buggin’ out

It really is like a zombie movie. I did my part. I moved to the other side of the country. I made sure to vote, even when I wasn’t enthusiastic. For crying out loud, I even gave some money. The House returned to a Democratic majority, the Senate to an essentially Democratic majority, and then both majorities were expanded as a Democrat was elected President. The GOP, as constituted for the last two decades, has been taking it square in the face for two electoral cycles.

So how is it possible that the Republicans are steadily becoming ever more conservative, ever more redneck, ever more extreme? How is it possible that we can have Republican candidates for Senate openly talking about “second amendment solutions” to “domestic enemies” in Congress? Or saying “climate change doesn’t exist” as decades of data pile up and the average temps rise? Or saying that rape and incest exceptions for abortion aren’t permissible? Or turning over Social Security to some sort of privatization plan – less than three years after the stock market implosion wiped out billions of retirement dollars in 401(k) accounts? Or talking about all the bits of the Consitution they’d like done away with – things like entire amendments like the 16th and 17th? Or doing away with the entire principle that if you’re born here, you’re a citizen?

I’m not talking about message board wingnuts or isolated basement bloggers, I’m talking about duly-elected GOP nominees for high Congressional office. How – when a “liberal” President is pushing things that were the GOP alternative to Democratic plans twenty years ago – how is it possible that they can keep going further off the crazy end?

And since the economy is still stalled, and the wind is at their back – what’s going to happen if they win? What’s going to happen when you get a bunch of Birchers, birthers, tenthers, and other assorted teabag lunatics actually placed in office, convinced they have a popular mandate to do everything they’ve yowled about? And what happens if they actually win control of one chamber of Congress? Or both? How long until a GOP-controlled House of Representatives decides to impeach Obama, just for having the temerity to be elected President and do some of what he said he intended to do?

Here’s what you need to do. Ask your GOP candidates – or elected officials, hell – two simple questions. Do you believe that Barack Obama is a lawfully-elected citizen of the United States legitimately serving as President? and Are you aware of any legitimate grounds on which the current President of the United States might be impeached? If the answer is anything other than “No” then you – we – have a serious problem on our hands.

I’m not being hyperbolic here. I’m not off in some crazy libtard delusion world. I’m going off what’s out there, in the papers, on the “news”, actual reported statements and documented positions. And right now, I’m having a hard time not thinking about what my exit strategy is. Because so far, electoral defeat means nothing – they just keep coming, and getting more insane with every step. At some point, you have to think about saving yourself…any way you can.