Pride goeth before destruction

After the mournful defeat of the Democrats on Nov. 2, I found myself like 57 million others who shiver at the thought of Inauguration Day: quiet, disillusioned and frozen by the icy ignorance of Christian conservatives.\nThose of us on the left are caught under a blue bell jar amid a red ranging storm -- helpless and gripped in fear as our beloved country is hijacked by a tyrannical majority of "morality."\nSince Election Day, I have been content complaining in my columns, but I am a realist; not many people read, and I get few responses. That's when I realized that complaining is all we "liberals" have left. Democrats are now leaderless and adrift. We all saw the election map: a sea of red with only a few blue puddles. Is the spirit of moderation and bipolar debate over in America? Have the conservatives beaten us and achieved a retrograde revolution?\nHell no. In 1964, after Barry Goldwater was trounced by Lyndon B. Johnson, some thought the Republicans were finished. Lamentably, they returned. America has dealt with bumblers like Bush before, but Democrats will return and clean up the mess soon, just like Bill Clinton did in 1992 and Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. The system can only take so much abuse before it corrects itself. The 1920s were handed to the Republicans election after election until their incompetent fiscal policies led to the Depression. History has no compunctions, and the Bush administration, like the also overwhelmingly-elected Nixon administration, will be recognized for the inestimable harm that it has wrought upon the American Constitution through dangerous policies and the steely arrogance of power. \nRepublicans today are all walking with a strut that makes Bush's swagger look humble. The first decade of this millennium is theirs, and they are beating their chests and shouting their "Victory! Hallelujahs" to the heavens because as we have discovered from this election and local Bloomington protests, God is a Republican and he hates fags. \nRepublicans continually refer to the Democrats' "catastrophic loss" or identify them as the "minority party" in the same tone you would use about Cousin Johnny, the incontinent unemployed relative who gets plowed and pisses himself at holiday parties. In days subsequent to the election after all of that excrement about healing, Dubya finally said what was on his mind: He had "political capital," and he intended to spend it. Well, since the man has only read one book in his life, I'll quote from it so that he and his sycophants catch my drift: "Pride goeth before destruction; and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18).\nI have no doubts that the next four years we will see Bush carry out his elitist, extremist and pro-corporate policies. Who can stop him now? However, the bright gleam of our Constitution will shine through the ominous clouds of conservatism that threatens it very soon (It's only 1,458 days until the next election!). Democrats brought this country out of the Depression, defeated Nazism, created the Great Society, implemented human rights abroad and established fiscal sanity in Washington. We will return. Republicans must remember that although the left is hushed, it is not muted. Midterm elections, filibusters and popular discontent could end Karl Rove's wet dream of a conservative revolution by returning Democrats to the fore, or at least as a viable alternative. \nNixon, McCarthy, Agnew, Gingrich and Lott all contracted this infection of hubris and imploded. Their legacies stand as a testament to the temerity of conservatives when they are in power. Shouting at the top of their lungs about "morality," "law and order," and "American values," they have proven themselves as a party comprised of the biggest hypocrites in history.\nIn 2008 the conservatives will have been in power 20 years with an 8-year Clintonian breather. As I will repeat over and over, history and the younger generation will do the vindicating; those of us in the new "minority" just need to do the voting.