Pity the Republicans

It's really tough being a Republican these days, and as an empathetic person, I'm feeling something strangely akin to pity for them. And if you are a Republican, you're not going to like this, but it's only going to get worse. Much, much worse. Sorry.

It all started with the installation of sock puppet George W. Bush as president. The nation was happily basking in the booming Clinton economy, we had a budget surplus and all an incoming president had to do was be a half-way decent caretaker and all would be well. But you know what happened. The Bush administration ignored numerous dire warnings and sat with their thumbs up their collective butts allowing Americans to experience terrorism firsthand. To compensate for their complete lack of anything resembling feck, they launched two wars, including the longest one in our nation's history and one based entirely on bullshit. This, and a few other unfunded programs, sent the economy spiraling downward and the deficit soaring into the stratosphere.

Suddenly, Americans began to have the creeping realization that maybe, just maybe, Republicans weren't the economic and foreign policy geniuses they always promised us they were.

This led to a dramatic change in fortunes, one that even in their most fevered nightmares Republicans could not have dreamed: a Black man with little experience and an Arabic name beat their senior, war hero, next-in-line-to-be-crowned candidate for the presidency. And beat him badly. The sky began to fall.

And although they obstructed every step of the way, President Obama managed to get things done. He rescued the economy, halting the worst recession since the Great Depression. He cut the deficit in half. He ended the war in Iraq. He passed The Affordable Care Act, changing healthcare in this country, something presidents had been trying to do for decades. Gays were allowed to openly serve in the military. Dependence on foreign oil shrank. In other words, people saw this young man clean up Bush's mess and then some and began to wonder why they would ever be stupid enough to vote Republican again.

But the Republicans did not give in. Proving themselves to be as lacking in clues as they are in feck, they nominated escaped Disney automaton Mitt Romney to unseat the uppity usurper. But this did not work out too well when their candidate made it clear to one and all he that he could give a flying fuck about the poor or middle class, that he was a pathological liar and that he had all the charm of a sticky doorknob.

Barack Hussein Obama won again, and to their alarm, the White House still had Black folk living in it that were not there to clean it or prepare food.

About this time, the domestic wing of al Qaeda, know colloquially as The Tea Party, began to fall out of favor with Americans, due to their penchant for un-governing by terrorism. The Republicans began to desperately attempt to regroup, rebrand and re-message, but no one was buying it. Not even the media. To make matters worse, it became obvious that Republicans had this thing about rape, that Rush Limbaugh was their de facto party head and that they were running out of voting blocs to alienate.

They watched helplessly as same-sex couples married and marijuana became legalized in some states. They gnashed their teeth as data revealed that Americans were drifting ever more to the left, even as the Tea Party attacked them from the right. They stared in horror at polls showing Hillary Clinton crushing any candidate they could think of running.

Except one. Their Great White Hope. Their Messiah. The only man who could beat Hillary Clinton and save them from the richly deserved shitpile of History: New Jersey governor, Chris Christie.

Sucks to be them. So now they're floating Jeb Bush's name, like that's going to help. This nation wants another Bush in the White House like it wants another Bush in the White House.

And today, Governor Bob Ultrasound McDonnell and his shopaholic but lovely wife have been indicted on felony charges, so they can cross that Golden Boy off as well, unless he wants to campaign from federal prison.

Yes, being a Republican does not appear to be an enjoyable vice to indulge any more. That's not to say they won't win an election here and there, they will. We live in a stupid fucking country. But it's a stupid fucking country that's getting smarter, browner, Blacker, younger and more female every minute. But hey, don't lose heart, Republicans, you've still got Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.

Remember what I said about feeling something akin to pity in the beginning of this little essay? It was indigestion. I ate a Tums. I'll be fine.

©2014 Kona Lowell