Did I Just Commit Voter Fraud?
Let’s see. I’m a Democrat, and I just voted for Obama. By Republican standards, I just broke the law. Compounded by the fact that I just did so by fax, with no photo ID.
Everyone should vote, no matter what. It’s something that Americans should do just as a matter of principle, if nothing else.
Ironically, aside from that, there was very little motivation for me to vote, as I vote in California, and in a district which is staunchly Democratic (Democratic candidates typically get about 70% of the vote), so there was pretty much zero concern that my vote would sway anything one way or the other.
However, there was one factor which did motivate me more: the popular vote. Even if my vote does not mean the difference in electing who I want for the House, the Senate, or for president, there is the factor that the popular vote is seen as a contributing factor in terms of the support of the nation as a whole—something which Republicans, who sneered at the idea in 2000, will use as a cudgel against Obama should he with the electoral but lose the popular vote.
Congress hasn’t done anything 2011-now so I don’t see why they’re going to get their act together should Obama be returned as President.
The Constitution gives a LOT of power to the House as to how government is operated.
What they say, goes, with concordance of the Senate and President.
If the House Republicans still want to play games in 2013, fine. Maybe the electorate will get smarter in 2014.
Fat chance maybe but I can hope. We booted these clowns out in 2006 for some reason.
Troy, I have heard others express these concerns before.
Here are my thoughts.
First, why should the American public “reward” obstructionism by handing over the White House to those who obstruct the most? It is a question of ethics. Re-elect President Obama and send a message to the obstructionists that their tactics failed miserably.
Second, there is still an outside possibility of regaining a filibuster-proof majority in the House and Senate nest week. So we can roll over obstructionists more easily if they try that old ploy. Not likely, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
Third, assuming filibustering and obstructionism continue, Obama can take issues to the American people. He is a powerful speaker and needs to get the public on his side in order to win over the GOP agenda. As support grows for policies that support the middle-class, the GOP will eventually back off.
–kensensei
This is the most frustrating thing about what the Republicans are doing. they are, without any doubt, intentionally sabotaging American stability and prosperity so they can make Obama look bad. That is exactly their plan. And it is working, because Americans voting for Republicans are idiots.
From the beginning of Obama’s term, Republicans have made clear their goals. Their leaders have made it clear that they want Obama to fail and that making him fail and so losing the 2012 election was their top priority–not jobs, not repairing the economic crisis they created. When asked about obstructionism, they blandly said “it works for us.”
They watered down recovery efforts, shot down jobs plans, and offered no serious plans in return–then blasted Obama for not doing enough, blaming him for everything Bush did.
When Democrats took the House in 2008, they immediately passed the stimulus and a host of other measures to create jobs and help the economy recover. When Republicans won in 2010, they spent their first day posturing (reading the Constitution aloud, and doing it badly), and failed to pass a single economic or jobs bill afterwards–and now castigate Obama for ignoring the economy.
Obama compromised far too much–instead of starting with Single Payer and negotiating to the center, he started with a Republican health care plan modeled after a plan passed by the man the GOP later nominated for president–and then began to make a host of compromises taking the plan even further to the right. He did the same with the stimulus, making it too much about tax cuts and not enough about infrastructure building. On nearly every single major battle, Obama began in the center and compromised hard to the right–usually getting nothing in return but opportunistic game-playing from the GOP, and nothing but badmouthing throughout while Obama kept quiet. And now the GOP berates Obama as being “partisan” and unwilling to compromise.
On top of it all, the Republicans, forever ready to sign away trillions of dollars in tax cuts for wealthy people and corporations without even thinking of paying for it, not to mention the corporate Medicare giveaway, Bush tax cuts, and two decade-long land wars in Asia, mostly unilateral Republican programs which account for the lion’s share of our debt (which the same people now insist is all Obama’s fault)–all of which was not paid for–on top of all that, Republicans threatened to default on the debt, severely damaging the nation’s good name and credit, and now threaten to do it again if Obama is re-elected. They will not even spend a measly few million to make sure returning vets get job certifications they need. Paris Hilton’s tax cut, yes ma’am, right away, no need to pay for that, you’re credit’s good–but a wounded vet looking to have his training, as promised, mean something on his resume? Sorry, soldier, get to the back of the line, we don’t think you’re worth the spare change you’re asking for.
