Ho hum

Ho hum. The real Republicans have won control of the House of Representatives from the lite Republicans Democrats. I predicted this outcome (more or less) in 2007, and predicted it more accurately in January of this year. If I continue to be accurate, the Republicans will work non-stop for the next two years to discredit Obama, and the they'll take the White House in 2012. If you're surprised, you haven't been paying attention.

Am I scared? Of course. Am I more scared than I would be if the Democrats had won? Not really. Our economic catastrophe has taken on a life of its own, and the Democratic party is utterly incapable of addressing this catastrophe. The Republicans promise to make it worse, but I don't know that they really can make it any worse than it'll be on its own. When the whole block is merrily burning, just as throwing a bucket of water won't help any, throwing a bucket of gasoline on it won't make it that much worse.

I will definitely predict we're heading for a double-dip recession by 2012, with unemployment over 10% and underemployment over 20% (which will be blamed on President Obama and the Democrats), triggered by a collapse in the stock market bubble, the commercial real estate market, a trade war with China and/or some international crisis, probably in Afghanistan, Iraq or Iran. If we have a very poor Christmas this year, just that might continue the depression trigger another recession.

Of course, the war in Afghanistan will go poorly, as will the war in Iraq whatever the fuck it is we're doing in Iraq with 50,000 troops and only god knows how many mercenaries civilian contractors.

In 2012, look for a very militant — in the literal sense — hard-as-nails Republican president, and an assault on civil liberties and basic democratic rights that will make the Cheney Bush administration look like a bunch of bleeding-heart card-carrying ACLU liberals.

That's actually the best outcome. The worst outcome is that for some reason the Republican candidate self-destructs, the Democrats win a narrow victory*, and the Christian right — with its militias giving it substantial military power — rises up in open revolt and civil war.

*I suspect that if the Republican presidential candidate were credibly shown to have been a homosexual pedophile, the Democrats might pull out a 5 point victory.

"May you live in interesting times." A curse indeed.

A bold prediction

I will repeat and reinforce (and slightly qualify) my prediction from August 2007 that Barack Obama will lose the November 2012 election for President of the United States to the Republican candidate. I will make only one reservation: If the Republicans run Sarah Palin as the candidate or vice-presidential candidate, Obama will win. Furthermore, whether or not Palin runs and Obama wins or loses, the Republicans will have a majority at least in the House of Representatives in the 2012 elections.

It's possible the Republicans will run a candidate (such as Palin) that simply cannot beat Obama, but I think they went with their 2nd string in 2008. They'll see that Obama is as vulnerable as Carter was, go with their "Ronnie", their first string in 2012. They shouldn't run Palin, but they should give her a prominent role as a spokesmodel. She might even run in the primaries, but she should do so only to gain credibility.

We might even see a ????/Lieberman ticket, unless progressives are able to focus their voodoo powers and Joe drops dead of an aneurysm.