lean just a little to the right while avoiding the truly bat-shit crazy.

If Romney wins he will be facing a Senate that hates him even more than the current House hates Obama. Four years of Republicans doing all they can to make sure Obama failed? A Democratic Senate will flat butcher anything that Romney tries to do. (Except fight wars and give Wall Street a break - but the Democrats did that under Bush and Obama so that will be business as usual.) It is true that Mitt will try and get the bat-shit crazy on the SCOTUS; but political reality will force him to go with the right leaning as well. (Not that it would be possible to have a Court more corrupt than it already is. It really can't get any worse than betraying the Constitution and selling our elections to the highest bidder.)

At the very worst the Republicans take the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Though a lot of people are going to get hurt if that happens, the world will not end. No matter what Romney and the bat-shit crazy T-party promise, they can't make magic. They cannot cut taxes, increase military spending, start a war with Iran, and then cut domestic spending anywhere near enough to not explode the deficit. Their god Reagan couldn't pull it off. Bush the First couldn't do it and Bush the Lesser couldn't do it even worse. Clinton did build up a surplus, but a huge cut in defense spending made it possible. (Something neither Obama or Romney would consider even in their wildest dreams.)

Roads and bridges need rebuilt, waterways and power grids... Public education will surly take a beating, but it isn't going away. People will not long tolerate air they can't breathe, water they can't drink, or drugs and consumer products that kill them and their children. It will not matter what Republicans think about the US Department of Education, the EPA, or the FDA. Oil will get scarce and ever more pricey. Republican mutterings will not put more of it in the ground - or make it any easier to extract. Global warming will continue regardless of what those who hate science claim. After all, the world was a globe and orbiting the sun even as the Pope declared that god had told him the earth was the center of the universe. With Mitt in the White House and the Republicans controlling the Hill, the people of the USA might even be forced to concede that the cosmos doesn't care in the least what someone "believes"; and that science is usually right while religion usually wrong.

Republican or Democrat, White House, House or Senate, in any of the possible combinations, will face the same basic math. They will still love war. Any of them will have to answer to those who paid for the propaganda, and not the voters. And none of them give a shit about anything but staying in power and increasing their personal wealth.

In our hearts most of us know this regardless of who we plan to vote for. Everyone I know who will vote for Obama thinks of it as voting for the lesser of two evils. Everyone I know who will vote for Romney thinks the exact same thing.  Virtually all of us, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Off the Reservation, all of us are voting for what we think will be the lesser of two evils. Which means we are all voting for evil. That doesn't say much for the future of this society.

So tomorrow's election will be much, much ado about very damned little. At the moment the USA is on the wrong side of history. Not matter who wins the decline continues until the people of the USA shake off the self-hatred that as been bread into our politics by the scorched earth tactics of the disciples of Lee Atwater. (Look him up ...)