The Republicans are not just arrogant, uncompromising, obstructionist, partisan hacks willing to damn the United States to economic suffering or even collapse if they don’t get 100% of what they want–they are blatantly, obviously, openly so.
And yet, millions of Americans, with all the facts plainly accessible, somehow think that what the Republicans are doing is reasonable enough to want to vote for them. Despite their core policies being openly hostile to those same people’s rights, liberties, and economic and physical well-being.
Any American who votes Republican and is not making $250,000 a year is so outrageously, breathtakingly stupid that they deserve what Republicans are doing to them. Unfortunately, the rest of us are subject to the same fate. Anyone making more than $250,000 and voting Republican is still stupid, only in a more long-term manner than the rest.
It is as if the Republican Party has stepped up, announced that they want to make the country into a plutocratic wasteland, and crash the economy even worse if they can’t do that–and millions of people vote for them. I say “it is as if” and not that “it is” only in that Republicans have Fox News spewing toxic waste 24/7, have draped themselves in history and the flag, and spend all their time spinning the most preposterous lies–all too often obviously so–so that anyone without the reasoning skills that an American fifth-grader should have may be taken in by it all.
You can fool some of the people all of the time.
Looks like you guys will at least avoid a government shutdown due to failure to approve new bond issues. Both the LDP and DPJ are playing hardball here but the Japanese may not be as tolerant as the American one.
The quibble I have with Luis’ above (aside from the Dems taking Congress in 2006 after 12 years in the wilderness) is about Paris Hilton’s money.
Conservatives don’t want to pay for everyone’s stuff.
If our economy can’t create prosperity for all, then too bad so sad for you. I got mine good luck getting yours.
This is a very powerful ideological / emotional trap to be caught in. Comparing E Asian attitudes with N European and US thinking would be interesting.
Japan doesn’t really have its politics sorted out all that well… That 800,000,000,000,000 yen government debt is either deferred taxation or inflation of some sort.
The overall problem is the ideological belief in increasing wealth concentration being necessary for wider prosperity.
This is a bizarre thing to ascribe to, but self-serving ideologies are the most powerful.
More ranting in my 10:08 comment here.
I do wonder if the endgame here is Weimar Germany ca 1930.
Where the conservative-leaning electorate puts radical conservatives in power, conservatives who want to rip out the current order and return to the more autocratic past.
That sounds a bit more familiar, doesn’t it?
We don’t necessarily have a hitler waiting in the wings, but we do have a revisionist contingent willing to rub out the past 100 years of progressive reforms by any means necessary.
The political union of millionaires and religious fundamentalists is a very scary thing.
Millionaires enjoy privilege — which means private law from the Latin– so can easily yield to the social conservatives on what the latter care about most.
The question I guess is how long the fundies go along with the oligarchic program.
Their millennialist mindset will have to be beaten out of them by passing time I guess.
ah crap, the third leg of that stool is . . . the military.
Are they going to take cuts to the $800B/yr money flow, or will they fight it?
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=cqQ
Red line is military spending, blue line is trade deficit
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=cqS
is an interesting graph — blue is defense spending / total gov’t tax receipts, red is defense / wages
one out of 3 tax dollars now is going to defense, and if we were running a balanced budget we’d need to tax over 10% just for defense alone.
Japan’s defense bill hasn’t expanded at all since the mid-1990s and is a rounding error on the US’s — $50B or so.
http://www.rickety.us/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Defense_Spending_by_Country_2010-570×288.png
says it all, really.
This nation is insane.