Digby wrote her thoughts on the 2008 election, now that it is effectively a tied race, just like 2004 and 2000. What was once certain to be an Obama landslide is yet another knuckle-dragging mud brawl finish at the goal line. There's a very good possibility that John McCain will win this thing. That thought should send chills down the spines of free thinking people everywhere. I shudder to ask what the world will think when America declares her open disgust with George W. Bush, only to annoint his clone as successor.
The race is still not lost; this is still Obama's election to lose. But I also felt the same way about Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. We now how stories ended. About the only good thing to come from this is the vindication and ultimate validation of Ralph Nader and those of us who supported him. Nader has always been the scapegoat for the Democrats' electoral failures. Now I think it's long time to admit who is to blame, and who has been right all along. Such is the fate of the prophets, I suppose. Ralph Nader is the Howard Beale of American politics, a true concience of the people, the last great defender of the Old Republic. We continue to ignore him at our peril.
But the Old Republic is dead, or something very close to death. There is only the Empire, and there's something fundamentally broken in the American psyche. There's something in the way these citizens operate, the way they relate to their nation. It is very different from past generations, less like the old immigrant melting pot, more like a abusive, abused family, trapped by fear and living under the iron rule of Daddy.
But why do these elections always turn out this way? Why is it, after all that we've been through, after all the tragedies and sorrows, all the corruption, all the crime, all the despised policies of Bush-Cheney, does the American electorate remain split down the middle? You've lost your wealth, your homes, even your children and your futures. And yet you still gleefully reward the Republican Daddy who beats you down.
Here is my take on things. My thinking is heavily influenced by George Orwell, by Hunter S. Thompson, by comedic cranks like Bill Hicks and George Carlin, and by the lost idealism of the 1990's, the age of Ralph Nader, Jesse Ventura, and Saint Cobain. scribbled this down on the desk calendar, so it should get straight to the point. I'll leave it for you to work through the details and ask the deeper questions.
"It doesn't matter if your country is trashed, as long as you believe nothing can change it. You carry within you the mentality of the Low, of the peasant, of Orwell's "dumb proles." You cannot imagine that your world can be any different than what it is.
"So you continue to identify as Republican, even as your lives decay and your nation declines. You just accept the decay as given. There is no America. There is no Democracy. There is only Daddy. Daddy will make everything all right. Daddy has a lot on his mind. Daddy doesn't mean it when he hits us. Daddy's just stressed, that's all. Daddy doesn't have a drinking problem. Daddy isn't abusive. Daddy loves us.
"This is the American Religion. The religion of the abused. This nation a broken home."
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