The Next Two Years

So the Republicans have won the Senate.

I’m not going to pretend I’m exactly pleased with this result. The past six years have been a constant, often intentional and systematic, showing of Republican obstructionism. Once great politicians (here’s looking at you McCain), have fallen victim to the worst of their party.

Now to be fair, I’ve been as disappointed in the Democrats. Yes, you have faced incredible obstacles. Yes, I understand what a s*@t-show congress is. But really, is this the best you could have done?

When I turned 18,

I helped elect a half-black man named Barack Hussein Obama to the White House. He was young and idealistic; representative of this new world we were stepping into. But then he was elected and due to our sudden ailing economy, some of that idealism and passion was put aside. The problem is, we never got it back. Now we have had an election cycle where many Democratic candidates have taken great pains to distance themselves from our President.

I have every expectation that the next two years will be a continuation of the last. It will still be Democrat vs. Republican, with nothing getting done as a result. Only now, every executive appointment will be blocked, every left initiative frozen, and in two years, the Democrats will reclaim the Senate (the Republicans will likely retain the House), keep the White House, and we can go back to exactly how things are now. This is certainly a depressingly likely possibility. However, there is an alternative.

Republicans have a chance to do the smart thing.

They can take this opportunity to reclaim their party, appeal once again to the middle, women, and minorities. They don’t have to be the party of no. Prove themselves to be good governors. They have two years.

Manage this, and in two years we can be looking at another story entirely. They don’t have to subject themselves to my every leftist democratic whim, but they should do something.

Republicans, I’m talking to you now, here are some suggestions:

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

Immigration Reform

I know you don’t like it, but we are a nation of immigrants. Either we change the text under The Statue of Liberty, or we work together to address this. And please, please stop it with the fence.

The Affordable Care Act

Fifty-four votes later and we get it, you don’t like Obamacare. However, the millions of people it provides with insurance mostly do. Listen, no one is saying this thing is perfect (I mean it’s not single payer or anything…), but we are saying it’s better than what we had before, which was nothing. The whole thing is even based on a conservative system implemented by your former presidential candidate! So please, stop trying to repeal it. Find something actually wrong with it, and work to improve it.

F*@KING COLLEGE TUITION

No offense, but it’s been a little while since you’ve been in college. Since then some things have changed. For one, it used to be that you could afford tuition to a state university on the money you made on a summer job. This had a large part to do with the support given to colleges. Now, things are different. It’s gotten a lot harder to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, because now we are pulled down by a mountain of debt. If you are not going to be investing in our social welfare, at least invest in our future. Doing so, you will certainly start to appeal to those young voters that I know you love.

Banking reform

I think we can all agree something bad happened about six years ago, and whatever it was really hurt the economy. I think we can also agree, it had something to do with the banking and financial systems. So really, all I’m asking is that you do something.

*cough* McCain-Feinstein *cough*

Net Neutrality

I really like the internet. I’m on it a lot. Frankly, despite how diverse this country is, we all use the internet. The one thing that pretty much everyone who uses the internet has in common: we want Net Neutrality. Everyone that is, other than Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, etc… So please, don’t f*@k this up.

Prison Reform

The United States has the largest prison population in the world. A lot of this has to due with mandatory minimums, three strike laws, and the imprisonment from drug related offenses. Prisons are crowded, often employ inhumane practices like overuse of solitary confinement, and are disproportionately more likely to house offenders of colors other than white. Studies show that imprisonment for nonviolent offenses is less effective, and more costly, that rehabilitation. With nearly one-in-three children in the U.S. having a parent in jail, addressing this is not only the humane thing to do, it is also the smart thing for your party.

Gun Control

No, you don’t have to take away everyone’s guns (though maybe you should). Take a step back and look at the number of mass shootings the U.S. has seen in the past year alone. Now compare that number to every other country on earth. From that perspective, is background checks really such an insane thing? This cannot be an unsolvable problem if we are the only nation in the world where this is a regular occurrence. Oh, and just for a point of reference, here is the actual language of the second amendment:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

What militia are you a part of? I’m not part of a militia, but I don’t have a gun…

Climate Change

97% of scientists agree that climate change and global warming, are real and very likely due to human activity. Yes, they could be wrong, but in saying so you must acknowledge you are deviating away from the evidence. If the vast majority of scientists are in fact correct, then we know much of what to expect. Doing so will take some long term thinking and some altruism on your part, because in all likelihood this will be more your children‘s and grandchildren’s problem than it is your own.