America: the state we're in......

 

America is in the final stages of a mid-term election wilh all eyes of the reading classes on the polls. Political commentators are talking at full speed and saying nothing. Perhaps it is my state of mind, but I find the entire process this time a dreadful bore. We are offered a choice between self-congratulating and most likely unethical versions of tweedle dee and tweedle dum regardless of their party livery.

 

And just now, any national item of any consequence is heavily politicized. Suddenly, it is O's fault when hospital staff incorrectly gown-up to attend Ebola patients. He wore a brown suit for a press conference a few weeks back and the criticisms of the haberdashery Nazis were broadcast by the opposition throughout the land.

 

The disloyal opposition smells blood and are running amok to let it spill. To be sure, we are not at our best just now.

 

The situation in the Ukraine has been blown off the news by Ebola and ISIS. So has anything to do with the UK and Europe other than both France and Great Britain having stopped national airline flights to the infected countries in West Africa. It has also been noted that the UK and a few other countries have joined us in combating ISIS albeit with some limiting provisos.

 

We are irate with the Turks who have one foot in the coalition and the other in their mouth. We get frequently conflicting news on their offer to lend us aircraft bases and otherwise aid in the melee only to find their intentions contradicted the following day. Surely they know what they are doing.

 

From what I can gather from media hype, the Republicans are about to make substantial gains in the mid-terms with a high likelihood of regaining the Senate while keeping control of the House. Some eager beavers are already planning what laws they intend to repeal and what punitive actions they will seek against Obama once they take control.

 

Election strategy wizards are saying that the outcome of the mid-terms will depend more on getting out the vote than money spent on their candidates. This is a new twist as the rule here has long been that the candidates with the deepest pockets will be elected. Although this promises to be another record-breaking election in terms of money spent, both the Dems and the GOP are mounting major campaigns to get their supporters off the couch and into the election booth.

 

Toward this end, the Dems have a slight advantage. They have large numbers of supporters who traditionally vote only in small numbers. That is to say people of color tend to support Democratic candidates, but also tend not to vote. Voter mobilizations efforts in the past have indeed prompted larger numbers of blacks to vote, but have not had much influence on Hispanics. The mid-terms may well be decided by how large a percentage of Hispanics actually vote. Again, the predictions are not enough to save the day for the Dems.

 

O is simply waiting out his tour of duty. He reacts to certain stimuli, such as the need for stricter preventive measures against Ebola. Then his leadership wanes and he is off to the golf links. Nobody doubts he will do well on the lecture circuit after his term ends. Many would be delighted were he to begin that circuit tomorrow and let someone else tend to governing.

 

My bigger concern is the American political tendency to consume its own flesh. Once individuals are elected, their detractors are hell bent to destroy, discredit, disable and downgrade them. Their every move is subject to the scrutiny of political hit men who brand them as stupid, incompetent or evil no matter what they do. In the process, we are undermining our own political systems and the democratic principles upon which they were built.

 

I guess this is the route of all empires.