The Reckoning Arrives

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows....

Fifteen days before the election and things seem to be shaping up pretty much as I’d assumed they would. The only question is why anyone who puts gas in their car or buys their own groceries would be surprised.

Here’s my theory. The Democrats were lulled into a state of continuous semi-consciousness by a media that absolutely refused to give them any bad news. For example, the border is open and cartels are making billions importing illegals and fentanyl. The press refused to report this, and this allowed Democrats to pretend the problem does not exist. VP Kamala Harris can say, on Meet The Press, that “the border is secure” (and she did in September), but anyone with access to the internet knows that the border is not secure. At this late date pretty much everyone knows someone who has died of a fentanyl overdose and is all too familiar with the videos and photos of hundreds and thousands of people streaming into the country unhindered. When the Vice President is claiming that what we all plainly see is something it is not? No one is convinced. The people just assume, rightly, that the administration is out of touch. This is just one example. The Democrats are unable to run on (or even mention) any of what politicians call “the kitchen table issues”: economy, crime, and education. In two years their President has made a hash of them all. The President of the United States, appearing on camera eating an ice cream cone and claiming our economy is “strong as hell” is emblematic. The Democrats are screwed.

There are those on the right who believe that Democrats in general and progressives in particular have ugly, nefarious motives. I don’t think this is true. I think the progressives start out with high ideals, but like many people, of all stripes, they also seek and enjoy the trappings of power, and believe that the validation these things bestow gives meaning to their lives. This is petty and small, but not the same as being capital “E” evil. They’re just human, and lulled as any one of us might be, who have faced no serious objections as they wove a mythology and are now completely enmeshed. The mythology they inhabit is not real, though, and that is going to become very clear and impossible for them to ignore.

More than one thing is happening. Historically, every president in the first term loses about 28 seats in the House and 4 in the Senate. Every president is not Joe Biden, however. We’re about to see what happens when a first term president, in just two years, while holding majorities in Congress, on every front (energy, crime, racial relations, inflation, foreign policy, the border, debt, etc.,etc.) does actual harm to the nation and its people. The defeat is going to be epic and richly deserved.

Humans are great at projection. Our instinct is to believe that we are acting rightly and therefor our opponents will act and behave as we do. To the Democrats, this prospect must indeed be terrifying. A Democrat can not help but imagine that the GOP will do precisely what they would do if suddenly possessed of legislative power after years of being smeared while the minority. They’d jam the new rules all the way up the opposition’s ass and snap them off like a prison shank. They can only believe the GOP will do the same thing, and it is very, very, frightening. Will anyone who defies the GOP Congress, as Eric Holder famously did, face a stretch in jail? Is the New Rule that any time the opposition party holds Congress the impeachments must begin and come regularly? What investigative hearings will we see?

Be interesting to find out.

But in the realm of the reasonable, is it impossible to imagine that Congressional committees will soon be investigating the actual roots of the January 6th riot (and any involvement the FBI and the DoJ may have had)? The Biden Family finances? The “insurrection” of the 120 days of rioting and arson in 2020 and the role played by social media, BLM, Antifa, and politicians?

This seems entirely reasonable to me.

How will the Democrats, who were so hot to end the filibuster just months ago, feel about it on November 9th? MoveOn, Change.Org, and Action Network all have online petitions to end the filibuster, even today. Will they want a GOP Senate majority to vote away the filibuster so they can move quickly? Or, will ending the filibuster become, as will be fashionable to say soon, evidence of The Death of Democracy? Maybe Republicans should log on and give those petitions some actual heft. How long will those petitions remain active, now? My bet? Not long.

People are people and forever short-sighted. The Democrats imagined that when Obama promised to legislate with his pen and his phone that that power would evaporate the moment he left office, and they believed the same thing of the way Pelosi handled her office. Look at the New Rules Pelosi has left for the next Speaker of the House! The next Speaker (presumably Kevin McCarthy) will be able to: deny anyone he deems “extremist” from any Congressional committee, veto the minority leader’s recommendations for committee members, and simultaneously run as many investigative committees (with his hand chosen members) into anything he believes important.

My question is the same question I always find myself asking. How could they not have seen this coming? Did they really believe championing transexual training and overt racism in grade school, and abortion up to the moment of delivery were issues that would trump $6.00 diesel and a 35% drop in the value of a 401K? Did they think a proxy war with Russia would make everyone forget abandoning Americans in Afghanistan? Did they think declaring war on fossil fuel was a winner? Did they think they could just print money forever, in the trillions, without consequence?

What were they thinking? Damned if I know. But I knew how it would end. This is precisely what I saw coming in January of 2021.

I have hope for the next few years, though. As I’ve often said, I’m a dolt where predicting the future is concerned, unless all of the pieces are lined up as they were when Biden assumed office, but it is my hope that we see an immediate return to the rule of law. It is tempting to wish that we spend a few years with Republicans getting the pass and Democrats suffering pre-dawn raids, just as a tit-for-tat, in-your-face, turn around is fair play sort of thing, but that ways lies more madness. I’d like to see a return to One Law for everyone, evenly applied. Will we see it? I don’t know.

Pelosi will be kaput. She will retire soon after the election. I don’t think Schumer and Nadler will be far behind.

I remember the last time the Democrats were not in the majority. It wasn’t that long ago. Then, the talking point was that the “balance of power” really meant that the minority should have an equal voice in decision making. Boy, that ship has sailed, because the Democrats used their majority, this time, to do any damn thing they pleased, as if they’d never be the minority again. Asking for concessions, now, would look a lot like begging.

Ignore the wails that are coming. We are going to hear, again and again and again, that the GOP majority marks the death of Democracy. This is hooey. This is Democracy, a government for and of the people, roaring back to life and smacking those who believe themselves rulers solidly upside the head. It is as it should be. The Democrats wanted Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer, and they got them. This is the result. Color me shocked.

Peace.