Republicans force the U.S. president's presumptive-choice for Secretary of State to drop out of consideration.
Republicans block a deal that would avoid the fiscal cliff and threaten to push America into defaulting on paying its debt.
Republicans rush through a law in one day to crush unions in Michigan.
Republican governors in a growing number of states refuse to accept affordable health care in their states, putting the needy at risk.
Imagine if the Republicans had actually won the election.
I mean, boy, howdy. It's sort of remarkable. After all, consider --
The Democrats won the presidential election. Barack Obama swamped Mitt Romney with 332 electoral votes to 206.
The Democrats were expected to lose the Senate. They picked up two seats.
The Democrats not only gained nine seats in the House, they also won more votes nationally.
And yet there are the Republicans sashaying around as if the public supported them. Rather than rebuked everything they stood for.
Yet after dramatically losing both the women's vote and the minority vote, there are Republicans bullying a highly-qualified and accomplished black woman.
After being the party that caused the recession and pushed America to the brink of default just one year ago by threatening to not raise the debt ceiling for the first time in U.S. history, there are Republicans bullying the nation by threatening it yet again. And actually refusing a tax cut for 98 percent of Americans in order to protect a small increase for the ultra-wealthy. Acting against the support of 76 percent of the public.
There are Republicans, in a mere eight hours, bullying middle-class working men and women and the democratic process in Michigan. Bullying the needy who have no health protection.
All of this as if they won the election. All of this as if they actually think people really support it.
But Republicans don't seem to care. Such is the mindset of a bully.
But then, that's what the Republican Party has been doing that got them into their election mess.
They thought you could fight two wars without financing them.
They thought when you have a budget deficit you can cut taxes.
They thought you can get rid of banking regulations.
They thought you could force vaginal probes on women and think that some rapes were legitimate. And believed that women would be okay with all that.
They thought people should self-deport themselves, that you could build a wall to keep them out, that you could vote against a path to their citizenship -- and blithely believed that those same people wouldn't see that you hate them.
They thought they could try to keep black people from voting, and that those people wouldn't see that you hate them, too.
They thought they could relentlessly shout that the President of the United States was a Nazi-socialist-Kenyan-terrorist Muslim, and that Americans wouldn't recoil.
Imagine if they actually won the election.
Bullies always think they can do whatever they want, and that people will meekly follow. It's the definition of what makes them bullies.
But the thing is, reality has a way of punching you in the face if you're not looking at it. When you actually lose an election in every way, it's because people actually voted against you.
Republicans may get their way on a few of their power grabs in the short run. But life isn't a sprint. It's a marathon. And some marathons are shorter than others.
There will be another election in just two year.
Voters in Michigan are outraged. The Detroit Free Press wrote that their trust in the Republican governor "has been betrayed." And this is a newspaper that had supported him!
Women, Hispanics and blacks will be ever-more prepared for attacks against them.
Unions -- who organize for a living -- will be organized to protect their existence.
The economy has already begun to turn around. Unemployment has dropped to its lowest level in years. People like that in a president and his party.
And Republicans -- who lived in such a protective bubble that they thought Mitt Romney would win in a landslide -- continue in that bubble, acting as if they did win. Blissfully unaware that the rest of the country actually reads the real news. And also knows how they voted.
When people vote in an election because they want their country to move in a certain direction -- and win that direction -- and see the losers trying to bully their way to the front of line, they notice. And tend not to like it.
And they realize how bad it would have been if Republicans had actually won the election.
In some ways, seeing losing Republicans act like they won is stomach-churning galling, because they're undermining America and its proud, historic tradition of fair elections. But in other ways, it's sort of whimsical -- watching people running around in circles, naked, without looking. Blissfully unaware of what's around the corner. And that there are cameras waiting. Ready to post it all on YouTube. Forever.
Elections do have consequences. And one of the consequences of acting like you won when you didn't is that you don't see the bus that's bearing down on you, about to run you over.
Republicans in defeat have been ghastly.
Imagine if they'd won.
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