Last night I was hanging out with a group of my Jewish friends in Philadelphia and it was a joyous occasion. Yet, when the subject turned to politics I became pretty glum and it was clear that I was feeling pretty down about the present mindset of a lot of my fellow Americans. One friend of mine attempted to cheer me up by putting things in context and after listening to him for a while I had to concede, “No, you’re right. Things are bad but this is not the Holocaust.”
The subtext of this was a little barbed, though, because the basic idea is that I am suffering from unrealistic expectations for my fellow man, and, really, humans are a lousy lot who are capable of far worse. So, I should be more cheerful than I am since at least people aren’t rounding people up in cattle cars to lead them to their execution.
My friend didn’t really succeed in improving my mood but I appreciated the attempt and agreed with his points. Then I woke up to this.
I’m still appalled that the GOP is going to win elections in these midterms. I’m appalled that the president’s approval numbers are as high as they are. I’m not going to change. I’m not going to lower my expectations. We have to start moving things in a better direction because we’re devolving and there aren’t going to be many more chances to turn things around.
So, yeah, I won’t consider it a good election night unless the people really show me something, and barely winning back the House while losing Senate seats isn’t going to cut it for me.
If that’s all the protest we can muster as a people, I am going to be pissed.
