The House AND the Senate are Democratic. Can the healing now begin?

[smalll]

I don't mean "healing" in the sense of some kind of uncalled-for wimpiness or "bipartisanship" from the Democratic Congress. I mean the healing of the souls of many Democrats, many of them here at DU.

Many of these good Democrats could not believe a month, a week, or even a day ago that this could happen, that the House AND the Senate would flip and turn against Bush and his party. Their posts flooded this very board in the run-up to election day - destruction was upon us, disaster imminent! Because they believed that Bush, Rove & Co. would electronically steal this election and subvert democracy again, as they had supposedly done in 2004.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time, and last night, the MAJORITY of the American people FINALLY stopped being fooled by Bush. As someone said on another thread, it's as though the American people finally decided to stop being brainwashed. We won!

Bush came into office in 2000 as the accidental President. Gore won the popular vote by half a percent, but Florida was razor-wire close. Bush DID "steal" that election - the "old fashioned way" - with lawyers (which includes of course the Justices of the Supreme Court.)

Bush is most likely the stupidest president we've ever had. And he's not nice-stupid like Reagan was. He's mean-stupid. He deserved to lose in 2004. But as we headed into 2004, Bush's approval rating was in uncharted territory - below the approval ratings of Clinton, Reagan or Nixon before their second-term election wins - but above the approval ratings of Carter and his father when they made the attempt at "four more years" and failed. All America knew it was going to be a close election.

Things happened. Zell Miller happened. The Swiftboaters happened. John Kerry ran a respectable campaign, but one that was often off-step. And 2004 was only three short years after 9/11. It was only ONE year after the start of the Iraq War. To most people, Iraq did not look as hopeless then as it has shown itself to be by now (to most people that is, maybe not to you, dear reader.) So as Election Day 2004 approached, the race in all the polls was still close, but Bush had a lead. A lead in the average mainstream poll of 3% of the popular vote. And after election day had come and gone, Bush won - :hide: - with around 2.5%

What I'm hoping is this: now that Democrats can celebrate the fact that the spell that Bush had over this country for far too long is broken, now that we can finally bathe in the bright clarifying rays of shining Victory, a victory well-deserved, long-awaited and deeply just, what I hope is that those Dems who have had a need to haunt the illusory shadows of vast imagined conspiracies can finally come out into the light of reason and reality again. That is the healing process I hope to see. It will happen, even if only quietly, gradually, one by one. Please come home to reason again.

(You know, there are two facts about John Kerry as a man that are undeniable to anyone with even a cursory acquaintence with his biography. One is that he was always one of those people who have been living their lives running for President since they were boys. Another fact about him is that despite all that, he has been willing to take bold steps and big risks when he felt he had to. He took one of those big risks when he actually WENT to Vietnam out of Yale. He took another when he returned home and spoke out forthrightly and unreservedly in the anti-war cause. Would such a man have done nothing if the Presidency had been stolen out from under him as some here think it was? He would not have done nothing, he would have fought with super-human strength to prevent that great crime. An atrocity committed both against himself, his own political amibitions, his own life plan AND an atrocity committed against the Constitution, the country, against democracy, against History itself! For that is how awsome a crime it would have been if 2004 were stolen the way some feel that it was. John Kerry would have fought!)

[smalll]

1. Will no one address this, my very first OP? -

if only to subtly imply (or openly aver) trollishness on my part?

[Dora]

2. Nice post.

It's quiet in here tonight. People are celebrating offline.

I'm going to go outside and look up at the sky. It's a beautiful night.

[smalll]

5. Thanks!

Have a good night. About to head to bed here myself. It has been a happy day all around, reading about things like the person here on DU driving across the broad open spaces of his state - South Dakota - as Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man came on over the public radio waves. Been that kind of day! :)

[derby378]

3. I hear you...

...but the job isn't done yet. George W. Bush must be subpoenaed. He must testify under oath and on the record in front of the Democratic House and Senate. And then, when all the evidence is gathered, Bush must be impeached. Then removed from office.

Then, and only then, can the healing you speak of begin.

[NightOwwl]

4. Welcome to DU smalll

:hi:

[smalll]

8. Thanks!

:hi:

[Robbien]

6. Basically your premise is that many DUers are just conspiracy theorists

fussing and fuming over evil which does not exist. You promote the idea that now with a Dem victory all the crazy DUers should drop all their tinfoil hats and become sane again in the light.

Must be nice to take such a Pollyanna viewpoint but I for one do not have that luxury.

[smalll]

9. I can't quibble too much with your summary -

but my point was also that such people became conspiracy theorists out of a certain psychological neccessity after the 2004 Election, and that perhaps after the 2006 Election, people might lose that psychological imperative to continue to believe such things.

[WhiteTara]

7. The Truth and Reconciliation Board

was set up by South Africa and has been and could be a model for us. But for that to work, the pursecutors must agree to listen to their crimes as told to them by their victims. I think Cheney will have a "heart attack" to avoid any culpability. Do any lawyers know if we can demand an open casket funeral? No hanky panky closed casket, cremation crap; but open casket, spit on his ugly face viewing?

South Africa seems to be the initiator of Truth and Reconciliation (couldn't find it anywhere on The Google attributed to any other country or time)

But I say, send them all to the Hague to be tried as war criminals and we can get on to the business of running our small corner of the world.