Blast from the past. 2012 and beyond.

In 2011, I started worrying. About the possibility that Mitt Romney could win the November 2012 election. About the incivility of discourse out of Washington, DC. About what “could happen” if the Tea Party re-took the White House.

I started a WordPress blog entitled “2012 and beyond.” Now that WordPress scrapes everything for their AI (argh), I’ve shut it down. But you know what? That 10/11/2011 post rings true today.

Actually, now more than ever.

October 11, 2011. Frustrated by the level of discourse (or lack of discourse) in DC, I told a friend, I really wish someone would speak up and say out loud: Why does the GOP think it has standing in budget discussions?

After all, when Bill Clinton left office, we had a healthy surplus and a balanced budget. Unemployment was so low that corporations had to work hard to recruit and retain valued and valuable employees. We had gotten in and out of ‘military actions’ quickly. Real estate continued to appreciate in value. Welfare-to-work legislation had passed. Israelis and Palestinians were sitting at the same table, talking.

Things were hardly perfect. But there was a sense — back in 1999 — that we were back on the right track. Things were hardly perfect, but more of us were employed, fewer of us worried about family and friends fighting on foreign soil. Things were hardly perfect, but we had made, were making, and continued to make progress toward the quintessential American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Even when Newt Gingrich riled people up over parsed words and blue dresses (while parsing his own words and chasing his own blue dress), we continued to work, the market value of our homes continued to increase, the U.S. budget stayed balanced, and the deficit decreased.

But after fully demonstrating the disaster that follows from unchecked military spending, from lowering taxes (especially on the wealthiest who can most afford to pay taxes), from faulty thinking when it comes economic reality, we now have the very people who created the disaster insisting that they be given another chance at power.

What? They have not destroyed enough already? We want to put the CEO who ran the company into the ground back at the helm? Why?

It’s pure craziness to fail to understand the full impact of “the economy” on life in general. Progress on social issues comes to a standstill when the economy falters. When citizens cannot earn enough to pay the mortgage, buy groceries, go to the doctor, and handle the basics, we cultivate long-term disaster that will make the downturn of 2001—2008 look like child’s play.

It’s up to us to counter the false anger fomented by Rupert Murdoch and his minions, false anger over ridiculous allegations proven untrue over and over, yet repeated so often that the allegations have a life of their own.

I’m not sure precisely how we can successfully counter self-serving demagoguery. Murdoch has ensured that his mouthpieces are well-paid and unaccountable.

Perhaps if more of us speak our mind, pointing our fingers at the emperors in the Republican Party who have no clothes, we can turn the tide back to rational discourse, forward to the future.

Although current events make me more of a Democrat than ever before, it must be said that this is not a call for a one-party system, eliminating the voices of those who are more socially conservative or whose political beliefs differ from my own.

No, it is a call for Colin Powell, George H.W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Jon Huntsman, Bob Dole, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and those who would work in the spirit of Betty Ford to reclaim their party … and the national conversation.

Until they do, we are in trouble.

Please remember that this was written in October 2011.

Frustrated by the level of di