don't mess with Big Bird

It would be nice to think that liberals scored a decisive victory last night, but I don't think the nation's future is that rose-tinted.

The progressive voice made impressive gains last night. Voters in Minnesota rejected efforts to alter the state constitution, voters in Wisconsin elected the nation's first openly gay senator, voters everywhere ousted many virulent anti-women candidates, voters in three states approved same-sex marriage, voters in two states and one city decriminalized marijuana, voters in Massachusetts elected Elizabeth Warren (my Occupy Wall Street sweetheart) to national senate, and not since the Great Depression have American voters RE-elected any president during such tough economic times.

But... none of those achievements really matter because the core problems facing the country remain unchanged.

• We still deplete our fossil fuel deposits while God stubbornly refuses to put any more of it into the ground to replenish the forever-lost resource. (Conservatives conserve what exactly?)
• We still impotently watch wealth stagnate rather than circulate.
• We still employ exponential currency and so face the mathematical certainty of debt growth.
• We still do nothing while the planet warms and ecosystems shift.
• We still helplessly watch people choose to reject observation and science.

The Big Bird fiasco was a perfect example of that last point. Democrats mocked Mitt Romney for metaphorically threatening to execute Big Bird by defunding public television. Republicans, in turn, mocked Democrats for fixating on a muppet when there were real issues to discuss. Yet when pollsters asked voters in Ohio who "deserves more credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden", Republicans were overwhelmingly unable to engage reality.

How can any democracy thrive when one of its major political parties abandons reality in favor of partisanship? Mitt Romney couldn't keep his positions straight because he didn't actually have a position. It was all a tangle of self-contradicting bluster. The Republican frenzy got so bad that they abandoned their own nomination processes, so some Romney electors are threatening to withhold their vote thereby figuratively slapping Republicans back to their senses. Even Fox News seemed briefly contrite last night, like an alcoholic promising that he can stop drinking any time he wants to.  As with the decision between Obama and McCain ("The fundamentals of our economy are strong."), America is better off with a president who can rationally discuss issues.  I preferred Jill Stein, but I'll settle for "Bronco Bamma".

Voters haven't done Obama any favors. Obama now has to govern during a continuing (and I expect worsening) crisis of economy, ecology, and rationality.