[img_assist|nid=158920|title=Royally screwed|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=166|height=241]After a tough day on the job, it's always nice to come home to some laughs. No sit-coms or newspaper funnies for me, this time, however. Rather, I dove into the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. And there I found Gov. Scott Walker's declaration that he has already ordained a Voter ID law in Wisconsin, so those of us who are supporting legal action to overturn it should just shut up and let him rule as he pleases.
You can read his not very trenchant but quite entrenched thoughts at the URL below. I was skimming the piece minus alacrity until I got to the LOL moment near the end, where Walker (or one of his PR minions) clumsily penned:
"The time has come to accept the fact that I worked hard to lawfully and constitutionally implement a law that I campaigned on and to move on."
That's right, Move On organizers. Walker wants you to move on beyond Move On. He has decreed. Being governor is hard work. Walker signed a bill. Thus is the state's law changed irrevocably, today, tomorrow and forever. Under the Walker prescription, the rest of us consequently have no right or reason to change the law again. Ever. Walker knows best. He is in control.
Kneel before Zod!
Walker's attitude is rather reminisicent of the defunct Soviet Politburo (once a satrapy, always a satrapy). Republicans of this ilk indeed are authoritarian and don't brook opposition, especially massive opposition. Walker's right, a million or more of us are wrong, and that's supposed to be that.
Only an egocentric, narcissistic ideologue would expect to convince anybody besides his own shrinking base that his opponents should throw over our strongly held views about Voter ID and other dumb policies, accepting Walker's nasty, uncompromising approach to politics while abandoning our principles and beliefs.
Such imperiousness from the man who has moved on from his past frequent use of the grammatical "royal we" to first-person singular. Everything about Walker is first person. He is I, Walker. And ironically, it's true. The armies of opinion are not on his side, only for now the power. And so he sheds language that implies a following and talks as if he is on his own, as if he is the state. Well, he along with the millions of dollars in campaign money he's collected on his coast-to-coast begging tour.
It's true: We no longer have a representative government with a bicameral legislature, an independent judiciary and an executive branch. Nope. Instead, we got ourselves a strongman. Or, more accurately an increasingly embattled, cornered, political figure whose apparent strength is really only him remaining head-strong.
The last time we saw a political implosion like this, Richard Nixon insisted he was not a crook. Walker insists his integrity remains intact. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Hat tip to Vichy Water for the photoillustration used here. See his excellent blog at: