The Story of the Year

Throughout the year, I've posted my thoughts on the swinging pedulum of politics, and how I believe the swing to the far right has ended and a swing back towards the middle well underway.

 

We may have passed the halfway point:

The Wall Street Journal editorial board is dismissing right-wing calls for David Gregory's indictment as "entirely nonsensical," reflecting the widely-held belief that the investigation involving the "Meet The Press" is not a legitimate use of law enforcement's time.

On last Sunday's program, Gregory displayed what appeared to be a gun magazine while interviewing National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre. Police officials here in Washington, who have launched a probe into the incident, have since confirmed that doing so was a violation of the law, and that NBC News knew as much prior to the show. Gun rights advocates are, for lack of a better term, up in arms.

The Wall Street Journal, defending David Gregory. The mind wobbles.

This year, 2012, has been a watershed year in the rise of liberal politics. It's seen the re-election, on his own merits, of Barack Obama by a coalition of "minorities" (soon to be a majority), youth and women votes. The reasons are many, but they boil down to one: he's trustworthy.

The attempt by Republicans and the right-wing to tear up politics by making the very word so untrustworthy by the average American that they stay away from the polls in droves backfired badly in 2012. The big money infusions of superPACs, big corporations and rich donors like the Koch brothers failed miserably.

Indeed, it failed so badly that the 2010 election must be considered an outlier, albeit a repeatable one in 2014. State houses, gerrymandering, and local governments have been so co-opted by the grifting and bribery of big money that it will be next to impossible to move the House to the middle anytime soon, I'm afraid.

Unless the news cycle overtakes it. And here, too, things bode well for liberals.

From the mildest winter on record early this year to the scorching heat of summer, from the selection of Mitt Romney -- nominally a conservative but someone who's credentials as a rightwinger were highly suspect -- to the election of Barack Obama to a second term, from the uptick in the economy and the lowering of the unemployment rate (not fast enough, but then no Republican has dared propose a jobs program in Congress), even to the tragic slaughter of Americans -- 151 in 2012 alone, and sadly, counting -- in mass shootings, liberal thought and liberal policies have stood the test of time while reactionary conservativism, that black-or-white bastion of immaturity, has lingered and languished and coughed it's death rattle like Torquemada in the monastery at Avila.

 

Things will only get worse for conervatives, too. The voting bloc that was primarily responsible for Barack Obama's election -- youth, minorities, women -- are all growing, and gaining economic power while the voting bloc that was most dependable for conservatives in 2012 -- older white men -- is dying at an accelerating pace and lost the most in the economic meltdown of 2008 (e.g. wealth in home values).

 

Their voices fade. Ours grow stronger.

 

It's a good time to be a liberal.