Well, I'm pretty sure that I don't need to recap last night. A whole bunch of Democrats got sent packing. The Blue Dogs got sliced in half, although the Progressive Caucus kept its losses minimal (the horrendous loss of Senator Feingold notwithstanding). In short, it was like having a recurring nightmare for a month and then waking up to discover that you actually ARE naked in front of an audience filled with every girl you had a crush on in high school giving a speech on a topic you never researched. Or something like that. So where do we go from here?
The way I see it, we have two options. Let me start with option 1. I like to refer to this as "the easy option". It starts with the purchase of a couple of bags of your preferred salty snack. I'm partial to Doritos or Baked Herr's Chips, but that's just me. You'll also want to pick up a couple of subs, and maybe a highly caffeinated drink in a large cup and/or bottle. Follow this up with a visit to either your DVD collection or local Red Box. An internet connection and a Netflix subscription will also do.
Once you have all of this, you will then sit down in your favorite comfortable chair. Next...........well, that's actually it. Sit back, relax, watch some movies, eat, drink, and wait to see what happens to our country. After all, they won, we lost, what the hell can we do about it? Might as well be comfortable as our future gets bent to the will of the corporate class, right?
Of course, you could always go with option 2. It starts out somewhat similarly. Salty snacks, sandwich or two, caffeinated beverage. That is then followed by regrouping and getting back into the fight. And just how do we do that? Here's a starting list.
Say you have a new Republican Congressman/woman and/or Senator. They're going to lie. Only a matter of time. Probably already happened a few times. Document it. Call them on it. And tell the truth about it to everyone you know. Write to the paper about it. Blog about it. Make sure that every lie they ever tell is made available in every possible medium. Make sure they know that their lies will be made known.
Second, make sure you point out every incident of their selling out their constituents or attempting to do so. Same process as above. Loudly and often. Basically, the goal is to make the cost of business as usual to be prohibitively high. If the Chamber of Commerce and the Club for Growth and the rest of their cronies want to buy an election, let's make sure we bid the price up so high it bankrupts them. Force them to spend money on lying and obfuscating 24/7.
Finally, find yourself a good candidate. Local, county, state, federal, doesn't matter. Find one. Then, help him or her. Volunteer. The fight starts NOW. This is Day One. And, in the words of Senator Kennedy, "For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."