More Perspective on Tuesday's Elections

Winning a small majority in the House of two or three votes might have been enough to check George W. Bush. Winning a significant majority in the House is big news. Adding a few Democrats to the Senate despite a Republican majority would have been helpful. But Democrats have gained a marginal majority with the help of two independents. This is a big deal. George W. Bush must now come to terms with his failures and change course. This will take work on the part of Congress and on the part of the American people. I guarantee progressive bloggers will be watching things closely and others will be doing so as well.

William Rivers Pitt of Truthout has a post on the election. He expresses his relief but makes clear there is still much work to do:

Let us be absolutely clear on what has taken place. This was not simply a midterm election, not just a historic running of the table, not just a scathing repudiation of virtually everything the Bush administration has stood for since they swaggered into Washington six long years ago.

It was so very much more than this.

The back of the "Neo-conservative Revolution" has been broken, perhaps not for all time - simply because nothing truly evil ever really dies - but for a good long while. The ideology foisted upon an unwilling public by the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Ledeen and the rest, the ideology that has given us slaughter in Iraq and a ravaged reputation abroad, has been exposed and eviscerated. The Project for the New American Century, and all that was spawned from it, has been relegated, for now, to the dustbin of history.

(snip)

These cancers have not been cut out simply because of an election, of course. But the first, vital step towards repairing our shared heritage was taken on Tuesday night, simply because we have at long last returned to the basic Constitutional requirement of checks and balances within this government. No longer will the best interests of the people be slapped aside by people who have no patience for the process that was laid out by wiser and better men. Some logs have been thrown in the road, and for now, a real chance for healing has been gifted to us by the very democratic institutions these people would shun and shatter. The power of the vote, so often maligned and disdained, has been restored.

(snip)

"U.S. envoy tells Iraqis election won't change policy," reads the Associated Press headline from Wednesday. That, in and of itself, says all we need to know about what remains to be done. For the first time in far too long, however, an opportunity has arrived to do more than scream into the thunderstorm and damn the rain.

The real work begins now.

It's going to take more than one election to repair the damage that Bush and his fellow ideologues have done. And it's going to take time for Americans to realize just how bankrupt the right wing ideology is that Republicans allowed to dominate their party. They shunned the middle and shunned much that has always made America strong. In the next few months, a lot of vigilance will be needed to make sure the will of the people is not undermined. Americans called for a change, they called for a new direction in Iraq (meaning that we start withdrawing as soon as it's doable); and they called for the corruption in Washington to be cleaned up. Many of us worked hard because we know there is work to do to keep our nation healthy and strong; we'll be making our case in the months and years to come but at least there is chance again for average Americans to be heard.