Ted Nugent Is Just Fine and So Are You

 

I cry tears of blood.

Tears of blood, no really.

Bloody tears. For the last best place. For all the little red white and blue warriors.

That was Ted Nugent, crying tears of blood no less, November 7th, 2012, the night Barack Obama won reelection in a resounding victory.

 

Pimps and whores, oh my!

And Obama will destroy America.  Oh he’ll do it, he’ll destroy America, he will. He’s the Anti-Christ, you know. The big Black Gay Muslim Devil. 

And us, those of us who cheered Obama’s reelection? We’re pimps and whores and soulless fools. Oh yes, yes!

 

Economic and spiritual suicide no less, that’s what we voted for! You betcha!

Sure.

Crazy, right? I mean, crazy, really really crazy, Right?

Two years later, and here’s America, undestroyed. 

Look at those tweets. Ted wasn’t just wrong, Ted was crazy wrong. Is crazy wrong.  When they call him the Motor City Madman, they ain’t just speaking metaphorically. He’s a cackling loon. He’s the kind of guy who licks the bugs off your windshield.

Crazy.

That’s what a lot of you sound like this morning.

I’m talking to you, Liberals. You sound like Ted. Oh No! Oh God Oh God Breathe! Breathe! Ohgod ohgodohgodohgod! It’s the end of the world! It’s the end of America! Soulless fools! Doomed! We’re dooooooooomed….

 

Take a deep breath, Democrats, Liberals, you’re going to be okay.

 

Yes, you lost. You lost big.

Conservatives won. They won big.

That’s how it goes, if you win all the time, you’re not living in a democracy. You win, you lose, and it all depends on the fickle whims of the frightened and the apathetic and the ignorant and those motivated enough to go pull the handle. That’s democracy. You win some, you lose some, and last night you lost. Big time. Tough shit. What are you going to do about it?

No no, don’t look away. Turn and face it.

You lost. Hard.

Conservatives kicked your liberal asses up and down and black and blue.

And you had it coming fair and square.

Democrats haven’t got anybody to blame but themselves and the sooner they start dealing with it, the sooner they’ll start winning again.

Listen to me, listen good: Republicans and their Tea Party Berserkers, they didn’t win because they’ve got any big vision, because they’ve got some big grand plan for a shining city on the hill. They didn’t win on their charm and charisma and sparkling movie star smiles, these people aren’t Reagan. They didn’t win on their smarts and calm rationality and friendly ah shucks demeanor.  They didn’t win on their compelling optimism, on hope, on the promise of a better future and a chicken in every pot. They didn’t win by rallying the nation with a message of sacrifice and patriotism and hard work and a restored American dream of churning factories and purple mountains majesty and endless fields of golden waving grain from sea to shinning sea.

They didn’t even win because of gerrymandering and Koch Brothers money, those things helped, sure, but they not why the GOP won last night.

Conservatives’ entire message was one of doom and gloom and woe and bloody tears. The commies are coming for you! The terrorists are coming for you! The gays are coming for you! The gun grabbers and the job stealers and the Ebola are coming, oh yes they are, on a tide of filthy brown Spanish speaking pestilence surging across the undefended border and it’s coming for you! It’s coming for you and it’s going to rape your women and eat your children and murder your babies and Obama is doing nothing, nothing! to stop it! Clutch your guns and your bibles and be afraid, be very very afraid! Everything sucks, and it’s going to keep right on sucking and we suck but we suck a little less than they suck so suck it up and vote for us!

They won.

With that message.

Let me be brutally honest here: if you can’t beat that, if you can’t beat these dour pessimistic dimwitted fear-mongers, then you just don’t deserve to win.

It’s really that simple.

The simple truth of the matter is that anybody could have seen this coming.

Democrats have been working on losing for two years. They were determined to lose this election, and lose they did, right on schedule.

When you think you’ve lost, when you go into the battle convinced that you’re going to lose, well, folks, you’re going to lose.

If you are in any way whatsoever surprised by this defeat, then you haven’t been paying attention.

Let us use my own state of Alaska as an example: 

Robert Heinlein once said that politicians are like diapers, they should both be changed periodically and for the same reason. But we Alaskans, we like to think of ourselves as rugged frontiersmen, we like wearing the same dirty skivvies day in and day out – that’s why we’ve kept Don Young in office for four decades. We bitch and complain about the stink, how things never change, and we scratch at our collective diaper rash … and put on the same filthy pair of underwear every couple of years, as we did yet again last night. Don Young handily won himself another term of freebies from the oil companies while we Alaskans get to scrub the skid-marks out of his boxers.  And so it goes. The guy will die in office, and we’ll probably reelect him for two terms after that. Because, well, that’s America. We claim to love democracy, and we use it to elect ourselves Royalty.  Booyah!

