Travis M. Clark

It’s hard to take politicians seriously. Yet when they mortgage the future of our country away, you have to.

With the health-care bill gripping the Washington machine, news channels and political asphyxiated as the vote reached a climax on Sunday evening.

Watching the nation become divided over problems started by Democrats and Republicans alike is never surprising. The trauma of reading and listening to a nation of ungrateful, insensitive people is heart-wrenching. Those who equivocate this moment in our nation’s history to a sadness or failure is mind numbing.

To see politicians — nay, millionaires — like Nancy Pelosi or John Boehner speak about the “will of the people” or “what Americans want” in one way or another makes me skeptical. How can they be so bold to make that claim?

Divide over such an event is maddening. Standing hard over party lines, both sides knew that a win for the other would reflect in the coming November elections. And it’s safe to say that enough Americans may be unsatisfied with this result to swing the House back into Republican control.

What can be deduced from this bizarre nonsense? The Washington Post admirably sums it up:

It all began 14 long months ago, when Ted Kennedy was still alive and everybody, Republicans and Democrats alike, seemed to agree that the nation’s health-care system needed change. Then came the town hall meetings, the death panels, the granny killing, the images of Nazi concentration camps, the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” moment, the middle-of-the-night and Christmas Eve votes, the Massachusetts special election, the Stupak Amendment, the Slaughter Plan, the filibusters, the supermajorities, the deeming and passing.

The Hitler comparisons are always cringe-worthy, not to mention the number of times “socialist” is tepidly lobbed into a sentence. These uneducated, insensitive claims are an utter disgrace.

At the heart of it all, the tea party revolution will likely reach another gear, on the back of a government trying to help out a large group of overlooked and neglected people. Yes, it’s bad that Republicans didn’t vote for it. But why were they so opposed?

On the surface, it seems that Republicans only want to defeat the bill because the Democrats championed it. With a system like that in place, it’s no wonder that this nation is eating itself from within. These nay-sayers never once doubted the eight years of Bush/Cheney that set back the nation’s bottom line and got us into a couple of wars we’re currently entrenched in.

I’m not saying we’re nearing the brink of another civil war, it’s just disconcerting that people never show any gratitude.

From John McCain’s perspective, the Republican fight will continue:

“With all this euphoria that’s going on, this inside-the-Beltway champagne toasting and all that, outside the Beltway the American people are very angry. And they don’t like it, and we’re going to try to repeal this, and we’re going to have a very spirited campaign coming up between now and November, and there will be a very heavy price to pay for it,” he told ABCNews.

I think he raises a point, and it’s almost a foregone conclusion that the control of the House will swing back to the Republicans. Unless those 30 million people who are now poised to receive health coverage thank the Democrats in the form of votes.