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Is it just me, or has Ohio’s governor-elect John Kasich been one of the busiest governors-in-waiting ever? It seems like scarcely a day has gone by, since the election, without that goofy mug and bad hair appearing alongside some news item about another pronouncement from the man. Perhaps it’s just the contrast with Ted Strickland, who was all-but-invisible the last year or so of his term. Kasich does at least seem like a relative dynamo, in comparison; I must admit that much.

Alas, he also seems exactly like the aggressively know-nothing, atavistic, brainless ultrareactionary which he seemed like as a candidate and which seems to be the model GOP candidate these days. A more energetic clone of Dick Cheney, basically. Or perhaps a right-wing Incredible Hulk; “HULK SMASH PUNY LIBERALISM” could really sum up the essential beliefs and policies of modern American conservatism.

We’ve already had Kasich’s pointless, mindless knee-jerk announcement that he’ll abort Ohio’s planned modest passenger rail line, presumably just because passenger rail service seems “socialist” and un-American, even French. By god, Ohio will not be the beachhead for any threats to America’s single-occupant-SUV-on-crowded-freeway or slow-and-humiliating-line-at-the-airport only transportation system. Nosir.

As for the rising price of oil, well, apparently we’ll solve that by “drilling for oil and gas under state parkland,” and as for the environment? Fuck it! I’m just going to quote at length from the Plain Dealer article, here, because so much of it would probably otherwise sound unbelievable: (more…)

In what is a sign of either America’s complete inability to produce anything but remakes, or a somewhat odd desire by the GOP to re-enact the 1994 election (because, yes, they won… but their hate-figure Democratic president then remained in office for six more years; did they forget that part?), the Greedy Oligarchs’ Party has reintroduced its Contract With Pledge to America.

In response to which I’m sure many people will be taking out the old fish-rifle and blasting away into a barrel, but honestly I don’t even feel like bothering. No one pays attention to rational, mature, nuanced dialogue any more in America, after all. Why not just indulge in some bitterly sarcastic, juvenile mockery instead?

That seems more accurate

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So, yesterday, a couple of The Economist bloggers went on a (hopefully) brief vacation from the “reality-based community.” A number of commenters elected to join them, too, in their day trip to a land where Truthiness takes the place of actual reality or facts.

In that happy land, apparently, things like the history of the past 10 or 20 years of American politics, and other small details like that, have no relevance. Instead, things work the way that it seems like they should work, based, presumably, on what one’s gut says.

And apparently one’s gut says that when times are tough and government doesn’t seem to be doing enough, voting out the party in power is always a sound course, regardless of what the opposition is actually saying or doing. And what’s more, this course is even better if it results in divided government, which conventional wisdom asserts will naturally and inevitably enforce compromise and bipartisanship, as opposed to the wild extremism which must be the outcome when one party controls the executive and legislative branches (any and all evidence to the contrary being irelevant).

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