Too bad shame died in America long ago, else Democrat leaders would be hiding their heads. Not only because of the election results, but the mainstream media, having delivered an exhaustive defense of Obama, is now trumpeting two false messages on behalf of Democrats.
Talking heads begin with, “What the voters were saying …” and then they add their own agenda, which usually ascribes to the voters the desire to get rid of gridlock, compromise and get things done. But the voters were saying nothing of the sort.
I realize Democrats don’t understand or accept intellectual honesty because they depend on deception to maintain their base, but here is a small sample.
The Republicans offered no national agenda in this election, so the voters weren’t voting for something so much as voting against what we have had in recent years. It is quite probable a lot of voters were holding their nose when they pressed the Republican box, but one thing is clear: they rejected the Democrat agenda. That’s all we know for sure about what the vote means.
Now, what I think the vote means is most of the electorate is tired of the far-left lean in our government, furious over the damage Obamacare is doing to our country, sick at heart over foreign policy that is systematically dismantling America’s traditional power in the world, dumfounded by a president who violates the Constitution by ignoring laws he doesn’t like and by circumventing Congress to get what he wants, and they are mad as hell at the Washington machine that seems to be against its own people. But that is my opinion, which is different from what we know for sure about the vote.
The second false message from talking heads is the “… clear message the American people want compromise to get things done.” Baloney! Have you noticed when the talking heads speak of compromise they usually mean Republicans coming over to the Democrat side after the Democrats have been defeated?
Or maybe that’s my bias – just inserting a tiny pebble of intellectual honesty here. The complaints over gridlock, though, ignore an essential understanding of our Constitution.
First, you need to know the history of our founding fathers splitting up into their own antagonistic factions, as is human nature. Jefferson and Hamilton not only disagreed on federalism, they despised each other, and so on. When Madison was tinkering with the balance of power imbedded in the Constitution, and discussing options with colleagues, I can almost hear their commiserating, “If we get elected …“ followed by, “But what if those other reprobates get elected?” and recognizing the self-serving urges that drive all of us, they – mostly Madison I think – designed a balance that tried to ensure minorities were protected from a “tyranny of the majority.”
So gridlock is not a bad thing, gridlock is what our founders intended when time has not yet worked to dissipate the disagreement, in one direction or the other, over proposed new laws. When I hear talking heads lament gridlock, I hear shallow thinking that doesn’t deserve TV time.
In divided government when gridlock prevents new legislation, what are we supposed to do? I think we are supposed to be patient until there is sufficient consensus to pass through the process – without any Obama-like shortcuts around the Constitution.
With that view of gridlock, you might understand my nausea at Obama, Reid and Pelosi accusing the Republicans of obstruction, parroted by their sycophants in the news media. Republicans have, indeed, opposed Obama on many issues such as immigration, but please engage your intellectual honesty even if you are a Democrat to recall their obstruction has been by using Constitutional procedures, unlike our President.
Furthermore, one of the Democrat’s monumental deceptions, enabled by media criminal malpractice, is concealing that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is the real obstructionist.
Reid has prevented over 300 bills passed through the House of Representatives from coming to a Senate vote and they remain on hold. Reid has allowed the Senate to violate its Constitutional duty of approving a budget for years since an approved budget would commit the administration to numbers controversial to Democrat voters. And Reid changed the Senate rules to give Democrats more of an advantage than they already had.
The big D is usually understood to mean Democrat, but I think Deception is easily interchangeable. Double D could stand for Dependable Defense for the mainstream media delivering pro-Democrat propaganda instead of the truth to the American people.
All of these things have been evident for years while the mainstream media suppressed negative stories that would have dominated their echo chamber were the Republicans culpable, while positive spin was emphasized to protect Obama. Now, I don’t know how they will continue to hide from the American people the damage done to the Constitutional process by Harry Reid as he ran cover for Obama, but I am confident the talking heads will find enough to criticize in Republicans to fill their echo chamber, arouse and anger unwitting Democrats, and like a magician drawing attention away from the hand doing the trick, the media will keep deception alive. But that’s not a fact yet, merely what I expect.
You might expect the mainstream media to make some noise over Mia Love’s election to the House of Representatives for the 4th Congressional District of Utah since she is a black woman in a nearly pure white state. She was elected mayor of Saratoga Springs (in the Provo-Orem area, for my wife Julie, since she is from Utah) and her election was about her stand on issues and nothing to do with race; blacks are rare in that area. But she is a Republican and Mormon, and even though media noise so far is muted, she is the first Republican black woman elected to Congress, and I expect we will be seeing news reports about her.
Keep your eye on Tim Scott of South Carolina, the first black Republican to win a U.S. Senate seat from the South since Reconstruction. I don’t see how the media will ignore him. Pumping up my intellectual honesty to admit my bias, I do expect the media to be quietly watching these two black Republicans, spring-loaded to jump on any story of a stumble or failure.
A primary source of racial noise, the NAACP, is quiet enough on these two new black Republican winners to hear the chirp of crickets. Just what I’d expect.
Here in Fayette County the NAACP can chalk up a racist victory at the cost of taking away four-fifths of your voting power and mine for county seats. Pota Coston’s win to take District 5’s County Commission seat came after a tortured gerrymandering process to compose a majority-black district.
Frankly, I think it’s too bad she will carry that stigma because she might have won without all of that, given that she darn near won last time before all the racial antics of district voting, and from what I hear she is a smart and reasonable lady. That’s a rare tip of my hat to a Democrat. Maybe she will make things interesting at the County Commission.
I am hopeful blacks and Hispanics will be switching to the Republican party nationwide by rejecting the deceptive messages and realizing Republicans stand for individual responsibility, economic opportunity for everyone, business prosperity for the country, voting integrity, limited government, lawful immigration, honest politics and an end to the racial division promoted by Democrats.
I do believe Republican growth would be accelerated if only the news media were balanced enough to present the real issues of the parties with intellectual honesty so viewers could make an informed choice instead of being led by emotional and deceptive stories.
That is my hope. My realistic expectation is the mainstream media will continue their pro-Democrat spin, and I wonder how long our country can survive the propaganda machine?
[Terry Garlock occasionally contributes a column to The Citizen. His email is terry@garlock1.com.]
