My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

I never really cared about politics. Politics was just something that happened, I didn’t see it as anything tangible. I mean, my life didn’t seem any different depending on who got elected to what, and where. The thing is, I just wasn’t paying attention, thirty years of elections and those people elected, steering legislation, it has all affected my life. Because of lots of legislators, President Clinton, even Governor Jeb Bush, especially Jeb Bush, being disabled doesn’t mean I have to be stuck in some institution, or dead. Because of legislation I have access to healthcare, and assistants, and technology. I can go on dates, and to movies, and whatever else I love doing, all because my place in society is legislated, and because I’m a part of society, I can give back. I never really considered any of this until Curling and the 2010 Winter Olympics. See, Curling was on MSNBC, like, at any given hour, and at some point during my Curlingasm I stumbled onto The Rachel Maddow Show. I always like someone who’s passionate about what they do, Rachel is totally passionate. I was mesmerized. She LOVES politics, she’d talk about it on street corners to anyone who would listen if nobody would pay her to do so. If it ever comes to that, if Rachel Maddow ends up talking politics in Times Square, I’ll totally camp out with her. She’s brilliant, she knows her stuff, and that’s why I kept watching. Then I started watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and, well, I feel like I’ve stepped through the Looking-Glass and there’s no going back. Politics is tangible, there are consequences to who gets elected to what, and where. Today’s mid-term elections are serious, and important. Frankly, I’m worried about what could happen to people with disabilities if too many Republicans win today, I’m worried about the entire country.

Today’s Republican Party is scary, they’re extremists who will take us backward. The Tea Party is a group of uneducated nut-jobs with winning ideas like, the repeal of healthcare reform, the abolishment of the Department of Education, the privatization of Social Security and Medicare (ie, if the private sector crashes again, those programs are fucked), the criminalization of abortion, no Civil-Rights for gays, I could go on and on. These are their goals. As a whole, the Republicans are big on investigating President Obama. You know, proving he’s a Kenyan Socialist secret Muslim terrorist and tossing him out of office. Forget the economy, public education, clean energy, the Republicans have other more pressing matters at hand. This sounds crazy, I wish it was fiction, but it isn’t. It so isn’t.

People are frustrated with President Obama, and in-turn the Democrats, President Obama was supposed to unite the parties and give every American a job, and a unicorn, but things haven’t quite worked out that way. President Obama took office and inherited a disaster, an economy on the brink of The Great Depression II: Depression Strikes Back, two wars, massive debt caused by those two wars, he walked into a nightmare. I’ve always said that the Obama administration sucks at PR, at touting accomplishments. People don’t realize the good he has done in under two years. The deficit is down under President Obama. The evil Stimulus Package, it worked. It saved our economy from collapse, saved millions of jobs, and included tax cuts for every American. It didn’t create jobs like people hoped, but this is a work in progress. The evil bailouts of the auto and banking industries, they worked, the loans are being paid back. Imagine all the lost jobs if the U.S. car companies had folded. President Obama did all these things against fierce opposition from the Republicans. The Republicans simply do not like him, they fight every single bill the Democrats bring forward, even things they usually agree on, like infrastructure spending. Their goal is to make President Obama a single-term President, damn progress.

So, if you haven’t voted yet, do, and think about these things before you cast your ballot.

I’ve never written about politics here before, but something’s really bothering me, there’s something going on in America that’s really upsetting me. That thing is, “The Obama Paradox,” I didn’t coin that term, I heard it on the Rachel Maddow Show. It’s a term that illustrates the fact that the reality of the Obama Administration doesn’t match public perception. His approval rating kind of sucks, people are unhappy with him. The perception is that President Obama isn’t really doing anything. He was supposed to do things, big important things, but apparently he isn’t, I guess. I guess Republicans and Democrats were supposed to come together in some orgy of cooperation, every American was supposed to ride to their kick-ass awesome new job on a unicorn, we were all supposed to be awash in a sea of bliss, but since those things haven’t exactly happened, President Obama, well, sucks. Unfortunately, people don’t seem to follow the facts.

The facts are these, President Obama took office in the middle of a disaster caused by eight years of BAD decisions by the previous administration. Our economy was on the brink of  collapse, on the brink of a second Great Depression. It’s been his job to dig us out of that mess, and in a really ugly political climate. Republicans do not like him, they’re not pleased that they lost the election. With all this against him, his administration has managed to pass record amounts of landmark legislation. The Obama Administration passed sweeping Wall Street reform, Student Loan reform, Health Care reform, a new Hate Crimes law (something that so many others have tried and failed), a very important Stimulus Package that’s actually working, that included the largest middle-class tax-cut in U.S. history, he’s done all these things and more in under half a term.

President Obama is doing things, really important historical things. If he has a fault, it’s that he’s too subtle about his accomplishments. He doesn’t have a giant PR machine touting his achievements. While the right-wing media slams him with lies, he quietly continues his work rather than get mixed up in some PR smack-down. So, give President Obama some credit, he’s definitely earned it.