There, there, get it all out.

My best guess is that despite the NYTimes and the entire Democratic party being in denial about this, voters really HATE Obamacare.  It’s the cheap airlines special of healthcare where you have no idea what the guy sitting next to you paid for the same seat but you’re pretty sure he got a better deal than you did. Oh sure, there are always going to be a few people who scored the deal of a lifetime, but that only means that the rest of the poor slobs in economy subsidized their ticket. Meanwhile, business class is enjoying extra legroom because their employers used CliqBook to negotiate better deals. And first class doesn’t know or care about the people in steerage.

Then there is the problem of being forced to buy a ticket in economy where there is zero legroom and you could swear the airline shrank your personal space by another 25%, and there are no snacks but some grumbling flight attendant who just lost her pension is walking up and down the aisle with pony bottles of water that sell for 5 times what you would pay on Air France. Then you realize that this flight is 14 hours long and you have to pee but YOU had to buy the cheapest seat you could find so you’re crammed in to the window seat and have to climb over other people to get out.  And there’s Paul Krugman sitting in a business class upgrade saying you’re ungrateful if you complain about your seat because the morbidly obese passenger whose excess girth is spilling over your armrest is finally able to afford his insulin.

Did I mention that you have to pay full price tickets for a long time before you can use your frequent flyer miles?  In fact, you may never get a chance to use them

I take back that extended metaphor because some of us are not on that plane.  Noooo, we’re the ones whose careers were ended by the financial catastrophe and haven’t been able to afford a ticket and can’t get a subsidy because we make too little money.  So, we’re stuck there on the tarmac, paying a penalty for being deadbeats, except we’re not deadbeats.  We’re just invisible to the Krugman types and the nation’s elderly who just can’t understand what horrible thing we must have done if we can’t find new jobs.  Maybe the new Republicans will implement training programs for us where we will learn how to take responsibility for coming to work sober and on time every day and where we can learn useful skills like how to use a computer and the inter toobz,  Oh, yes, sign me up for that!  I LOVE mandatory pointless patronizing lectures that will not improve my life a jot.  It’s what I live for.

Didn’t the Democrats promise they were going to fix Obamacare if only they could just pass it first? They swore up and down that they were going to revisit it and correct all the flaws as soon as they could. And how did that go?

It’s not that the country doesn’t want or need better healthcare. It’s just that when Democrats had two whole years to create something better they had Obama in charge all ready to lock us into a plan that only the extravagantly expensive health care/insurance industry wanted.

And don’t even get me started on the crappy economy. I am having a very hard time believing that the economy is picking up.  Now I have to worry about a bunch of nut job Republicans waving some shiny Grand Bargain object in front of Obama, who’s got the political skills of a second grader being shaken down by the class bullies that want his lunch money.  Make that OUR lunch money.

It could have been different.  Of course, Democrats will blame Bill Clinton.  It’s what they always do.  They never learn that this is just what the psychopaths who run the country want.  They need Bill Clinton to be the enemy to keep the party’s attention off of what they are doing.  There must be a scapegoat.

Well, I have a new governor and my congressman retained his seat, not that it will do much good seeing as here in Pittsburgh, we’re a tiny dot of blue in a sea of red.  It’s sort of like being the good guys surrounded by zombies infected by a virus transmitted through their cable boxes.  The closer you are to urban areas where diversity confers some protection, the less likely you are to be infected.  Too bad about that whole gerrymandering thing.

{{sigh}}

We deserve better than this.

Update: Ah, yes, Howard Dean, that brilliant strategist who was in charge in 2008 when the DNC changed the rules to allow a candidate who wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan to win votes there anyway, *including* votes that were legitimately won by a different candidate. Delegate reassignment surgery was a novelty introduced during the Dean era. Then, the campaign consultants and money (from the financial industry) moved out of DC to Chicago.

Thank you, Atrios.  You can go back to bed now.