Looking back, it's a bit funny what have happened to the two parties over the last few decades. Let's rewind back to the time when i first became aware of politics, somewhere around the Bush v. Dukakis election of 1988...
...the Republican Party was the party of strong national security. They were the ones who "won" the Cold War, they were the warriors, the generals, the stalwart men guarding the battlements against foreign threats. The Democrats, in contrast, were the besweatered professors, the kindly doofuses, the geeks and eggheads who would let the Russians sneak into the county and wreck up the joint.
Democrats lost elections because the average American would shrug and tell the exit poller "eh, i just feel safer with a Bush in charge, you know, like my kids are safer, i guess?"
So during the Clinton era, Democrats worked hard to overcome the wimp stigma and learned to beat their chests and rattle their sabers. "If my Republican opponent is willing to bomb our enemies, i'll bomb them twice! Come on, what you got? Iraq? We're going to war with Iraq? Hell yeah, i'll vote for that shit -- America, yeah!"
Then 9-11 happened, and it sucked. And Bush launched his wars, and they were utter disasters. Pretty much every American realized how bad an idea it was to try to bring "freedom and democracy and the blessings of Baby Liberty Jesus" to nations that were little more than warring tribes tenuously united by strongmen.
The wars were so bad that Democrats started winning elections. But they had spent the last 30 years trying to not look like wimps, so they had to keep that up. They had to continue all the Patriot Act/NSA programs because, Jesus man, can you imagine what would happen if we ended all that crap and then a terrorist attack happened, and we were left looking stuffy professors blathering about Amendments and civil rights while American bodies burned? We'd be Dukakis all over again, and we don't want that. We're STRONG, damnit.
Meanwhile, the Republicans who used to worship Bush no longer speak that name. And they've done a total 180-degree turn into John Birch-style anarchy and teabaggerism. They want a cabin in the woods and a shotgun to keep the big bad government away.
Their leaders have jumped on this train, because its convenient to just oppose anything a Democratic administration does. If the Democrats are for national security and breathing oxygen, then i'm for total anarchy and breathing nitrogen, damnit!
So here we are, in a political climate where Republicans are now whining about the big bad government having the ability to keep track of people, while the Democrats are accused of being iron-handed, skull-stacking tyrants who crave absolute power.
It's been quite a journey from Bush and Dukakis, it really has.
A warning to all teabaggers and freedom junkies -- just wait until the next time the Republican Party controls the White House. It might be a while, because their candidates suck so badly that they thought a fat bully from Jersey was going to be the messiah. But when it does happen? Be ready. Because the government security state, which will be bigger and scarier than it is now, will again be the tool of a strong and patriotic nation, odious only to terrorists and troublemakers. And the only people clutching copies of the Constitution and whining about rights and amendments will be those weak, traitorous hippies who hate America and want the terrorists to win.
Just letting you know.
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