I've been trying for three days to make a list of all the good things about this election but there are so many it is overwhelming. And then last night Rachel Maddow spoke it all to power (or lack of power) in a righteous rant against the Republicans and the Tea Party that made my jaw drop in admiration. She said it better than I could, or probably anyone ever could. So I'll let her words speak for all of us:
First part of Transcript from MSNBC, Second part from GreyHawk on Daily Kos
Cross-Posted on Snark Amendment
That happened (the re-election of Barack Obama). That really happened.
We are not going to have a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe versus Wade.
There will be no more Antonin Scalias and Samuel Alitos added to this court.
We're not going to repeal health reform.
Nobody is going to kill Medicare and make old people in this generation or any other generation fight it out on the open market to try to get health insurance.
We are not going to do that.
We are not going to give a 20% tax cut to millionaires and billionaires and expect programs like food stamps and kid's insurance to cover the cost of that tax cut.
We'll not make you clear it with your boss if you want to get birth control under the insurance plan that you're on.
We are not going to redefine rape.
We are not going to amend the United States Constitution to stop gay people from getting married.
We are not going to double Guantanamo.
We are not eliminating the department of energy or the department of education or housing at the federal level.
We are not going to spend $2 trillion on the military that the military does not want.
We are not scaling back on student loans, because the country's new plan is that you should borrow money from their parents.
We are not vetoing the Dream Act.
We are not self-deporting.
We are not letting Detroit go bankrupt.
We are not starting a trade war with China on Inauguration Day in January.
We are not going to have, as a President, a man who once led a mob of friends to run down a scared gay kid, to hold him down and forcibly cut his hair off with a pair of scissors while that kid cried and screamed for help, and there was no apology not ever.
We are not going to have a Secretary of State John Bolten.
We are not bringing Dick Cheney back.
We are not going to have a foreign policy shop stocked with architects of the Iraq War.
We are not going to do it.
We had the choice to do that if we wanted to do that as a country, and we said no last night, loudly.
Ohio really did go to President Obama last night.
And he really did win.
And he really was born in Hawaii.
And he really is legitimately President of the United States, again.
And the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not make up a fake unemployment rate last month.
And the Congressional Research Service really can find no evidence that cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy.
And the polls were not screwed to oversample Democrats.
And Nate Silver was not making up fake projections about the election to make conservatives feel bad. Nate Silver was doing math.
And climate change is real.
And rape really does cause pregnancy sometimes.
And evolution is a thing.
And Benghazi was an attack on us, it was not a scandal by us.
And nobody is taking away anyone's guns.
And taxes have not gone up.
And the deficit is dropping, actually.
And Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.
And the moon landing was real.
And FEMA is not building concentration camps.
And U.N. election observers are not taking over Texas.
And moderate reforms of the regulations on the insurance industry and the financial services industry in this country are not the same thing as communism.
Listen, last night was a good night for liberals and for Democrats for very obvious reasons, but it was also, possibly, a good night for this country as a whole. Because in this country, we have a two- party system in government. And the idea is supposed to be that the two sides, both come up with ways to confront and fix the real problems facing our country. They both propose possible solutions to our real problems. and we debate between those possible solutions. And by the process of debate, we pick the best idea.
That competition between good ideas from both sides about real problems in the real country should result in our country having better choices, better options, than if only one side is really working on the hard stuff.
And the if the Republican party and the conservative movement and the conservative media is stuck in a vacuum-sealed door-locked spin cycle of telling each other what makes them feel good and denying the factual, lived truth of the world, then we are all deprived as a nation of the constructive debate about competing feasible ideas about real problems.
Last night the Republicans got shellacked, and they had no idea it was coming. And we saw them in realtime, in real humiliating time, not believe it, even as it was happening to them. And unless they are going to is secede, they are going to have to pop the factual bubble they have been so happy living inside if they do not want to get shellacked again, and that will be a painful process for them, but it will be good for the whole country, left, right, and center.
You guys, we're counting on you. wake up. There are real problems in the world. There are real, knowable facts in the world. Let's accept those and talk about how we might approach our problems differently. Let's move on from there.
If the Republican Party and the conservative movement and conservative media are forced to do that by the humiliation they were dealt last night, we will all be better off as a nation. and in that spirit, congratulations.
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