Concerned and Confused

As this is my first entry in my new blog, I'll give a brief explanation of what compelled me to revisit Blogspot after nearly two years, what I'll be writing about, and why you should (or maybe should not...) bother to read it. 

I have always been interested in (and usually passionate about) politics. If you have ever joined a family dinner at my house, you know that this really wasn't much of a choice. Liberalism is as synonymous with Henderson as butter is with Paula Dean. Given my political upbringing, I'm sure you can imagine how ecstatic I was to finally reach voting age -- and cast my first ballot for one of the most exciting and rhetorically-gifted politicians in modern history: Mr. Barack Obama. Not only is Obama a fellow Illinoisan who gave me an autograph and handshake back in the day, he replaced a puppet president with a corrupt administration and made history as America's first African American president. 

Despite my initial enthusiasm for this seemingly perfect politician, my "hope" for "change" was soon brought to a halt when Obama failed to take advantage of his Democratically-controlled Congress, making little progress on social and (particularly) economic issues early on. And once the Republicans took control of the House, the likelihood of the Obama administration making true changes plummeted. The Republican party made it clear that they will do anything they can to make Obama look like a failure; we all know John Boehner uttered these words practically verbatim. For that, I can't blame Obama too much. But I can blame him for wasting those precious many months of a Democratically-controlled Congress. For wasting this opportunity, I began to sort of resent the man I once idolized. 

But just when I was about to give up hope on my President, my party, and our political system, in general... Enter the GOP primary candidates. 

After just a few short weeks of seeing these clowns (starting with Palin and Trump, moving to Perry and Bachmann, and now Cain, Gingrich, and --gasp, Iowa!!-- Ron Paul??) dominate the news coverage, my political fervor was back! For those of you who I most frequently pester via phone and/or email with my political ranks (Pa, I'm pretty much talkin' about you), you know that my interest in the Republican primary race has gone from casually paying attention to being more-or-less obsessed. Now, don't get me wrong: I am not obsessed with the candidates, themselves, but more-so the bizarre trend that is sweeping through the Republican base -- and, perhaps, through the entire country. 

The historical definitions of Democrats and Republicans are no longer useful. With the significant economic and military stress our entire nation is under, more radical factions of both political parties have emerged. And despite how insane and unreasonable I think the Tea Party is (and, to be fair, how insane and unreasonable others think the Occupiers are), these two movements really say a lot about the current political and social landscape of our country. Discontent in America may not lead to an historic political uprising as it did in Egypt, but it will undoubtedly have a major impact on the 2012 election. While part of me is purely fascinated in this new and largely undefined trend, part of me is absolutely terrified that it will somehow result in an overly radical or grossly incompetent new president. The mere thought of a Herman Cain or Ron Paul as leader of the free world is practically too much to digest -- so maybe blogging about it will help assuage my fears!! Or increase your's?