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are angry that the Congress has been operating as a rubberstamp for Bush. They are angry that George W Bush took us into an unnecessary war and then made such a debacle of it. They are angry that the "good economy" has been so poor for them. And they are angry that their problems: their wages, the price of education, the job market and their health care are only seen as a mechanism for providing a huge give away to the plutocrats.
Paul Krugman had a column the other day advising the Democratic leadership "Don't Make Nice" where he specifically said it is critical that Democrats realize people want to change the direction of the country. They want to have someone who will back them and not the corporations. They want to know how much was stolen in the contracts were given to rebuild Iraq. A majority want to understand how our country went to war so we can prevent this type of disaster in the future. And he notes that to truly promote bipartisanship means they can't simply play nice with the Republicans because it is the Republicans who are using divisiveness to gain and keep power.
'The reason we have so much bitter partisanship these days is that that's the way the radicals who have taken over the Republican Party want it. People like Grover Norquist, who once declared that "bipartisanship is another name for date rape," push for a hard-right economic agenda; people like Karl Rove make that agenda politically feasible, even though it's against the interests of most voters, by fostering polarization, using religion and national security as wedge issues.
'As long as polarization is integral to the G.O.P.'s strategy, Democrats can't do much, if anything, to narrow the partisan divide.' [3]
As Krugman says, the Republicans have decided that nothing works better to get and keep power than demagoguery. Witness what happened after 9/11 when the country came together and gave the President overwhelming support. What the Republicans did then was to take that support and demonize Democrats as soft and not trustworthy in order to elect more Republicans. And today President Bush says "if Democrats win, the terrorists win." This is a despicable thing for any President to say about his constituents and he has well and truly forfeited the good will and support of millions of Americans.
We deserve to have our government work for us. And the only way we are going to be able to do that now is to have a Democratic Congress oversee the executive branch so we can stop the rapacious and criminal theft of our treasury and our future. We need our representatives to bring back transparency and accountability for the institutions of government. And we especially need our representatives to pledge to solve the real problems that face our country with as much wisdom and intelligence they can bring to the table. It is time to get serious about making government work once more for the country, and not the kleptocrats.
[1] Karen Tumulty, Mike Allen, It's Lonely at the Top, Time Magazine, Oct 29, 2006,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1552033,00.html
[2] Ibid.
[3] Paul Krugman, Don't Make Nice, New York Times, Oct 23, 2006
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