BEFORE WE GLOAT

   Rachel Maddow has revived her show's"GOP in Exile" segment.  It is entertaining, but liberals and progressives are not entitled to gloat about the 2012 election.  We are understandably relieved:  Social Security, Medicare, Planned Parenthood, even Sesame Street (among other popular government programs) will be preserved.  The losing side made no bones about taking them out.  Though we get a sigh of relief, we had better forego hubris.  This is not a matter of "getting down to their level" or practicing the Golden Rule.  In reality the election results were, overall, decisive and pleasant for left-wingers, but still very close.  Overconfidence will persuade many liberals to relax their guard, which we dare not do.
  
   The right wing lost this battle, but it won the one before.  While gloating over their 2010 victory, the winners pushed through many draconian measures designed to solidify their power.  The result was an aroused popular resistance, which after two years of hard work, proved successful.  But the right was defeated, not vanquished.  It is still represented by a wealthy, organized, ruthless political machine.  Judging from the many calls for secession and assassination, the citizens who form the base for this machine are angrier than ever before.  Their hatred for Barack Obama and liberal "socialists" is undiminished, and likely to stay that way.  They are already gearing up for the next battle, and their determination to win is the greater for having lost this one.  The winners (this time) would preserve and expand the safety net, the social contract that depends on functioning government.  The losing side would terminate it, even though many of its members directly benefit from that same social contract.  They are not only voting against their enlightened self-interests, they are voting against their obvious self-interests.   What they expect in return is suspicious if it can even be discerned, but no one can deny that anyone wiling to sacrifice what benefits him directly is a formidable opponent.  Probably the only point that liberals and conservatives agree on is that a victory for the other side means the end of America as we know and love it.  The difficulties of finding any common ground appear overwhelming.

   The side that can get a few more of its partisans to vote wins.  The rightwing has an advantage in that its partisans are more enthusiastic than liberals.  Despite the Big Lie, liberals tend to be practical, broad-minded, thoughtful--seeking to improve a society which they basically support.  Reasonable arguments do not build mass movements.  Right wingers tend to be frustrated, confused, angry--distrustful of changes in the world at large yet ready to take radical measures to "restore" America to its lost greatness.  These true believers are led by a cynical coterie of wealthy opportunists and their sycophants,  who believe they can control the angry masses they lead.  Whether they actually can, time will tell.  But they are ready with the finances needed to keep the base agitated.  Their coup nearly succeeded two years ago.  They are not about to give up after one loss.  This is why they often win.

  In recent elections, results have been decisive, though the numbers have been close.   Nationwide, voters are about evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.  Democrats got the bigger half this year.  Republican power brokers are well aware that another election looms ahead, and they are preparing for it now.  They have a huge advantage in available money, courtesy of the Supreme Court  The Tea Party patriots who form the nucleus of the right wing still hate Obama, and the plutocrats who control the Republican Party will invest heavily to keep that hate strong.  Liberals, on the other hand, seeking practical solutions to complex problems, lack that scorched-earth fervor, that fearlessness of risk, that make the right wingers so zealous.  Liberals will need to compensate with hard work and resolve, to see the long fight through.   We cannot afford to let hubris make us lazy.

   Tea Partiers might perceive the Republican Party as a party of losers, and stay away from the polls.  The plutocrats who dominate the Republican Party could cut their losses and work with the Democrats.  But the possibility is greater that liberals, believing they have won the good fight, will turn away from politics and get on with their generally agreeable lives.  Living a good life is worthwhile, but we dare not ignore the political scene, unpleasant as it is.  We did that in the seventies, and the result was the eighties.  We did that in 1994, and got government shutdown and impeachment in return.  We did that in 2010, with disastrous results.  The opposition is digging in for the long haul.  The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and gloating makes us blind.