Age of the Geek

Counting down the days
     It's almost over. Thank the deity of your choosing because this is America and, for at least the next few days, the First Amendment still gives you that right.
     But no, this column is not about Donald Trump, or even the presidential race at all.
     Plenty of print has been dedicated to the disaster at the top of the ticket. Instead, let's take a step back and remember how we got to this point. A point where so many people are so sick and tired of our dysfunctional government that a candidate whose scandals are too numerous to list has still made it within spitting distance of the presidency simply by running on the platform of "burn it all to the ground."
     It's not likely that Trump will win. Anything could happen, but it's looking increasingly likely that President Trump will not be "draining the swamp."
     Which is a shame because that's probably the one campaign issue he's right about. In fact, I can think of a particular turtle that definitely needs to be relocated out of Washington D.C.
     Unfortunately, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell isn't up for re-election until 2020.
     Fortunately, many of McConnell's fellow Republican congressmen are up for re-election this year. So, before we go to the polls and finish this election for good, let's take a walk down memory lane.
     Remember back to that ancient time of 2008 when President George W. Bush's eight year disaster finished big with the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. The newly elected President Obama came into office with an overwhelming popular mandate to fix the mess.
     Republicans at this point had two options. Concede defeat gracefully and work with the Democratic majority to set things right; or dig in, double down, and prevent anybody from doing anything in the hopes that if they could keep the President from doing anything productive, people would vote them back into power.
     They chose the latter.
     Before President Obama even took office, Republican leadership made the decision to turn every issue, big or small, into a partisan battle. Obama's first term in office was met by a record setting number of Republican filibusters, including the filibuster of a bill to provide medical care for 9/11 first responders. As former Senator George Vonovich famously admitted, "If he was for it, we had to be against it." Compromise and bi-partisan cooperation on even the most pragmatic of issues was taken off the GOP platform. The result was the least productive congress since before World War II and the fostering of a toxic political environment that lead to our current political fiasco.
     Remember 2011, when the word "debt" triggered Republicans into a fiscally suicidal march against raising the debt ceiling, a non-controversial matter of business that sounds bad but really just means that the United States Government promises to pay their bills. This dangerously irresponsible game of chicken with the economy threatened an international stock market crash and resulted in the downgrading of the government's credit rating.
     One year later, they were at it again. With the Bush Tax Cuts set to expire at the end of 2012, it was up to Congress to decide whether or not to extend them. Democrats proposed to extend the tax cuts for everybody making less than $250,000. This proposal was filibustered in the Senate by Republicans, who decided that if the wealthy didn't get to keep their tax break, nobody would. Make no mistake, the GOP used my paycheck and yours as leverage to negotiate for continuing tax breaks for the wealthy.
     Then we get to 2013. After their 45th failed attempt to kill the Affordable Care Act, Congressional Republicans decided to just stop funding the government all together, resulting in a 16 day government shutdown that put 800,000 people on furlough, shut down government services across the country, and cost the economy billions of dollars.
     This is not how you govern.
     This is a party that has put politics over pragmatism at every opportunity. Their obstruction has done untold economic harm to this nation and only resulted in further political polarization.
     And it goes on today as Judge Merrick Garland continues to set the record for the longest wait for a Supreme Court nomination hearing in U.S. history. Garland will probably not fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by Antonin Scalia. Not because he's unqualified, he is. Not because he's too liberal, he's as centrist a pick as you'll ever see. He won't be selected because Republican leadership has never accepted that Barack Obama was voted in as President and they aren't going to start now.
     And that obstruction is set to continue.
     In March, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and our very own Senator Chuck Grassley excused their abandonment of responsibility by saying that the next president should be the one to choose Scalia's replacement. Apparently the people who decided Barack Obama should be president in 2012 weren't good enough to listen to.
     Today, before this election is even over, they're already preparing to move the goal posts further. Hillary Clinton hasn't even been elected yet, but if she is, congressional Republicans are already throwing around the idea that that they'll continue to hold up the process for another four years.
     In this, the GOP and Donald Trump couldn't be more alike. They only accept the results of the elections they win.
     And don't even start with "both parties are equally bad" line. They aren't. You know they aren't. Being the opposition party means finding compromise, not sabotaging the foundation of our civilization. The damage the Republican party has done to our system of government is objective reality.
     So when you go to the polls next week, don't just think about the White House. That's only one branch of power. If you really want to "drain the swamp," down ticket is where you start.
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and can't wait to get back to the regularly scheduled political drama.