Hardly Worth Noting

It has been said that American voters are likely to abandon their support for Republican politicians in the US House of Representatives and to some extent in the US Senate on election day next month. I tend to think that the reality, when it happens, won't be as significant as news reports and liberal blogs would have us think. Even if both houses of Congress went to Democrat majority rule, the fact remains that nearly half the voters in this country still vote Republican. In light of what has been revealed this year about the Republican Party, it is significantly depressing that half the voters in this country would still support that kind of politics.
I'll agree that in both parties there are some "bad apples." But what was revealed this year is that nearly the whole Republican barrel has become spoiled...
We have learned that Republicans have attempted to virtually take over the lobbying industry in Washington and in so doing have turned Washington politics into a pay-for-play system, pay off Republican politicians if you want anything from Washington.
We have learned that the Republican party is the party of closet homosexuals where it's fine to be a homosexual, just keep it hidden.
We have learned that we are killing far more people in Iraq than Republicans want us to think and that more Americans are dying over there than we are being told, all for a cause that nobody really understands primarily because it is not OK to actually state the real cause for the war, the permanent establishment of a strong American presence in the Middle East with Iraq as our base of operations. Under Republican leadership we won't be pulling out any time soon, and despite the immense propaganda effort in American media to convince us otherwise, we are beginning to understand this important point.
We have learned that the ad hominem fallacy is now the standard form in Republican politics. What was once just a fringe tactic has become mainstream for Republicans. This is no doubt true because of the success of conservative talk radio and Karl Rove politics.
We have learned that the President can spy on anyone he wishes to spy on in the name of "national security" and be exempt from the law. This spying is done in the name of the War on Terror but it includes any of the President's political critics. The days of Watergate-style investigations in Congress are long gone.
We have learned that agents of America can torture political prisoners just as long as they agree not to call it torture.
We have learned that no critic of Republican power is safe in this country. The Constitution is now nearly powerless and Republicans are working to replace any federal judges who think otherwise.
We have been told that the word "fascist" now refers to Islam, not to absolute power by the wealthy industrial class.
We have learned that only traitors hope for a more democratic America, that the founding fathers feared democracy.
We have learned that the 9/11 commission didn't do a very good job. They ignored important and controversial evidence while leading commissioners had conflicts of interest with the oil companies.
We learned that Republicans live in a state of denial and that conservative Christians tend to be Republican for this very reason. Isn't evangelical Christianity all about denial in the first place?
One by one, Americans have come to learn that the America Republicans are creating isn't the America we grew up believing in. Those who have come to realize this are wondering just how long it will take for the majority of Americans to come to this awakening. Will it be too late when that awakening comes? Will we have lost all our constitutional liberties by then?