Relief

I didn’t get to watch last night’s election coverage because it was too nerve wracking for Kathy, and we only have one television, so I had to watch some National Geographic program about great white sharks while checking electoral maps on my laptop, until I started to fall asleep on the couch well before any of the battleground states were called because I was watching a program about great white sharks on television while checking electoral maps on my laptop.

When I woke up this morning, I found that I was pretty relieved with the election results. I say “relieved” instead of “excited” because despite the fact that the national election outcomes were, for the most part, as I had hoped, I fear that little will come of it.

These last two years have seen total gridlock of national legislation because Republicans’ policy of complete obstructionism. House Republicans have refused to compromise on any issues, and Senate Republicans have threatened to filibuster an unprecedented number of bills. This has led to the biggest do-nothing congress in history. And despite the victories by Democrats last night, this do-nothing congress will be largely unchanged for the next session. Sure, Dems picked up a few seats in the Senate, but this will have no effect on Republican filibusters unless rule changes are adopted, which seems unlikely.

So, I’m relieved Obama won, because a Romney presidency surely would have sucked. But unless Republicans change their obstructionist tune, I’m skeptical that he’ll actually be able to get anything done.

12 Notes/ Hide

  1. kfedup said: Yeah. Relief. Exactly. Relief that the voice of our nation is sane, measured, empathetic, and smart. But there’s so much work to do, and the GOP doesn’t want us to do it.
  2. cwj posted this