And nobody cares, because what Alaskans vote for or against makes no difference whatsoever to the nation at large. We’re always last and least.  Last to finish voting. Least in electoral votes and representatives and citizens. The big names, the big candidates, potential presidents, they don’t swing through Alaska on their way to Washington.  The first lady doesn’t come up here to stump for her man and rally the local boys, no, not unless she’s on her way to China by way of Siberia. On election night, by the time they get around to us it’s all over but for the crying. We arrive at the party in our dirty shorts just in time to get handed the tab and a broom. 

Nobody cares about Alaska and, really, you can hardly blame them.

But not this time.

For once, Alaska was a critical state.

It was a critical state because one of our Senators, the one up for reelection, was Mark Begich.  A Democrat.

Get rid of him, replace him with a Republican, and the national balance of power shifts.  On election day, by the time they get to us, if the senate isn’t already Republican, we’re the swing vote, and if it is, getting rid of Begich pushes it further to the right – and in the Senate, every single vote matters. Every one.  And so, for once, Alaska was important.  Koch Brother money flooded the state like the rising ocean. Patriotic Americans For Patriotic American PatriotismPAC were thick as the thieving bastards they are. Signs sprouted like weeds. Our phones rang incessantly. Ted Cruz himself came on election day to stump for Dan Sullivan, Begich’s Republican opponent – and since when has anybody in Texas given a good goddamn about an election in Alaska?

And Begich? What was Begich’s strategy? How did Begich plan to hold his seat?

Why by attempting to blow every conservative in Alaska, of course.

The first thing the Begich campaign did was abandon his own base, abandon his party and president and the people who elected him. Then he attempted to prove to conservatives that Mark Begich was a bigger Obama hatin’ small gubmit lovin’ gun totin’ Carhartts wearin’ conservative than his conservative opponent – who, by the way, isn’t even an Alaskan. 

Sullivan ran ads that said “Begich votes with Obama!” and Begich countered with ads that said “Nuh uh, I hate me some Obama too!” 

Sullivan said “Begich voted for Obamacare!” and Begich countered with “Yeah, but I didn’t want to, they made me! Besides, everybody was doing it!”

Sullivan aired pictures of himself running on the beach at Eklutna Lake in Marine Corps PT gear looking for all the world like one of those Viagra Commercials, when your manly muscles are bulging and your silvery hair is silvery and the time is right and you’ve flown twenty miles out of Anchorage in an airplane you MacGyvered together out of the bones of America’s vanquished enemies just so you can work out by running over giant boulders after wrestling a grizzly bear and chugging a pot of black coffee and polishing your pistol…  And Begich countered with, I dunno, video of himself on a rooftop wearing a big sweater or something talking about how he hates Obama and love babies.

And it was just so painfully obvious to anybody with half a brain that Begich was already lost. 

Begich was playing defense.

Sullivan was on offense the whole way like the Marine he is.

Begich was Republican Lite.  He was a man without friends, by his own choice. His entire campaign reeked of failure and defeat and second place. His entire plan depended on convincing Republicans that a liberal Democrat would be a better conservative Republican than, you know, an actual conservative Republican.  And why in the hell would anybody vote for the Ersatz when they can have the real thing, I mean, come on, if Alaska has to have a Republican well we might as well have an actual Republican – at least we know where we stand. Right behind the oil companies. And mining. And tourism.

The Irony is staggering. Last night Alaskans voted to raise the minimum wage, impose a restrictive law on mining, and legalize pot – and then they voted for the conservative big business Republican. And you’ve got ask yourself, in a state that just legalized weed, that dealt a blow to business and stood up for the little guy and the environment, how in the hell could the Democrat lose?

And that, right there, is a metaphor for the rest of last night’s Democratic disaster.

Instead of distancing themselves from the President, Democrats should have stood firmly with him.

Oh yes, they should have.

Because if there is one Democrat, one, who knows how to win and win big, it’s Barack Obama.

Unpopular, stymied at every turn, cerebral in a nation of raw emotion, and yet Obama wiped the floor with Mitt Romney. 

And he did it not by hiding from his record, but by getting it right out there. Obama played offense right from the start.  His message was hope, change, optimism. He rallied the crowd. He made us believe. And he won. He won big. He won Mitt Romney’s home state. He won Paul Ryan’s home state. He won John Boehner’s home state. He mopped the floor with his opposition and pushed their knobby heads into the toilet.

Barack Obama is the one Democrat who knows how to win and that, that right there, is why he’s the President. Twice.

Democrats like Begich, they lost and they deserved it.

They lost because they were stupid.

They lost because they were afraid.

They lost because they were beaten in their own minds before they even got going.

