Even though I find myself desperately hoping that millions of "I'm-too-busy-job-hunting," selfie-SnapChating yet "Republicans-will-take-away-your-birth-control-pills"-aware twenty-somethings will show up to vote who were never willing to be polled (such that every poll taken has been unavoidably skewed to the right), I can't credibly second-guess all of the polling experts with sufficient confidence to even convince myself that they really overlooked this obvious demographic in all those dismal and dismally-close polls.
Therefore, to alleviate my increasing anxiety this past week, I've turned my sights to look a little at the reasons to be optimistic about a Repukican take-over of the Senate and Congress and I am chagrined to report that, as "choke-me-with-a-spoon"-desirable as a Bitch McTurtle leadership would be, there are highly appealing ramifications that could serve to provide not just silver but true gold linings to the most dire results today . . . and I am briefly discussing them after the gold-lined kos cloud.
One thing we know for sure is that holding the Presidency and the Senate by a slim margin but not the House has not made for the best outcomes politically.
Yes, we got imperfect Obamacare and millions more covered but from my point of view, this is like handing out band-aides to people about to be hit with a tsunami. As amazing as Obama really is, even his rapacious intelligence and personal charm has not been sufficient to coax the 163 bought-and-paid-for, Climate-Change-denying Congresscritters away from the Koch's dirty-profiteering agenda. Whether because of Justice Robert's Citizen's United-enabled corruption, Koch-funded virulently irrational RepuKKKian racism, educationally and critical-faculty-deprived Tea Parties or all three, from an environmentalist's point of view, the last five years of Obama have barely been better than all those years of Bush-wacking.
Don't get me wrong: I really respect Obama and believe that he works really hard within the political confines that exist. Intellectually, Obama knows that we urgently need agreement on national and global emissions limits and implementation of a plan to move the country and the world to 100% clean energy but his heart isn't in it. When he weights what kinds of legislation he is personally willing to go to bat for, it turns out that Obama sticks with his roots: he really cares about social issues and that is understandable. Obama listens to the scientists and respect science (and it continues to amaze me that we, as voters, simply don't send those who don't back to school) but he isn't an environmentalist at heart and really hasn't been willing to go to bat for the future he knows is at risk. Okay, he moved right away to allow the EPA to approve California's AB-32 waiver, which let California implement its Global Warming Solutions Act, and he did this as one of his first official actions, I was thrilled. But after that: nada for climate action, even as the threat from inaction on climate change grown increasingly dire!
The world can't afford inaction much longer. More than anything, we need a Democratic Congress with a clear mandate to address Climate Change. How are we gonna get there? As much as I dread the idea of two more years of American inaction on climate policy, the only way I see to get there is in a BIG BACKLASH against the Repukians. I am afraid to say it but letting them have the show for the next two years to pull all of their despicable crap, happily with an Obama veto as a back-stop, is likely going to do it!
Just imagine the kind of extremism they will pull, because they think they can and they have repressive, totalitarian ideology and dollar bills for brains. In two more years, the demographics will have moved much more in our direction. The Kochorruption will have risen to such heights that it will trigger the gag reaction much more broadly possibly even into traditionally red regions like Texas, Wyoming and West Virginia, especially as they frack and pollute their way towards unconscionable profits along with all of their Wall Street enablers, and all of the closed health clinics, prosecuted immigrants, impoverished workers, cut social programs, threatened defaults and lost wages and investments will have soured all vestiges of support from their confused gun-toten women, minorities, poor, newly poor and fiscal conservatives.
If Democrats maintain the Senate this election, we will continue to headlock with the TP extremists in Congress and muddle thru two more years of political vitriol and virtual inaction and we'll get Hillary in 2016, as the best we can do trying to remain centrists and woo more moderate Republicans to our side. On the other hand, if Repulhoogans take the Senate, they are so guaranteed to both shoot themselves in the foot and drive the stake into the heart of their marginal base, I think we could possibly find ourselves in the position for a massive Democratic sweep of Congress and the presidency, much like the sweep we achieved here in California. I may be fooling myself into finding a reason to be optimistic about today's election but maybe, just maybe we'd even get Elizabeth Warren for president!