When I am king you will be first against the wall

So, this is how it goes. Team Bush gets everything it wants, I'm listening to copious amounts of Radiohead, the stock market is tanking and the Urak-Hai are about ready to run rampant over Middle Earth.

I spent Wednesday getting over being numb (and watching "1940s House" on PBS) regarding the midterm election. Jay-sus, how could the Democrats get their asses handed to them this definitively?

But from across the Web, the Democrat-flavored pundits, bloggers and residents of lefty message boards alike are yelling the same conclusion: It's time to rid ourselves of Democrat masters like Tom Daschle, Dick Gephardt, Terry McAuliffe and even folks like Al Gore. Whatever happened in the 2000 election is now firmly irrelevant, and the Democrats have been playing suck-up to Team Bush for far too long. The Democrats' obsession with wanting to fight the last war cost them (hanging chads, that damnable Ralph Nader, the U.S. Supreme Court), and now we have to live with it for at least two years.

There is one subtle bright side for Democrats: The GOP have everything now. Whatever happens after the new Congress gets sworn in is their bailiwick. Yet, the GOP proved they could stand for something (namely: War, Big Business is good for you, Terrorism is icky, etc.) while the Democrats were hoping to run on the platform of a) I'm not a Republican (which, in some cases, was a big, fat lie if you looked closely at Dem voting patterns) and b) people would remember what happened in 2000 and vote Dem as a form of revenge.

Well, neither happened. In fact, the Dems played into Team Bush's hands. Voting for the Iraq resolution to get it off the debating table before the election was simply the last straw. Did the Democratic leadership not see the tens of thousands who poured into U.S. streets in early October to protest Team Bush's wannabe war? Did the Democratic legislators all have temporary blindness and miss the 100,000-200,000 people (estimates vary, but it was the largest crowds since the height of the Vietnam War protests) who descended on Washington D.C. late last month to remind the lawmakers that Team Bush's wannabe war is a terrible idea? Did they all miss the energetic voting base who bothered to take a stand?

And people wonder why Nader/LaDuke got so many votes in 2000.

What's disturbing about what happened Tuesday isn't about the GOP taking the Senate and a whole bunch of governorships as much as what it means for the future: Bush, along with a truckload of money and negative ads, was a positive factor for GOP candidates. Despite two million jobs lost, despite the surplus turning into a deficit, despite a massive intelligence failure regarding 9/11, despite his connection to corporate crime and despite giving the international community the Mr. Middle Finger, Bush looked like King Midas, giving GOP candidates a golden touch, and thereby a Congressional win.

In short, Bush looked presidential. And he got a lot of pre-2004 campaign experience, too.

And after Nov. 5, Bush got the Congress he's been aching for.

Granted, the Congress has now slightly titled toward the GOP. We still have a divided legislative body, but all things being equal, the GOP has the ability to get what it wants more often than not. It now has the ability to pick judges for the federal bench, pass pro-business legislation, pass tax reform to favor the rich and give Bush whatever he wants with regard to Homeland Security and a war which may never end.

What I don't get is how the Dems could have screwed this up? While one could agree they stepped in this trap by supporting previous Bush plans (thus where do the Dems get off attacking the president now), there still could have been at least some fight in the Democratic Party.

It's tempting to say the GOP rigged the elections in certain parts of the country, but that's awfully close to whining. No, let's face it: The Dems got their asses handed to them after months of sucking up to Team Bush.

And to be honest, to be painfully, completely honest, somewhere in the world Ralph Nader was proven right. The Democrats lost their soul and because the weak party that had its members roll over for the opposition. What happened to fighting for the poor? What happened to fighting for the worker? What happened to fighting for civil rights? What happened to "The Great Society"? Did they all go down with Paul Wellstone?

Maybe just being the "other guy who isn't a Republican" isn't enough anymore. Maybe the Dems will wake up to that.

But meanwhile.

How hard would have it been to say: Are you better off now than you were two years ago?

How many jobs have been lost under Bush's watch?

How many hundreds of billions have been drained from the nation's piggy bank under Team Bush?

Do you feel safer?

And just where is Osama bin Laden?

Frankly, this election wasn't a ratification of Bush's legitimacy after 2000. No, it's a signal that, if the Democrats don't get their asses in gear, Bush will win the 2004 vote handily.

After all, who is out there for the Dems?

Daschle? Voted with Bush on Iraq and went sadly meek after some joker tried to kill him and members of his staff with anthrax. How hard would it have been for Daschle to say: "Mr. President, I understand terrorism, having an anthrax attacks personally made against me and my staff." If I were Daschle, I'd tear down heaven and firebomb hell to figure out who did it, constantly reminding the voters that the White House didn't care about the anthrax attacks. Hell, I would have added the White House doesn't care about terrorism on U.S. citizens, pointing out that the White House said little during the recent sniper attacks in the area.

Gore? Oh, please...that's what we need. A shitty sequel to a nightmare campaign by a Democratic contender who couldn't win (or fight the recount) with peace and prosperity as a tailwind. Gore failed because he didn't want to embrace Clinton who, think what you make about him, is an unearthly campaigner with golden people skills. He also failed because he assumed the White House was his by divine right. And he never put together you had to embrace Clinton to succeed him. After all, if Gore didn't, did this mean even he didn't approve of Clinton? Some message for the Dems.

John Kerry/John Edwards? Who?

Hillary Clinton? Bonfire, party of one.

There's something inherently understandable about not wanting to back a loser, and the Dems aren't burning with fight and vigor. Maybe the fire comes from supporters and volunteers, but there's something of a deal that's made in any political race: The supporters will meet the candidate halfway. The candidate has to want to win. I watched Clinton do this. Despite being crucified on a daily basis, Candidate Clinton in 1991 and 1992 when uphill, fighting every step of the way and acted like he enjoyed doing it. He wanted it more than Bush's pere, and if Perot wasn't in the race, Clinton would have kicked in the door to the White House with a substantive margin and a mandate.

Now, what are the Democrats going to do? Even callers on NPR on Tuesday night wondered just where the Democratic candidates were in this race. One woman, a self-described staunch Republican, felt embarrassed that we live in a one-party nation now. Let's face it, the GOP has the media behind it, has control of Congress and White House (and arguably the Supreme Court). It has business and trade pacts and the right-wing religious groups as soldiers and allies. Collectively, America has fallen under the delusion that war is good, unemployment is healthy and me-first on the international playground is a good idea. And the Democrats more or less let this happen.

I'm not sure if this is a start of something long term, if the GOP will have a stranglehold on national politics. Yet I get this sensation of crudeness and arrogance coming. Wednesday morning callers on C-Span were saying this is pay back for having to "suffer" through eight years of Clinton, and boy can you hear the an unbridled anger in the male voices. Here are people happy to vote in an extension of fear, debt, war and uncertainty, all for the pleasure of knocking down a right-wing radio/TV creation of a phantom liberal who wanted to tax your wallet dry or teach your children how to be gay and prevent you from kicking some towelhead ass.

For the new two years, I don't see any aspirations or anything new and bright. Just oil and guns and fights and more of the same. A stagnation in the nation's soul through an uninformative press, reality TV, Eminem screaming about being downtrodden and disrespected, wrestling and auto races, and a million distractions topped off by the hard-core revival of greed which puts imagination on hold for the pursuit of cold, hard cash. And for the lower class, the daily struggle to get by just gets a bit harder. Just in time for Christmas.

As time passed and as I read more and more analysis, I understand the "how," as in "how did this happen?"

And while I was sighing as the results came in on election night, my wife reminded me that this is what people want.

I just don't get why.