I have not been paying much attention to the news tonite. Looks like the Democrats lost the House for sure, but no way did they lose the Senate too. Forget that. A lot of polls were showing a serious last minute surge for Republicans, I mean in the three days prior to the election.
Marco Rubio, who are seriously insane, appears to have won in Florida. The thing that’s scary about this guy is that he’s so popular with the wingnuts that he could actually run for President in 2012. On the plus side for the Democrats, even though this election was said to be a referendum on Obama, the Republicans still do not have one candidate who can beat Obama in any poll. But maybe they will find one.
The comments on Yahoo news stories is an excellent place to judge the popular mood. Like the entire Internet, Yahoo comments are frighteningly rightwing. Why is that? Because the Internet is not democratic like television or radio, though it ought to be. Internet access should be as easily available as access to TV or the radio. It’s not due to cost. So around the world, only the rich, upper middle class and middle classes are on the Internet. In the US, the poor, the low income and the working classes do not have much Internet access. The Internet is a tool of the moneyed classes. That’s why the Internet seems so much more rightwing than real life.
Judging from Yahoo comments, it’s true that the Democrats and Obama are unpopular, as one might expect. But another thing is very interesting. Among these rightwing commenters, the Tea Party is not popular at all. In fact, they are widely despised. So this crowd supports Republicans but not the Tea Party. I suspect that this divide between somewhat more reasonable folks and the serious lunatics in the Republican Party will be an ongoing thing.
I just spoke to two Democrats tonight. Neither of them voted, nor do they ever. How many Republicans do you know like that? As a Big Government fan, I would love to make voting mandatory as it is in many countries. If you don’t vote, what? $50 fine? Higher? How many people would just pay it?
Russ Finegold lost in Wisconsin, but he was down a couple points in the polls for a long time now. His opponent is a serious asshole and insane person. It’s hard to believe those Scandinavians up there are that insane. Finegold was the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act. So we see that Americans hate those who hate the Patriot Act.
This election cements my contempt for this country and its people which I’ve had most of my life. Seriously, I am with JohnUK and AJ in the comments section. Americans deserve every bad thing that is going to happen to them in the future due to these idiot decisions they are making.
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I suspect that voters from the left will come out in force again in 2012.
Is US politics simply a matter of the Republicans surging to the right whenever they are in power… and Democrats being voted in occasionally to put the brakes on this surge for a few years.
man, i can tell you’re super pissed about these elections. like Colbert said “it will always remain this way and nothing will change.” in other words, look forward to two years from now. i’m pretty sure that the Rs are going to screw up royally, the Ds are going to take it all back in 2012.
i can tell you’re pissed off, because reading your latest stuff…all kinds of mistakes. Feingold was from Wisconsin, not Minnesota. and Yahoo is full of hateful comments because it’s only old folks on Yahoo. all the young hip SWPL kids are on macs using the mac email service, or google, or twitter, eschewing email (and old-school forums/comments) altogether. there’s no way that the internet is owned by right-wingers like you claim, and if anything it’s exactly the opposite with left-wingers owning cyberspace. you’re biased by the places you go for your information.
Ok, there are a lot of older people on the Yahoo news comments. Do you know what the comments are? The comments are after every Yahoo news story, but you have to have a Yahoo account to comment, it is true. You mean young hip SWPL types don’t even have a Yahoo account? Wow.