THE LONG RUN, RUNNING AWAY

In four years, Republicans will realize how shortsighted far-reaching victory truly is.

In four years (maybe less), senior citizens will be in record numbers; and they will realize that their “values”—which they voted by this fall—fail to lower medication costs.
In four years (maybe less), Christian activists may come to note that outlawing gay marriage hasn’t won the gays to any god, and has failed to curb our record deficit.
In four years (maybe less), Amendment #2 enthusiasts will observe that their AK-47’s won’t protect them from The Threat they stockpile for—Imperialism, a Police State, or the whittling away of Civil Rights. Ashcroft hates your privacy, and he hates it when you hate things even more.
In four years (maybe less), Right-To-Lifers might observe the grimmest fate of all: that their “every sperm is sacred” politico-theology failed to keep the older kids from dying in The War.

There are some who would contend that the first of these may contend with all the rest. There are some who might suggest that the elderly are weak on civil rights, especially with our raging Culture War. There are some brazen dozen few who’d suggest they’ll simply want their medicine…that they’ll just want to be cared for, like you or I. Their eighty-dollar pension, paired with sixty-dollar meds, makes Socialism look not quite so bad. Republicans afraid of Hillary’s Revenge might want to turn O’Reilly down, and add their greatest prejudices up…two plus two, and three by three to carry Freedom’s coffin to its grave.
There is a precedent for Presidents upon their second term. The word “restraint” is gone to them, and their party begins to behave as exactly that—a great backhanded backdoor bacchanal, with checks and balances, and balanced checkbooks, dissolved into the netherworld…wished into the cornfield of some bureau-theocratic Twilight Zone. People don’t take kindly to such things, and those who last till Round Two with Congress on their side, are due for a surprise in the Mid-Terms. It happened to the best of them—even Bush’s Flipside Twin, Bill Clinton. Gridlock is the greatest coup a common-schmuck democracy could have. The instincts of the Moderate will realize this when it’s finally too late. .
But the hits just keep on coming: Now that our nation’s post-religious drip, and the Absolute Truth commandos that dropped it upon our heads and beaten backs—like so much sulphur for Sodom and Sodomites—have proven they can deliver on their own, there is no more need for Moderates in the camp.
The next round of limp Richards and fake Shemps will have no need for any pretense of diplomacy or tact; “God” will have spoken, and the infidels will be crushed. This is why the Ugly American requires there be only two parties: one will surely differ with “God’s Word,” or established Evangelical interpretation of thereof, and thus by logical default, the hand of “God” must be upon the other.
But it is we—the Rational, the Moderate, the Middle Wing—who truly are the others, otherwise.

I long for the days of Shadow Government; at least they had the decency to hide. Now the Unconscious Collective who elected them fail to gain even enough respect for the luxury of plausible lies. Perhaps we could unite as Shadow Protesters…
Or perhaps, we could just unite while we still can.