What is this country coming to?

Look at my Facebook profile, and you'll see that I classify my political views as 'disaffected liberal'. That's more a reflection of my frustration that the big pieces of legislation that have been passed during this Congress (which, I will add, is more significant than most anything Congress has done since the 1964-66 period) were watered down far more than I liked to placate conservative Democrats. But when I step back, I remember that American politics is supremely dysfunctional and that the current iteration of the Republican Party has absolutely no interest in being serious partners in governance. Mitch McConnell forces cloture votes on most everything that, turning the Senate into a completely undemocratic institution. Did you know that it only takes a simple majority to pass a bill through the Senate? Probably not, because to end debate on any bill, you need 60 votes, and the GOP has made it their agenda to simply block everything, regardless of substance.

What's worse is that their party leaders can't be taken seriously. McConnell and John Boehner, when confronted with the fact that extending the deficit-inflating Bush tax cuts from 2001 and 2003 will add $3 trillion to the deficit, they simply repeat their talking points that private investment is needed to jump-start the economy, and that tax cuts are the answer. Tax cuts, in the GOP's mind, is the answer to every little last problem with the economy. Never mind that the vast destruction of wealth that occurred under the end of Bush's presidency has altered the spending habits of a country that once would borrow endlessly to finance consumerism. No, tax cuts are still the answer.

And the leaders of the GOP are frighteningly rushing to the lowest common denominator to attract votes. How can anyone consider Sarah Palin a serious contender for the presidency? After his flip-flopping during his 2008 run, and his embarrassingly uninformed views on foreign policy (made evident by an obliviously-written Op-Ed criticizing the new nuclear treaty, no less), how can anyone take Mitt Romney seriously? Why does anyone think Tim Pawlenty will be a good candidate when he's already out there calling Obama a socialist and is not a popular governor (he got elected thanks to the presence of viable third parties in Minnesota)? And Newt Gingrich? What about the loads of personal baggage that was his fall from grace initially? Rick Santorum...seriously? And I can't bring myself to take the teabagging fringe seriously. Thanks, Rick Santelli, for giving a name to those who votes against their self-interest, to those who have no comprehension of just how integral government is for the well-being of our lives. Oh, and for those who think the president's a Muslim, the president was born in Kenya, and the rest of those whackjobs.

What's crazier is that voters seem to think that after a mere 2 years, Republicans deserve the keys to the car back. I don't think that the GOP will win as many seats as many prognosticators think (the right wing has a nice tendency to implode; see the Colorado gubernatorial and Senate races), but the fact that people would do that so soon after what many historians would consider one of the worst presidencies in this country's history is absurd. I may have my issues with the Democratic Party, but they are miles better than the GOP. It isn't even a question, voting for the Republicans. One party at least has ideas for how to improve America and the lives of its citizens. They may not get it completely right, but at least they're going in the right direction. The other party is not living in reality. Not even close.

Then again, this is the country that elected Ronald Reagan a mere 6 years after Nixon resigned from office. No one ever got rich betting on the American voter...someone famous once said that, but I forget who. It's true.