Thursday, March 24, 2016

Republicans: Not Automatically Better Than Democrats (I Mean, Come On, Seriously?)

Maybe read this first.  Mine is rebuttal to it.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/opinion/column/ken-berg-the-case-for-john-kasich-is-strong-in/article_71a9ab93-950d-5b80-9a98-3f870182f7f8.html

In Thursday's guest Column, The case for John Kasich is strong in Wisconsin, the author's 'important point' is nominating a candidate who can " ... bring a Republican into the White House after eight long years of disappointment in Barack Obama."  I suppose this makes sense to someone who takes it as a given that a Republican is always better than a Democrat for president.

I was born at the end of the Eisenhower administration, the last of a certain type of Republican president.  Since then we've had eight years of Democrats, JFK and LBJ, who set us on the path to the moon and back and kicked off a technological revolution the benefits of which still redound to us today, and The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.  And some questionable decisions involving Vietnam.

Following that we got eight years of one Republican who initially doubled down on Vietnam, despite having sensed the mood of the electorate and campaigned as the peace candidate, and his hand-picked successor, whose principal 'accomplishment' was to pardon his predecessor, who had resigned under threat of impeachment, for any and all crimes committed during his time as president.


Four years of a Democrat who at least tried to get us pointed in the right direction again, energy-wise and in world affairs.  Twelve years of Republicans who assured us that we had been on the right path all along and pulled out the credit card so we could have low taxes and high spending, and got too much credit for 'winning the Cold War.'  Eight years of a Democrat who, personal peccadilloes aside, oversaw a nicely growing economy and pursued a fairly non-interventionist foreign policy.  And eight years of a Republican on whose watch the economy crashed and who started an ill-defined and horribly executed global war that to this point has accomplished a lot more bad then good.

And now 'eight long years (actually still closer to seven) of disappointment' in the Democrat who has overseen a steadily improving economy and whose big 'failure' is that he hasn't single-handedly turned the world into a peaceful utopia. 

And yet still I should vote Republican, no matter what?

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