Trying to see past the noise of day to day "winning the news" soundbites, fake scandals, faux outrage, and such, I've a growing suspicion that the Big Picture is not looking good.
Rant ensues below the Orange Omnilepticon.
If you look at the fanatical efforts by Republicans to keep a constant refrain of scandals going, from Benghazi to Bergdahl, to the IRS and now Boehner's threatened "Obey the Constitution" lawsuit, it doesn't matter how little substance there is to them. The entire effort is meant to cover everything President Obama and the Democrats do with the mud stains of lawlessness. Whatever sticks. Create a 'crisis' and you can use it to cover up a lot of questionable things - like a slow motion coup.
The willingness of the media to go along with this is all the more troubling. Ever since the Clinton years, they've bought into the idea that nothing Democrats do is truly legitimate or 'serious', that a policy that is not 'bipartisan' is a purely partisan political ploy by the Democrats and therefore suspect. It doesn't matter if a majority of Americans agree with it or would like to go even further - it's off the table.
Conversely, Republican proposals must always be treated with nominal respect, no matter how insane. The pathetic obviousness with which the media wants to believe the Republicans still have an 'establishment' of grownups in control despite all evidence to the contrary, is on display every day. They constantly regurgitate GOP talking points with no critical examination whatsoever for the most part. Never mind that decades of Republican policies have diminished and divided this country for political advantage - they just don't see it.
And let's not forget what's happening at street level. Occupy protestors get swept away by the police; Open Carry ammosexuals parade around and openly threaten Federal employees. Republican governors and legislators are doing the full tilt boogie back to the corruption of the gilded age, state by state. Businesses are being given license to loot and pillage the public commonwealth, working people are seeing their labor rights stripped away, and there's a battle going on over the very idea that people deserve to be paid enough to live on. Inequality is rampant - and the judges being installed at every level are there to push the pro-business agenda.
Women are being treated as abortion-seeking sluts who can't be trusted to control their own bodies. A fetus has more rights than the woman carrying it - up until it moves out on its own. And if we don't get our government on the right side of Jesus, to the satisfaction of the Bible Bangers of the American Taliban, America is going straight to Hell. Gay marriage is just the harbinger of unimaginable perversions to come.
Listening to right wing media, you get a constant refrain that if you're poor, sick, old, the wrong skin color or any combination of those, you're a threat to the very existence of the United States and hate America, because 'real' Americans do not choose that kind of lifestyle - they rise above it by pure determination. If you're coming here from another country without having spent years jumping through bureaucratic hoops and/or getting into the fast lane if you can pay for it, good luck. We don't care that you may be fleeing horrible violence and poverty. We don't care you might just be looking for a decent job like millions of people before you - Hell, even our own citizens aren't entitled to that any more. (Real Americans don't look for work - they create their own businesses and all become millionaires.) No, we know you're here to suck down our tax money with your luxurious illegal welfare lifestyle, and illegally vote for politicians that will give you more of the same.
And let's not forget the oligarchs who won't be satisfied until they have every last crumb of the economy, and the rest of us begging for their blessings.
Now here's the thing. All of the trends described above would be a problem by themselves. Together the cumulative effect is synergistic. The systematic posturing by the Republicans is intended to ride on top of this to seize power by whatever means will work. They can't win at the ballot box, they can't get reality on their side, so they'll just ignore all of that and do whatever it takes.
My best guess is that impeachment is inevitable IF Republicans keep control of the House and IF they take control of the Senate. It's what the pattern of their behavior adds up to; as far as they are concerned they are at war. Conciliation won't work. Compromise is not in their nature. They learn nothing, they forget nothing, and they forgive nothing.
If Democrats don't GOTV every where and stand firm on a real Democratic agenda, we're going to be seriously even more screwed than we are now.
Here endeth the rant.