It's Alive! Alive!

It's 1931. You're sitting in a darkened movie theater. On the screen, a doctor has just noticed signs of life in the creature he has sewn together from disparate parts. He faces the camera and manically screams, “It's alive! Alive!"  And Boris Karloff as the monster rose from his slab.   

The modern Republican party has made the same discovery. The creature they have sewn together from several parts is alive. The Tea Party, The John Birch Society, The KKK, The American-Nazi Party, The Religious Right, and on and on. From the most extreme to the least intelligent, they have cobbled together a creature that has broken it's chains and threatens to smash its way out of the castle, and onto the political stage. They have sown the seeds of their own destruction.

From Christine O'Donnell, the wicked witch of the East Coast in Delaware, Rand Paul, civil rights opponent, and Sharon Angle who wants to eliminate alcohol in Nevada, have come the most radical and anti-American speech since Joe McCarthy.

But they don't think they're anti-American. They say they're anti-Big Government. And they can't make government smaller unless they get elected. And if they do, then they'll make Government smaller by cutting taxes on the rich and deregulating industries that really should be regulated, like banking or Big Oil. Not by cutting waste, mind you, but by laying waste to the only protections Americans have against destructive, predatory businesses who will do anything they want without consequence.

They cry, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare,” or Social Security, not seeing the reality that Social Security and Medicare are government programs. They are for cutting VA benefits for our soldiers and privatizing their medical care, but claim they support the troops.

Now the Republicans have a problem on their hands. They have promoted and supported, and shown up at rallies for these crazies, and the crazies are winning in Republican primaries. They are splitting the electorate on the right. The base that the right could always count on is having different ideas. They're all bad, but they're ideas.

Voter turnout is the key. Some right-wing nut famously said “When voter turnout is small, we win.” That's because the reliable voters, who turn out for every election, are predominantly Republicans, and Democrats face an uphill battle to get people out. Well, in 2008, the Democratic base was energized, and voted in large numbers for Barack Obama and several progressive Democratic candidates to take back Congress and try to fix the country. And if the Democrats are smart, they'll bring out the pitchforks and torches, and force the monster back. They'll attack with everything they've got to make sure the voters know just what is at stake, and how the crazies will screw everything up in DC.

We have to show that the conventional wisdom – that the party in control always loses seats in the mid-term – is wrong. Democrats have to come out to vote in large numbers and keep the teabaggers out or

in the minority so their influence is minimized. We have the chance here to destroy the monster...but maybe we shouldn't. Maybe we should only convince it to turn on its creators and destroy them.

If we can convince sane people that the inmates shouldn't be running the asylum, if we point out the positive developments since January 2009, maybe we'll have enough chain to rein in the monster, and keep him locked up until we need him again in 2012. VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!