The Upchuck Factor

I call it the Upchuck Factor. It's a highly scientific measure of how long it takes for the American people to upchuck the Democrats.

This is a center-right country. People believe in freedom, self-help, family, and God. So the party of socialism and government programs has to dissimulate. It has to pretend that it is in favor of truth, justice, and the American way. Instead of the opposite.

In the 2005-08 quadrennium the Democrats played this dissimulation game a treat. They were shocked, shocked by the waste and the deficits and the corruption in the Bush administration and Congress.

The American people are a truthful people, and they assume that other people tell the truth as well. So they kinda bought into the Democratic drumbeat.

Also, the American people tired of the Bush war on terror, and half believed the Democrats when they said that Bush was stupid and obstinate.

(Actually, Bush was probably trying to avoid dividing the country any more than necessary, and understood that the enthusiasm for the war on terror would eventually flag, and with it his presidency.)

In the 1930s it took six years before the American people upchucked. In the 1938 mid-term elections they upchucked 80 Democrats, and would have sent a Republican to the White House in 1940 if it hadn't been for WWII.

In the 1960s it took six years before the American people upchucked in 1966. They hadn't voted for the crazed war on poverty that President Johnson gave them. They sent Richard Nixon to the White House in 1968.

In the 1970s it took four years for the American people to upchuck President Carter. They sent Ronald Reagan to the White House in a landslide.

In the 1990s it look two years for the American people to upchuck President Clinton. They took one look at HillaryCare and sent 50 additional Republicans to the House in 1994. Then President Clinton got with the program and reformed welfare just before the 1996 election. Democrats complain that they voted for a Democrat in 1992 and got an Eisenhower Republican.

In the 2000s it looks as if the upchuck is only taking six months. Maybe it's the internet, or maybe its the Washington gang who couldn't shoot straight. Either way, the American people started seriously vomiting a month ago, and it doesn't look as if they have cleared out their bellies yet.

There's one little problem with this story. Americans do like some government spending money. In particular, they like the government to spend money on them. So they can't quite bring themselves to send the Democrats away for ever. That's a pity, because the welfare state is slowly de-socializing America. It is teaching them to be indifferent neighbors, spouses, students. It is teaching them to dump grandma on the care of the government. It is teaching them to lose compassion for the poor. (After all, the government takes care of that.)

It's a typical divine joke. The government of socialists teaches people to be anti-social.

But it makes sense. If the state takes over the things that society ought to do, then people lose the societal virtues.

So let's get beyond the upchuck, America. Let's stop the purging, and resolve upon a healthy and limited government diet. It's for the children.