Down the Rabbit Hole - Elections 2014

Post election analysis - Faced with a falling budget deficit, an unemployment rate at a 7 year low, 10 million jobs created in the last 6 years, 15 million Americans with health insurance who did not previously have it, tens of thousands of American troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and low gas prices; faced with an intransigent Republican Party in the House of Representatives and a filibuster prone US Senate all run by Tea Party puppeteers, the Koch Brothers and their money, and candidates who said they were willing to "shoot" the government, and fed up with Washington gridlock; a huge majority of older white voters in all their inchoate anger elected more of the same people who were responsible for the gridlock in the first place........* * * * * * * “Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. you're mad." * * * * * * * * Democrats across the country distanced themselves from President Obama and instead of a full throated 24/7 full court press of touting the accomplishments of the Democratic Party and President Obama loudly and widely, went quiet and timid and ceded all the talking point nonsense to the Republicans' claims of doom and gloom - Ebola, Isis, socialism, communism. All the ground chatter was based on Republican lies. Several Democratic candidates wouldn't even say if they voted for the Democratic President. * * * * * * * * “What a strange world we live in...Said Alice to the Queen of hearts.” * * * * * * * * That "Republicans tell lies better than Democrats tell the truth" was the title of a blog by Allen Clifton, and it was right on the money. The right wing lie machine was in full operation from the first day of the Kenyan Muslim President's first term and never stopped. "A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes," according to Mark Twain. "In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act," wrote George Orwell. “But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked. 'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." * * * * * * * * So here we are with Republican control of the House and Senate and a President, whose party abandoned during this last election cycle, with his veto pen ready to sign Executive orders on immigration and a Republican party vowing to repeal Obamacare again and again and again. “The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.” It's the politics of the absurd. I read somewhere that there are now more Republicans holding state and federal offices than at any time since Herbert Hoover was President........and well all know what happened then.