BY THEIR DEEDS YOU SHALL KNOW THEM

The Republican election victory was complete, and the reasons why they were so successful are officially irrelevant. The Republicans have a majority in both houses of Congress, and Republicans have majorities in both houses of the majority of states, along with Republican governors.
What is also irrelevant is the list of issues on which they ran. All the talk about getting tough on crime and being committed to family and even creating more jobs was just talk. Legislatures and governors either do not or cannot do anything about these issues anyway.
So the hot question is: what are all these Republican administrations going to do? The things they can do are fairly limited. They could try, as they had often claimed they would, to repeal the Affordable Care Act. If they do, millions of people will lose health care coverage, and we will return to the ever-spiraling health care costs, and they will likely all get tossed out of office in 2016. They could also try, as they also claimed they would, to throw every undocumented alien out of the country and seal our borders up tight. If they do that, they will also be summarily dismissed in ’16.
They will, of course, do neither, and even if they try they won’t succeed because the president will veto their efforts, and the democratic senators will use the Republicans’ favorite tactic of one-person filibuster (Republicans have used that a mind-boggling 458 times in the first six years of the Obama administration) to stop them.
They could also work to balance the budget, reduce the deficit, use federal funds to create significant employment for those at the lower levels of the economic ladder, and design a program of health care that will provide health care to all at a reasonable cost. If they do all these things, I, and presumably everyone I know, will join the Republican party, and the Democrats will be left to represent burnt out hippies and utopian socialists.
Or, they could carry on with politics as usual and pay off the moneyed interests who made their sweeping victory possible by passing a tax bill that will provide those monied interests with even less taxation than the historically low tax burden they now have. The Koch brothers did not shell out three hundred million dollars to close the borders. They expect, and will demand, a handsome return on their investment.
The problem is that they cannot actually tell the electorate what they are up to. Indeed, they have already begun to develop a plausible cover story. The otherwise lightweight Paul Ryan of Wisconsin spent his virtually unopposed election effort telling the people of Wisconsin that the IRS are a bunch of thugs and that they tax code is is outrageously unfair. He gives no specifics, and that is because, I would guess, he has been instructed to be very careful not to. If the victorious Republicans are to pull this legerdemain off, they are going to have to pull off the misdirection play of the century. They will have to convince an electorate already suffering from an income inequality not seen in America since the 19th century that making it even worse is a good idea. Or, more likely, they are going to have to disguise that outcome in some package filled with righteous rage at the damage being done to that same electorate by a present system already egregiously imbalanced in favor of the moneyed interests.
They have the reins, and they have the options. The campaign rhetoric is over, and the post-election rhetoric has already begun. My recommendation: buy earplugs. By their deeds we will know them. I have a feeling I won’t be joining the GOP anytime soon.