Restore Sanity?

I'll try and write about the three movies I recently saw in the coming days. But first, a political rant, with Election Day almost here -- and, by the way, make sure you all vote. There's no excuse whatsoever not to vote.

I was amused by the flurry of Twitter activity today revolving around the "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" held in Washington. Co-hosted by Comedy Central stars Jon Stewart (pushing sanity) and Stephen Colbert (in character, representing fear), it seemed to be a response to the rally of right-wing nuts back in August, and a plea for kinder, gentler political discourse.

I didn't watch it. Perhaps it was entertaining. (Yes, there were entertainers there, from Sheryl Crow to Mavis Staples to Ozzy Osbourne and the former Cat Stevens, Yusuf Islam.) Perhaps it was more than an unusual vehicle to promote "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report." But for my money, it was a waste. It's the same old "let's find common ground" message that has failed for the last 30 years, since Ronald Reagan took office and began his reign of terror. Democrats, liberals, progressives, whatever you want to call yourselves, you need to get this into your heads once and for all: THERE IS NO COMMON GROUND WITH THESE PEOPLE. They are out to defeat you and destroy you. They will never play nice. They'll pretend to do it, and then stab you in the back the first chance they get.

This is why the Republicans are likely to regain control of the House and, at the least, gain a number of seats in the Senate.
All the "playing nice" the Democrats did the last two years -- with a Democrat in the White House, with anywhere from 57 to 60 votes in the Senate (including independents siding with the Dems), with an advantage ranging from 76 to 81 votes in the House -- has led to not nearly enough getting done. Republicans fought them tooth and nail, over and over again, and have managed to make it look like President Obama and the Democrats failed to solve the nation's problems. Watered-down health care reform, not enough/wrongly targeted economic stimulus packages, watered-down consumer protections, failure to end the Bush tax giveaways to the rich -- you name it, the mess we're in now has GOP written all over it.

And the fact that the damage George W. Bush did in EIGHT years cannot be completely repaired in TWO years is entirely logical. But the American voter has never been logical when it comes to government. They want to take advantage of government programs and benefits but they don't want the tax rates needed to pay for them. They don't want government interference in their business but don't care if government interferes with a same-sex couple wanting to legally marry. The American voter is a walking contradiction.

The Democrats did a good job presenting their message in 2008 in order to win the presidential election and gain so many House and Senate seats, and have spent the last two years squandering that advantage. Even after such success, even with the GOP itself straining under the pressure presented by the utterly insane birther/teabagger wing, instead of presenting a clear-cut choice the Democrats still run in fear of the Republicans. Forget about restoring sanity -- how about restoring courage?