I feel like I can’t write anything here until I say something about the stupid Massachusetts election, and I want to write something else here, so here goes. I was angry and frustrated about the result of the election, but not furious or despondent. The things likely to drive me to fury and/or despondence are:

1) The remarkable possibility that the House would not go ahead and vote for the Senate health bill, but would allow the work of the past year — and the enormous opportunity cost associated with it! — to amount to nothing. Of all the cowardly, chickenshit reactions. Republicans were taken behind the woodshed in November of 2008, and did they respond by backing down one bit? Did they retreat in the least from their policy commitments? And the Dems have the notable moral advantage here of having crafted a bill that would actually save lives.

2) The fact that everyone who matters appears ready to agree that control of the White House and sizable majorities in both houses of Congress nonetheless mean that nothing more of note can be accomplished by the governing party, since they’re now one seat short of 60 in the Senate. Which has 100 members. If this majority can’t accomplish anything, then America will basically never accomplish anything of note, ever again, unless some drastic and immediate catastrophe looms. A country that finds itself in that position can’t last long.

Unfortunately, I’m a committed Democrat itinerant wandering between the deep blue and disenfranchised District and the deep blue and swamped by the rest of Virginia Arlington. I don’t exactly have a lot of leverage. But if the two things above happen, I might sever ties with the Dems. Why not? My Democratic votes will have gotten me more or less nothing — certainly not the desperately needed action on crucial issues like rising health expenses, climate change, and joblessness. It couldn’t matter less if I spent the rest of my life registered Green, writing in Al Gore for every position from alderman to president. I’m at the point where if no one is interested in earning my vote, then I’ll be damned if I’ll give it away.