I don’t normally pay much attention to politics in Wisconsin (or for that matter, any state I don’t actually live in), but today the whole country has an interest and a stake there.
It looks like, despite the truly massive effort and turnout, Democrats failed to pick up enough seats to control the state senate in Wisconsin. They beat 2 Republicans — they needed to beat 3. It’s very disappointing news, because the whole rest of the country is looking at this election as a sort of bellwether for the rights of people who work for a living everywhere. For Democrats, and for anyone who supports union rights and labor laws, this is bound to be a discouraging sign. And it’s at a time when giving up or giving in could, quite easily, strip the progress of decades with regard to workers’ rights.
Probably everybody thinks they live in extraordinary times. There are probably always navel-gazers like yours truly who feel the impact of what is, truly, history in the making. There is always a first time for this, or an end to that, but I can’t help thinking that the past few years have been extraordinary even when compared to other extraordinary times. The economic and political realities of this country right now are shaping a whole generation (maybe even more than one). The effects of what happens now could persist for years or even decades.
In the end, I don’t really know how people live in a world like the one we’re in. I don’t know how people who pay close attention survive with such extraordinary news happening every day. I understand even less how anyone could ignore it. I will admit, sometimes I try. Sometimes I figuratively toss my hands up in the air and stick my head in the sand because I just can’t take it anymore. I might be able to keep it up for a few months at a time, but in the end, whatever comfort or happiness I gain by ignoring the outside world is false, and it’s fleeting. For me, at least, there is no comfort without information. There is no bliss in ignorance.
It’s just so hard not to be angry, to rail against the ignorance or the stupidity of people who either don’t pay enough attention, or lack the ability to connect all the dots. It’s easier to think of the people who oppose me politically as ignorant of the bigger picture, or too stupid to grasp it, because the alternative is that they want these things to happen. I can’t think of any other reasons why people would continue to vote for the Republican Party, and to continue to support their policies and ideologies with the state of the nation the way it is.
I know there are people who think that Republican politicians will fix the economy if the Democrats will just get out of the way. I just don’t understand how they can still believe that when they look at the reality of the world we live in. Maybe Democrats aren’t any better, but there’s no getting around the fact that while there are some Democrats who are corporate shills uninterested in the plight of the average American, there are no Republicans right now who aren’t. It doesn’t matter what any of them say — when you vote in lock-step with a party that is so blatantly pursuing policies to benefit corporations/the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, you deserve to be tarred with the same brush no matter what you say outside of Washington.
There is a time and a place to debate about which theories of politics and economics are the best, and to bicker about what specific course this country ought to take. Now is not that time. Now is the time when you are either for Americans, all of them, or you are against them. If you do not actively seek to help average Americans, you will hurt them. If you do not actively seek to fix the economy, you will destroy it. Now is the time when everybody needs to be a damn adult, and put aside the things they want for the things this country needs. I see Democrats doing that, repeatedly, over and over, to the point of absurdity and even sometimes harm. I see Republicans capitalizing on a nation in crisis to advance their own agenda, without consideration or regard for anyone who actually needs to work for a living. I might be disappointed in the Democrats in Washington, but furious does not even begin to describe how I feel about Republicans.
