Midterm Elections Promise Entertainment

Ever since evil genius Tom DeLay decided that what the United States needed was a permanent Republican majority in congress, the GOP has gotten behind anything and everything, as long as it meant winning.

This is how anti-abortionists came to support wars of conquest that kill thousands of young men and women. The connection is that the GOP has promised single-issue voters whatever they wanted. Prayer in schools? No problem. Gays run out of the military? Coming right up. Expel all those scary illegal aliens? Right after the next election.

The sad part is that the voters have not noticed that their guys in Washington are not delivering. It would be easy for representatives to keep their promises, except for those other promises, the ones the public doesn't hear. These promises are not even always spoken. They are implied when a political action committee sends a check and the candidate cashes it.

Crack down on banks that caused the great recession? Not the guys who take money from the financial services sector and insurance industry PACs. They know which side their bread is buttered on. So when legislation to protect consumers comes to the floor, it is amended and loaded with loopholes and gutted. This is exactly what happened with health care reform. It left lots of people disgusted with the issue and the law that came out of the year-long debate.

But it isn't much of a surprise. In fact, if there is a surprise, it is that congress did anything at all.

Midterm elections are gearing up, and there is plenty of variety in the candidates. Single-issue voters will have candidates galore promising them the moon. Watchers of the GOP will get dinner anda show, with radical-right fringe candidates endorsed by Sarah Palin and Faux News complaining that the Grand Old Party is trying to steal elections. When the thievery was committed against the Democratic Party it was met with broad approval. Apparently sauce for the goose tastes bad on the gander. Remember, right-wingnuts, winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.

If the single-issue voters get what they think they want, they will find they got more than they bargained for. Abortion will not be available, and children will be praying in school. When pregnancy meets medical necessity, there will either be lawbreakers or deaths and ruined health. Chances are the lawbreakers will only do so for a price, so keep a sizeable slush fund on hand. The children praying in schools will be taught to pray by a government run by folks like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. If that does not scare your socks yellow, it ought to. It will not matter all that much, because prayers are likely to be the only things children learn in school, the rest of the curriculum discarded by creationists and others who believe that the Christian Bible contains everything worth knowing.

Of course the captains of industry will also be disappointed when most everyone becomes so poor that there is no one left for the robber barons to rob. Until that day comes, corporations will rape, plunder and pillage the American people and the earth we live on. They will keep sending the campaign contributions to their guys in Washington, who will keep telling you they are your guys in Washington.

In the meanwhile, people who think that religious freedom means freedom from having someone else impose their religion on them might want to consider that midterm elections are important. People who do not want to abolish the government and let the market (that is, the big corporations) make the rules should pay some attention. And people who think that politics is so uncouth and boring might be wise to open their eyes and look around. The light at the end of the tunnel may very well be a speeding train driven by people who have been fooled blind by promises that will never and can never be kept.