The right doesn't own this.

I remember when Obama got elected. I was sitting with some friends, drinking beers and watching the states turn blue one after the other. I’m not some kind of liberal democrat, mind you, and I didn’t vote for Obama, but I have to admit that it was exciting and triumphant knowing that McCain and Palin weren’t headed to the White House. The neighborhood erupted in celebration as California and Ohio came back for Obama. We were going to have our first black president, and what’s more; an overwhelming popular reversal of the neoconservative hegemony we had endured for eight long years.

Even as we celebrated, filled with cheap beer and hope that democracy could claw us out from under the crushing weight of imperial corporatism, I was skeptical. I was skeptical for two reasons and as usual, I was completely correct. The first thing I doubted was Obama’s sincerity and courage. It’s easy to say things like ‘healthcare reform’ and ‘close Guantanamo,’ on the campaign trail. It’s another to actually do them. I knew he was facing a shadowy legion of ruthless international corporate interests who would rather assassinate him than compromise, and one way or another, these idealistic and righteous things were just not going to happen- but it’s the second reason I want to talk about now.

I knew that the Republicans would fight him tooth and nail. The neoconservatives had their way for two of the worst presidential terms in our nation’s history. Everything they touched turned to shit, starting, of course, with the 9/11 attacks. We then saw the entire political spectrum shift to the right. Militarism rose, xenophobia became commonplace, and nationalism became the refuge of every scoundrel. Inside this Trojan horse of blind nationalism skulked a multitude of other neoconservative values; low corporate taxes, privatization, a dismantling of education and science, militarization of police, violation of civil liberties- the list goes on and on. On his way out the door, Bush signed away trillions of dollars of printed money to the financial institutions that had just finished looting their customer’s accounts and consolidating their own control.

If the democrats took power and fixed even one thing, it could sink the GOP for decades. The RNC knew this. The military industrial complex knew this. The religious right knew this. I knew this. That’s why it’s clear in many cases throughout Obama’s term that the number one goal of the GOP was to sabotage Obama and indeed the entire political process. The damage they would do to the country could be spun and mitigated, and ultimately would not be worse (for them) than any success by Obama. This is exactly what they have done. They have moved the goal post on the president on a number of issues. They have created fiascoes out of routine functions. They have refused to compromise.

You see the Republicans don’t represent ordinary Americans. They represent the people who got them elected- the people they work for. The people they will literally go to work for when they leave office; huge multinational corporations. How, then, can they win elections? How can they muster people to vote? They can only do this by appealing to the darkest, least rational parts of our psyche. They rally the religious fundamentalists and the bigoted nationalists. In a word, the fools. There’s a reason that urban, college educated people are liberals. There’s a reason that Fox News viewers are the least informed on important issues. There’s a reason the republicans want to undermine education.

Misdirection. They took the bait.

Take veteran lobbyist and speaker of the House John Boehner’s speech last night. It is the quintessential example of lies and twisted rhetoric designed to deliberately mislead people about the past. I’m not talking about Nixon- Reagan era pro-business policies; I’m talking about the very recent history of only a few years ago. You don’t need an educated economist to go back and explain why ‘trickle-down,’ economics doesn’t work as advertised. You can simply look at Bush’s two terms in office, where the taxes on the rich were as low as they’ve ever been and industry, especially the financial industry, was dangerously unregulated. By their definitions, shouldn’t employment have skyrocketed? Shouldn’t American business have been booming?

Instead the companies hoarded their treasure- the treasure they squeezed from powerless borrowers. They bought one another and consolidated their control into even fewer hands than ever. If they employed people, it was overseas where wages are lower and worker’s benefits were not protected. They bought even more politicians and were able to afford a re-branding of the discredited neoconservative movement as “The Tea Party.” The name has changed, but the ideals have not changed one bit. Roll back the public safety net. More war. More police. More corporate- government partnership. Nationalism. Christianity. Xenophobia. Less civil liberty.

This 2012 presidential race is going to be a tough one. Obama has done so much failing recently that the normally disenfranchised people who, for once, got out and voted him into office might stay home this time around. The GOP has been working overtime setting the stage for a return to power with everything from media blitzes to Gerrymandering to budget manipulation.

In closing, most people in this country are reasonable. They like the Bill of Rights as is, they are fiscally conservative, socially liberal, and rather isolationist on foreign policy. But if you line up with the republican party as it is and has been since 9/11, then you are an idiot. You’ve been fooled over and over again and if you’re reluctant to challenge your own prejudices, it just might be because you’re a bigot too. You look like a sucker to me and the whole Republican/Corporate partnership. When our rather new democracy was being crafted the right to vote was only given to white landowning men. The thinking being that anyone else would not be well informed enough to make political decisions for the rest. Well everyone can vote now, and as a whole the American people have obligingly donned their harness- bit, blinders and yoke.