Despite the economic improvements under Barack Obama and the obstructionism of the Republican Party for four years, the GOP won control of both houses of Congress, and reelected many Tea Party Governors, who by all sane judgements, should have been defeated.
Beyond that, 30 state legislatures now are controlled by the Republican Party; two thirds of state legislators nationally are Republicans; 31 states have Republican Governors; and the Republicans have a greater number of seats in the House of Representatives than they have had since 1928, when Herbert Hoover was elected, soon to be followed by the Great Depression.
And the percentage of voters participating was the lowest in any midterm election since 1942, in the midst of World War II, only about a third of the voting electorate.
This midterm was dominated by people over 45, and particularly over 65, who were heavily white and registered Republican, while traditional Democratic voting groups–African Americans, Latinos, women, those under 45, and those supportive of labor rights and the environment—stayed home in large numbers, not realizing the importance of voting.
If left to their own desires, the Republican Party, the Tea Party Movement, and the conservative think tanks and talk show hosts, would now set about to impeach President Obama (even though there is no chance of his removal by a two thirds vote of the US Senate); repeal ObamaCare; repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; privatize Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; prevent any action on climate change; further destroy the labor unions that remain viable; continue to promote voter suppression which assisted the GOP victory; continue to allow the Koch Brothers and other reactionary billionaire and millionaire domination of campaign expenditures; fight to undermine feminism and civil rights enforcement; work against immigration reform; reverse the movement toward gay marriage and gay and lesbian equality under the law; and become engaged in multiple overseas wars that benefit powerful corporations and defense industries.
Here we are in the second decade of the 21st century, and we are more like the Gilded Age and the 1920s domestically, but with the addition of the war industries that have our young men and women, many of them from poor families, who are utilized as cannon fodder for war profits, and then mistreated as veterans in years after their war service!
Is this the kind of America that the majority of this nation want? If it is, they will get what they deserve. But there is a sneaking suspicion that this will, hopefully, motivate the vast two thirds of the population who did not vote, to rise up and participate in insuring, for the short run, resistance to the GOP agenda, and longer term, to insure a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President are elected in 2016!
Professor, You have to read this!
This is an area I grew up around when I was a kid.
The Republican nut bag’s name is Peroutka won Severna Parks County Council seat. This bastard makes the Tea Party look like liberals. He even said so.
His wife had two teenage daughters from her first marriage. He made his wife to give them up to social services because they were not following the Bible and were un- god like. They are in foster care right now. He is a 7th Day Adventist.
Scarry!!!
http://marylandreporter.com/2014/08/17/rascovar-column-gop-has-a-peroutka-problem/
This guy is just an abusive, bully, gas bag who uses Religion to force himself around. The people who showed up to vote were thinking they were voting for a pro-religious, conservative, Republican. Mark one up for the LIVs.
This is truly terrifying, Wayne. I think we are closer to the danger of Fascism than we have been since the time of Gerald L. K. Smith and Father Charles Coughlin.
We must take our country back to be the beacon of reform and change, that made us a world leader, as we are rapidly going downhill with the right wing onslaught for the elite one to two percent!