I think it's only going to get worse from here.

[GaYellowDawg]

I am certain that FoxNews is going full steam with this being a rejection of Obama, Democrats, and liberalism. Of course, CNN will pick up on that. We'll see Hardball talking about how the country is actually right of center, etc., etc. It'll become the conventional wisdom. Democrats nationwide will panic and "run to the center" - e.g., take a hard right turn (those who haven't already). The Obama administration will take this as a sign to bend over backwards to an even greater extent. Pretty soon, the top of our President's head will be touching his ass. And Harry "bend like a" Reid and Nancy Pelosi will follow suit.

Just watch: the Democratic Congress won't be able to pass anything meaningful at all during the next few months. Republicans will obstruct anything and then holler "Democrats can't get anything done!" It'll be all over FoxNews 24/7. It's the equivalent of booting a car and blaming someone because they can't drive off, but their role as obstructionists will be ignored. They'll gain ground during the midterm elections all over the board, and then I'll bet that we lose both the White House and the Senate in 2012.

I am completely disgusted and I wonder if the Democratic Party is even viable. We are supposed to have ideals, but what's the point in ideals if you're too chickenshit to stand behind them?

[Dogmudgeon]

1. "They" will do it.

If "WE" do nothing.

And that's what we usually do.

--d!

[dflprincess]

3. Or

(as my sig line says)

"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them." Paul Wellstone

[Triana]

2. "what's the point in ideals if you're too chickenshit to stand behind them?"

Exactly.

"If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." It's what Democrats are doing: not standing, and falling.

[KingFlorez]

4. Thank you for the great production, Chicken Little

[GaYellowDawg]

5. Why, you're welcome, Sunshine Pumper.

How the fuck anyone can see this as anything but a colossal failure on the part of the Democratic Party is beyond me. It'd be like having the Republicans losing a supermajority because they couldn't get a Republican elected to the Senate in Texas.

[Dogmudgeon]

6. Do you really want us to win?

I'm not asking this sarcastically -- this is for real.

What do you want? Hope, victory, justice, and progress? Or defeat?

I get the impression that you have a passive, "consumerist" attitude toward politics -- that you voted for Obama, and then maybe expected it would be "green grass and high tides forever". Perhaps I'm wrong. I'm not here to rub your nose in it, anyway. Because even if you don't think that way, millions of Democrats DO. Consumerism has its place: the market of goods and services, and nowhere else. Yet we tolerate it in politics.

We Americans have been trained, relentlessly, to think of ourselves as recipients, a mindset that fails in political reality. Our representatives convince us that they are our personal valets, but they actually become our masters. They may have a softer touch than the tyrants of legend, but they are still our masters. They may let us keep our trousers up during our whuppin', but their woodshed is still a place of tears, suffering, and humiliation.

YOU are the one who must stand behind your ideals -- you and ME, and there is no way that I can opt out of this, either. I am convinced that chickenshit has nothing to do with it. It is, rather, our basic mistake that we expect Democracy to be a service company instead of an historic human mission.

OUR historic mission.

This is not about breech of service contract, nor is it about cowardice. It is about correcting a mistake we have made, and made again -- that we are permitted ANY slack in the defense of our liberty, that justice can be delivered by contract.

Tonight has been supremely painful -- but that's all it has to be. Our work is not yet done; fortunately, our wound has been superficial. But we have to realize that WE are the political power, NOT those whom we elect. That message resonates. Scott Brown exploited it, and won an election with it. And if he neglects it, he will be immediately scorned, no matter how manly he looks cruising around South Boston in his proletarian truck.

Our ideals are fine. Our courage is intact. But we've allowed ourselves to be gulled into inactivity. We can change this. Sleep off the shock, bind the wound and let it scab over. There really is "always tomorrow", and that day can be ours.

For instance, Georgia needs to have some serious Democratic rebellion on its hands, and if I was a Republican, I'd be losing sleep over the prospect of a revitalized, refreshed Georgian Democratic party ...

--d!

[Zoeisright]

7. Yup, you're right.

Too timid to do the right thing. This country is done for.

[salguine]

8. I don't really have any reason to think you're wrong about all this; on the contrary,

history, both recent and not-so-recent, would suggest you are right.

If that is, indeed, the case, then fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all.