Is The Republican Revolution Over?
TIME and Newsweek declare the GOP finished, with polls showing big majorities of voters prefer Dems in every category except “Which party is best at fucking little boys?”
Twelve years after the GOP rode into Congress on the shoulders of Newt Gingrich and his Contract On With America, Republicans are about to be laughed out of Congress by voters tired of lies, corruption, and the GOP leadership’s protection of Mark Foley. It would appear that the American sheeple have finally realized that Republicans care only about political power and the money that accrues from the aggregation of said political power.
Gingrich and his colleagues rode into power in 1994 promising that things were going to be different. They were going to be accountable. They were going to be transparent. They were going to conduct the People’s business in a manner that would make Americans proud of their government again. Yeah, right…so how’s that whole honesty and openness thing working out for you so far? Not so well, judging by the latest polls.
Yes, the “Republican Revolution” is over…if, in fact, it ever got started. Once taking power in 1994, Gingrich proved himself just as capable of being corrupted as any Democrat he and other Republicans had ever reviled. Power corrupts, and Gingrich and his cohorts quickly proved that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Twelve years of this crap is enough, don’t you think?
There are no guarantees, of course, but it’s increasingly looking as if Democrats will take control of Congress away from Republicans. This raises all sorts of delicious possibilities, but first and foremost, Democrats need to keep one thing in mind. If we do not do things differently, if we do not learn the lessons of the past, and in particular the lesson of what Republicans have done to themselves, it will just be a matter of time before the tables are (deservedly) turned. We can, and must break the cycle of corruption; we must be able to do things differently, to keep it in the forefront of our minds that being the majority party is a privilege, NOT a right, and it must be treated as the precious gift it is.
I’m not going to regale you with claims that Democrats are morally and ethically superior. We are, and have been, just as susceptible in the past to the siren song of power and money as Republicans have been. We can, and should, be able to do things better and more openly than the party currently in power- if only because we have their miserable example to serve as a warning of what can happen when you begin to believe your press clippings.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
