Sit, children, sit around Ol’ Great Grampaw Bill’s feet. I’m gonna tell ya a story about the good old days when there was TWO political parties in America.
You had your Democrats, and then you had your Republicans. The Democrats were always tryin’ to help people what had trouble helpin’ themselves. Why, it was Democrats who came up with the idea of Social Security and Medicare, and it was Democrats back in 2015 that made sure each and every one of your runny little noses was protected with single-payer health care!
And then, there was the Republicans. Now that was a bunch. They was always talkin’ about God and Jesus, but everything they ever did was against everything God or Jesus ever taught. Read a good book about it once. But never mind that now.
See, what these here Republicans did was let a bunch of crazy people run the party. Oh, they didn’t have a majority in the party, but they was enough of ‘em so that they skeered the Speaker of the House, Old John Boehner.
Go ahead and laugh, kids. Grampaw Bill likes to mispronounce that name sometimes!
Anyway, Old John Boehner let this group of 80 or so “Tea Party” members lead him around by his artificially tanned nose! They made him do this. They made him do that. He’d say one thing and then have to turn around the next day and say something completely opposite of what he said the day before because he went and made the Tea Party MAD at him.
Anyway. Way, way back in late 2011, them critters in Congress were tryin’ to come up with a bill to extend a tax holiday that meant yer Ol’ Grampaw Bill didn’t have to pay as much in taxes! But to pass that law, they wanted the millionaires and billionaires to pay a leeeeeetle bit more in taxes. Nothing that they’d miss, being so rich and stuff.
But the Republicans said, “No! We want the POOR people to pay. Poor people can’t contribute to our campaigns, so screw ‘em! We want to protect the people who DO contribute to our campaigns.”
So Old John Boehner and old Harry Reid, who was the Democratic head of the Senate at the time, sat down and made a deal that everybody was happy with. Each side would get a little of what they wanted and a little of what they didn’t want. That’s called “compromise.”
But the Tea Party? They didn’t like that. No sir, not one bit! They didn’t WANT the poor people and middle class gettin’ off scot free with a break in they payroll taxes for another year. So, the day after Old John Boehner — whoops, mispronounced his name again. (Settle down, kids!) He had to go back out there with his orange face hangin’ out and tell everyone that he was against the thing he was in favor of the day before. And then, he went back to his Tea Party masters and they come up with a plan where they could vote yes on a procedural manner, which actually meant they were voting NO on the payroll tax break extension.
Well, sir, this made the American people madder than a nest of hornets! Once they realized that the Republicans were only looking out for the rich people who were sending all their jobs overseas, they started listening to the Democrats. President Obama’s popularity started to go up, even though unemployment stayed high. And by the time the 2012 election came around, the American people were so sick of the Republicans that they voted ALL the Republicans out of the Congress, and a third of ‘em out of the Senate.
Then in 2014 they got rid of a bunch more in the Senate. Then, by the time the 2016 election was over, there weren’t a single Republican left in the House of Representatives or the Senate.
Now, President Obama couldn’t run for a third term, ya know, so a bright young feller from Wisconsin what had some progressive ideas named Russ Feingold got elected. And he served until 2024. Then they elected another Democrat, and she held the office until 2032. And now, Malia Obama, President Obama’s very own daughter is the President. And the only place you can see a Republican any more is in the graveyards and museums.
You see, kids, once Americans started to realize the influence money had in politics and once they realized they could throw OUT the people who wanted to destroy the middle class, make the poor people even poorer while making the rich richer, they had a bellyful of that kind of nonsense.
That ain’t to say you don’t got your conservative Democrats. But calling someone a Republican today? That’s an INSULT! Like callin’ someone a Nazi was when I was younger.
Now, tomorrow I’ll tell ya how the Occupy Wall Street movement helped America realize how them Republicans was screwin’ the average American. But Ol’ Grampaw Bill is tired now. Time fer bed. Now SCAT, ya little varmints! And check under yer beds, cuz there might be a REPUBLICAN hidin’ under there.
(Heh, heh, heh!)