Rather than run away from their records, they should have embraced them, just as Obama did.  The Affordable Care Act? You goddamned right I voted for it. It’s shitty. It’s a mess. It could be one hell of a lot better, but it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing. Which is what Republicans wanted for you, worse than nothing, their only plan was the rich get richer and you better not get sick. So, yeah, you bet I voted for it, for you, and here’s why, here’s how you and you and you and you and you benefit from it. Here’s how we could make it better. Here’s the lies the other side told, death panels, do you see any death panels, mother fucker? Well, do you?  No you don’t, sit down and shut up and listen! Obama? You damned right I stand with him, I don’t abandon my friends just because the going gets hard and I won’t abandon you. Look here, healthcare reform, Wall Street reform, unemployment below 6%, war in Iraq over, war in Afghanistan over, Osama Bin Laden dead, industry thriving, banks recapitalized, stock market at record highs. Repealed DADT, that’s right, and guess what? Our military is as strong as ever, better even.  Moammar Gaddafi is dead in a ditch, even Reagan couldn’t pull that off, bitches. Pell grant program expanded.  Massively increased support for veterans. Yeah, the VA is fucked up, no doubt, it is and so what else is new? Republicans didn’t fix it, but we’re going to. And in the meantime we increased funding and support, we pushed through a new GI bill providing millions in tuition assistance over the next decade, and we got multiple tax credits to encourage businesses to hire veterans, we’re the ones taking care of veterans, the First Lady is the one taking care of Veterans, damned sure ain’t the fuckers who sent them into war, is it? Under Obama we pushed through the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act to punish firms and individuals who aid Iran’s petroleum sector.  And yeah, everybody hates the EPA, sure they do, but they damned well like drinkable water and air that doesn’t give you cancer, don’t they? Death panels? You want your kids living downwind from a coal plant, do you really?  Hey you know what else? We passed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act which prohibits credit card companies from raising rates without advance notification, mandates a grace period on interest rate increases, and strictly limits overdraft and other fees. And while we were at it, we passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, giving women who are paid less than men for the same work the right to sue their employers after they find out about the discrimination, even if that discrimination happened years ago. What did republicans do? They fought it every step of the way. They’re the party of legitimate rape. Oh yes they are. If you’re a woman and you’re voting Republican you’re basically saying you’re property. Is that what you want, is it? So now lets talk about who owns your uterus, shall we? Let us just. Executive orders? Bullshit bullshit bullshit and bullshit, look here, let’s review who issued the most executive orders over the last thirty years, shall we? It sure as shit wasn’t Obama. Scandals? Yeah, let’s talk about scandals. And while we’re at it, let’s take a look at who grew the deficit and who shrank it, let’s look at budget surpluses and who pissed them away, oh yes, let us do that.  Let’s look at where America was five years ago and where it is now and let’s look at who shut down the government.  Record? You bet, let us talk about it. Obama? You Goddamned right I stand with the President of the United States of America and you damned well should too and since when should that be something to be ashamed of? So, yes, I stand with Obama, here’s why. And here’s why. And here’s why.  You want me to go on? Because I can, all fucking day and far, far into the night! Buckle up, Buttercup, and let’s review.

But instead, Democrats took their greatest strength, their most valuable player, the one guy who has proven over and over that he knows how to win despite everything … and they sidelined him. 

Republicans took the Democrats’ greatest advantage and turned it into Democrats biggest weakness.

And Democrats let them.

Democrats let Republicans write the narrative and history, my shiny electronic friends, is written by the winners.

You play defense, you lose.

Democrats lost last night because they deserved it.

Begich is out because he’s a wimpy little shit who doesn’t deserve to hold office.

Begich is out because he tried to fight a United States Marine with, what? A Sweater? Fuck him. Good riddance.

And that’s just how it is. If you want to be leaders, then you have to lead.

Democrats lost. And they deserved it. And they’re going to pay the price for it. We all will.

But it’s not the end of the world.

It’s not the end of America.

Republicans will shortly control both houses of Congress. And so? They’re not monsters,  they’re your neighbors, your countrymen, your fellow citizens and they beat you fair and square – or as fair and as square as politics ever is, which means it’s crooked as shit and so what?

Of course it’s crooked and dirty and unfair, no kidding. Where you been? If you can’t take it, get out.

But if you’re going to stay, then goddamn it ride it like you stole it!

The question is this: What are you going to do about it?

Are you going to go all Ted Nugent? Are you? You gonna sob and rage on Twitter? Are you going to spend the next four years crying into your watery lite beer, lamenting the End of America This Time For Reals!

Or, or, are you going to get off your ass and learn from your mistakes and rally your troops and get back in the game?

Do you think Obama is going to just give up now? Do you?

Buck up, Liberals. Dry your eyes and wipe the snot off your faces. The victors have already started fighting amongst themselves, they’re their own worst enemies. Now, get your shit together and stand with your President and stop acting like losers. The tide of history ebbs and flows, but ultimately you’re on the right side of it. Remember that.

The wheel turns and turns again and this too shall pass away.

Ted Nugent is just fine and you will be too. Really.