Took a day to digest the results of the midterms.
Now, historically speaking, the results aren't very surprising. And for all the claims of a "enthusiasm gap" the percentages weren't very much.
What did strike me as odd as that, even as voters were electing GOP and Tea Party candidates, polls were also saying that the majority of voters didn't much LIKE the GOP, and that the policies of the Bush II administration are still seen as much of the reason for the state of the economy. If there's a message here, it's "Okay, fine, you want to try and fix it, go ahead. We still don't like or trust you."
The GOP may have a problem though. The party of no has to show they can govern now - and Clinton-era stalling and partisan witch hunts may backfire on them.
However, something that kept running though my mind yesterday was "The triumph of the narrative". All during the election cycle, the GOP candidates and Tea Party talkers kept saying things like "reduce the size of government". "cut spending". "go back to the Constitution". And "restore freedom".
What they didn't say was what any of those things mean - or how they were going to do it. They promised rainbow sparkle ponies and glitter, without mentioning how they were going to get those ponies. (And certain types in the Democratic party were pouting and staying home because THEY thought they were going to get rainbow sparkle ponies in 2008, and are upset because those ponies haven't shown up yet)
At the same time, the Tea Party types are going to want their pound of flesh as soon as possible. At the very least, they want all the bad things they believe Obama has been doing to be reversed yesterday, thank you. At the most, they want impeachment and Obama gone by the end of the year if not sooner. And you have some members of Congress (Issa, Bachmann), who have stated that the only thing the next Congress should do is investigate EVERYTHING Obama has ever done and rehash long dead and long debunked claims and conspiracy myths.
And that's not counting the GOP leadership who have openly stated that the goal of the next Congress is to make sure Obama is a single term president. Add all that together, and you know very well we're looking at a return to the Whitewater witch hunts of the 1990's, then they spent millions of taxpayers dollars looking for anything they could pin on Bill Clinton.
The reason it's the triumph of the narrative is that most of the things they believe Obama has done have been the precise opposite of what Obama has actually done. They scream "socialist", but many of his policies wouldn't have been out of place in the Reagan administration - and in any other country, "socialist" Obama would be seen as hopelessly conservative. But that's not what the narrative says. The narrative screams "death panels" and "he's raising your taxes" and "government takeover" and "he's not protecting our borders!"
But none of that is true.
