Change Never As Easy As Just Voting

Contemporary American vernacular requires we read between the lines whenever the concept of change is bandied about.

 For example; when the Minnesota Vikings assured us that Percy Harvin wasn’t going anywhere, we all knew his days were numbered.  Sure enough, a few weeks later he was a Seattle Seahawk.

Or when a large corporation buys a smaller concern and everyone is assured that nothing will change, we know big changes are on the horizon. 

Then there are all those politicians and political pundits who are forever speculating that changes are forthcoming that never materialize.  Such will be the end result of our most recent midterm elections.

We will, of course, hear from the Republican faithful.  They’ll be boasting that the outcome is a clear and overwhelming mandate for change and the rebuke of President Obama’s policies almost none of which have been enacted during the last six years.

Democrats will be scurrying about scaring their flock into believing the end is near and they had better marshal their forces to avoid cataclysmic destruction in 2016.

Yes – The same old rhetoric.  No change there.   

How about the fact that the 2014 midterm elections found voter turnout to be dramatically down from general election turnouts?  History has shown that midterm voter turnout has steadily decreased since 1840.  Further study also reveals this almost always bodes well for Republicans.  So, no change there.

Certainly, it is huge that Republicans now have total control of the legislative branch of our government?  But wait…Voting trends since 1948 clearly reveal that Americans love divided government.  Every President from Harry Truman to now Barack Obama has had to govern with the opposition party in control of the legislative branch during a portion of their time in office.  Okay – So nothing changes there.

Certainly, future Republican control of the senate will allow those rascals to easily pass whatever legislation suits their fancy.  Gone – ALL GONE - is The Affordable Care Act, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the minimum wage, unemployment insurance…unless or more accurately until…the Democrats, under Harry Reid’s tutelage, take a page from the Republican’s play book and implement the silent filibuster to block any and all Republican initiatives.  THIS REPUGNANT legislative maneuver could have met its demise on January 24, 2013.  It survived because Democratic senate majority leader Harry Reid refused to support its extinction thus securing its continuance by a 78 to 16 vote.  This was after Reid stated the practice had become abusive and should be suspended.  Could it be that ole Harry knew his party would be in the minority by 2015 and therefore didn’t want to lose this dagger in the heart of democracy as a future weapon?  Wonder how he would have known that?

And let’s not forget that the president has the veto pen.  Anything that does not meet with his satisfaction he can veto and send back to the senate.  Unlike the silent filibuster that now requires 60 senate votes to suspend, a veto override still requires a two-thirds majority vote of 66 senators.  The Republicans will have 53 or 54 such votes leaving them far short of the necessary punch needed to mandate their will.  And hence intransigence lives on.

If change is what we truly seek, it can only come about through the following:

 ·        The bigoted and obstructionist John Bircher Society devotees of congress that now hold their seats under the banner of The Tea Party must be expunged.  That means ending the gerrymandering of congressional districts.

 ·        The election of a strong decisive leader to the Oval Office who has the ability to gain and hold unquestionable public support.

 ·        Following the six-point program outlined by former Oklahoma Republican Congressman Mickey Edwards in his treatise on “How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans.”  

 ·        A massive uprising by the American people in the form of committed and unrelenting activism.

 Change cannot occur without the combination of a large voting contingency dedicated to electing well-intentioned public servants and activism.  It will never occur in the hands of those whose primary ambition is the feathering of their own political nests rather than a commitment to the betterment of America.   A consensus in conjunction with a strong voter turnout will always result in change…but, that is entirely in the hands of “we the people”.