Revolutions are usually thought to involve mass protests, military coups and violent clashes. Yet there is a different kind of revolution unique to nations with strong democratic traditions-it is a revolution from the voting booth. The last major voting-booth revolution in 1994 swept Republicans into power in the U.S. House of Representatives, but the Republicans' recent actions suggest the 2006 elections could see them swept out of power in another voting-booth revolution.
During the revolution of 1994, Republicans took control of the House for the first time in 40 years. Voters were turned off by powered-enamored Democrats overstepping their role as the majority party. Republicans who promised \the end of government that is too big, too intrusive and too easy with the public's money"" were able to sway much of the country to their side.
Power-enamored Republicans are now the ones overstepping their boundaries with the far-right rhetoric that has seeped into their mainstream assessments of Americans' problems. This blatantly incorrect, extremist assessment of America's problems has trickled into legitimate conservative rhetoric with the Terri Schiavo affair and upcoming federal judicial nominations.
Such rhetoric often points to women having control of their own bodies, two guys holding hands and judges who apply the Constitution equally to all as the real problems afflicting the United States.
Tony Perkins, the influential president of the Family Research Council said, ""The court has become increasingly hostile to Christianity, and it poses a greater threat to representative government-more than anything, more than budget deficits, more than terrorist groups."" It would be a joy to see Perkins explain his priorities to the soldier in Iraq or the recently laid-off worker.
The prototypical politician behind this rhetoric is newcomer Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who was brought into power as a representative during the 1994 revolution. Coburn has enlightened voters by saying, ""I favor the death penalty for abortionists.""
Sen. Coburn's staff also reflects his far-right ideology. Perhaps unaware he was speaking to a reporter for the liberal magazine The Nation, Sen. Coburn's Chief of Staff Michael Schwartz said, ""I'm a radical, I'm a real extremist. I don't want to impeach judges. I want to impale them!""
Also found to be far out of the mainstream at the rendezvous entitled ""Remedies to Judicial Tyranny"" were two House members, two aides to senators and initially Tom Delay, who cancelled to attend the pope's funeral. They will forever be associated with lawyer and author Edwin Vieira, who, during the event, said he took his ""bottom line"" for dealing with the Supreme Court from a Joseph Stalin slogan, ""no man, no problem."" The entire slogan is even more brutal, ""Death solves all problems: no man, no problem.""
This type of rhetoric offers Democrats a rare opportunity to revolutionize the House as their opponents did in 1994.
Furthering the chance of a voting-booth revolution in 2006 is that Republicans' far-right assessments of the nation's problems have led them to fail miserably in meeting the promises of 1994. The USA Patriot Act, a potential federal ban on same-sex marriage and record deficits are not exactly fulfilling the promise of a less intrusive government that carefully spends the public's money.
opinion@dailycardinal.com.
