The danger of wishful thinking in the political realm.

Recent events have served to reinforce what I believe to be the GOP’s number one problem here in Washington State.



Latest results in the 45th

It boils down, you see, to the lack of political pragmatism on the part of political leadership at every level.

The reality of our situation here locally is a failure to acknowledge the political reality confronting us.

For example, the GOP-controlled state senate is going to end the day after the next election when the 45th is taken over by the democrats.

But what are we reading from those in the political leadership?

Are we seeing an acknowledgement of reality, mainly, that the GOP is going to completely lose a district (the 45th) that already has two democrat representatives in the House?

Do we see an understanding of trends… what they mean… and how they’re arrived at?

Do we get that in the 45th, over $2 million has been spent… and a record low GOP turnout has been the result?

Nope.

What we’re getting is that incessant, cloying cheerleader crap that when the designated GOP replacement is getting her head kicked in that such an outcome is meaningless.

What we’re getting is, wrongfully from one sitting state senator, that late ballots always break right… while, with the most recent results and the loss of an additional half point, the trend has clearly broken left… in a major way.

What we’re seeing is a complete lack of introspection on HOW that happened and why… and acknowledgement that GOP efforts to out-democrat the democrats in terms of additional billions of dollars in state revenue, via the massive GOP gas tax/tab fee increases and most recently, the GOP sellout to the WEA as they dutifully jumped through the leftist hoop held up the state supreme court that they could have…. And should have… completely ignored… that in many instances is going to cause the state portion of our property taxes to explode forthwith… are the major reason WHY it happened.

You simply cannot… cannot… vote like the democrats, rape your constituency’s wallet for this kind of money, including implementing what amounts to a statewide income tax to pay for the GOP’s idiotic paid leave scam… and then go around holding up the income tax bogeyman as a reason to vote against the democrats… and expect the base to do anything but turn their backs on you the way you’ve turned your backs on them.

You cannot ignore the numbers… the numbers, you see, don’t lie.

You cannot wander around saying things like “1 thousand vote difference in a primary means very little. I fully believe Jinyoung can and will win this” when the reality is that it was a FOUR thousand vote difference… that has expanded to a 4500 vote difference in the first day’s counting… as the leftist-independent pro-income tax candidate’s votes ALSO opposed the GOP candidate’s position.

This depressed, practically non-existent GOP turnout… after more than a million dollars was spent by the GOP and their cohorts… are what the GOP hath wrought, so to speak.  It’s what they deserve as a result of their abandonment of core GOP values of smaller, more efficient government while implementing their recent pro-tax bent that would put Jim Moeller to shame.  You know, one of those Rivers “business decision” things where she can give her word to get your vote, only to be regretful she ever made that pledge at all… as opposed to regretting that she lied.

You cannot whip those who support you for long and then expect them to keep supporting you when you need them the most.  You cannot keep using the same threats of what will happen if the GOP loses when far too many times that outcome has been GOP-inspired in the first place.

Voters need more motivation than a party label when that party has become the party of betrayal.

You motivate your base to vote for you by your actions.  Correspondingly, you motivate them to stay home and ignore you the same way. And the action of the GOP these past two years in the State Senate have been nothing less than utterly shameful, destroying the line between parties as if it didn’t exist.

Instead the GOP, including those who should know better, sinks into complete denial.  This is a modern day version of the end of World War 2 in Europe with Hitler playing the bunker scene in Berlin, moving phantom, non-existent divisions and Armies around his map as Russian artillery pounds the Führerbunker.

He was no less self-deluded than the GOP in this state, an organization that cannot accept the reality confronting them.

Perhaps they should attend democrat Senator-Elect Dhingra’s swearing in when the election is confirmed… or even sooner… the day it becomes clear that the GOP has lost ANOTHER district… AND the senate.

Maybe then, the message might get through.