Earlier today a slide was posted on Daily Kos purporting to be an announcement by the cast of "Sesame Street" that "today's show" (presumably the 2012 election) was brought to us by the number "47" and the letters "f" and "u". Although not on quite the same level of wit and invective as my favorite jingle from 40 years ago (Why change Dicks in the middle of a screw?/Vote for Nixon in '72) it did get me to thinking about this year's results and how to apportion credit and blame. Clearly, "f" and "u" had rather minor roles at best. Clearly and without doubt, the chief founder of the electoral feast is the letter R.
First, R for Romney. Obvious, I know, but he was just way too full of himself, a combination of Bill Clinton's ego, Richard Nixon's dishonesty, and the warmth and genuineness of Ken Mattel. I must admit, though, that his concession speech was a model of brevity, grace, and good humor, and the only time during the campaign where he accomplished what he set out to do without contradicting a previously stated position or embarrassing himself, his party, his country, or the United States of America.
The second R is for Rape. Though usually classed with war, pestilence, famine, and death, this year rape became, with an assist from the letter S for Stupid, the Saviour of Several Senate Seats. Thanks to Republican rejects Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, it is clear that to our friends on the Right, rape is not a crime against women or personhood, it is a property crime against the man who owns the woman in question.
Our next R is, of course, the Republican Party, but to understand its roll in things it will help to break-down the Grandpa's Old Poop into its constituent parts. Leading off are the Rich. It's not bad to be rich and successful. Look at all those Silicon Valley millionaires who contributed time, money, and expertise to President Obama's campaigns in 2008 and 2012, to say nothing of the Right (as in correct) -minded rich folks like Barbra Streisand, George Clooney, Michael Bloomberg, and Costco founder James Sinegal. But when you are led and financed by the likes of the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Robert Murray, and Papa John's founder John Schnatter, all you can expect is electoral disaster as these swollen-headed titans seek to satisfy their gluttonous lust for riches and insane thirst for power in a never-ending orgy of hatefulness, envy, and impotent rage.
The next component of the Republican party is the Racists. It was hard to believe the in this year of grace 2012 the Repugs were still pushing their "Blacks should vote for us because Lincoln freed the slaves" line of BS, but there you are. My first reaction was that today's African-Americans know the difference between the Republican party of 2012 and Republican party of 1865. It then struck me that today's Repugs are the GOP of 1876, who bought themselves the presidency that year by driving a stake through the heart of reconstruction and abandoned the ex-slaves to a century of terrorism and second-class citizenship. In any event, today's Republicans fail to grasp the fact that blacks are people, that they can read, follow events, and determine for themselves which political party best represents their interests. Furthermore, everyone knows that because of Lyndon Johnson's support for the great civil rights acts of the 1960's and the Democratic Party's championing of civil rights for blacks, women, Latinos, Asians, American Indians, gays, and immigrants, the racists of both the South and North were driven out of the Democratic Party and into the Republican party where they were embraced by the likes of StRom ThuRmond, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Karl Rove.
The final major component of the Republican party is the Religious Right. They are the most responsible for this year's drubbing at the polls because it was they who infected their party with the Radical Rejection of Reality. What do today's Repugs believe? They believe that climate change is a myth. They believe that gay people cause hurricanes, earthquakes, and the deaths of U.S. military peronnel. They think that magic cells in the female reproductive system prevent pregnancy unless the woman is secretly enjoying herself or the rapist is sent by God to give her the gift of an unwanted child. They believe that President Obama committed voter suppression by turning out more young and minority voters because unskewed right-wing math can't be wrong. Let's face it: objective reality has no place in today's Republican party. It's truly astounding that what the hippies couldn't accomplish with LSD, pot, and mushrooms back in the 1960's, the Religious right has accomplished today with prayer and Bible study. So severe has the Repugs' embrace of subjective reality become that this year senescent fart and bible knocker Billy Graham managed to embrace Libertarian dreamboy Paul Ryan despite Ryan's lifelong crush on notorious atheist slut Ayn Rand. Ah well, if you believe that the young Jesus played with dinosaurs then you'll believe that the Lion will lie down with the whore and cast the first stone at anyone who messes with the free market.
So let us all thank the letter R, and as we listen to the same pundits who thought that Nate Silver, computers, and indoor plumbing were just passing fancies discuss what's wRong with the Republican party, how can it be Resurrected and made Relevant again, know that they are on a fool's errand. It's like the book Newt GingRich published a few years ago in which he imagined what America would be like if the South had won the Civil War. For the South to have won the war it would have had to have NOT been the South. Southerners would have had to have been able to do for themselves without their slaves. Moreover, they would have had to have been able to get along with each other. Those idiots couldn't plan a tea party let alone how to run a war or govern a country. You have to work through things together and stick it out to the end. Instead, any time there was a decision to be made someone in the Confederate Congress or Administration got his nose out of joint and his panties in a twist (metaphorically speaking because, little known fact, underwear wasn't adopted in the South until after WWII) and ran off back to Peckerwood to nurse his wounded ego and hump his remaining slaves. It's the same way with today's Republicans and if you doubt it, review the annals of the soon-to-be-late-and-unlamented 112th Congress. The Republican party cannot win over the middle class and the poor as long as they want to stooge for the Rich. They will never appeal to blacks, Latinos, immigrants, and other minorities because they are the party of Racism. And as long as they rely on fundamentalist religious extremists they will never appeal the fact-based, clear-thinking majority of American voters.
