I threw up my hands in disgust and turned off last Sunday’s 60 Minutes when I watched the segment called “The Broken Senate.” Like almost every other news source, the oft-revered 60 Minutes failed Americans. It pretended that the “deadlock, dysfunction and political gamesmanship” that Steve Kroft described was on both sides, Republican and Democrat.

When I saw the mealy-mouthed, chinless Mitch McConnell appear like the reasonable Republican minority leader, right beside old Harry Reid, I wanted to throw up. Steve Kroft led up to that interview by speaking with Olympia Snowe, the so-called moderate Republican who is retiring, and Evan Bayh, the moderate Democrat, also retiring. Like a clueless sophomore, Steve asked both the question, “Why can’t you [two parties] get together?” Disingenuously, Steve Kroft interviewed Senator Tom Coburn, calling him a compromiser, when two months ago, Coburn joined all other Republicans in voting down a $1 billion Senate Veteran’s Jobs Bill.

Anyone who pays attention knows that it is a unified policy — actually stated – of  Republicans:  obstructing all progressive legislation. Mitch McConnell was quoted as actually saying, “My number one priority is to make Obama a one-term president.” John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House, trumped McConnell by outright rejecting “compromise.”

Such continuing scams by the media lead millions of Americans to vote for a soul-less serial liar and cheat like Mitt Romney, and possibly re-elect feckless, demagogic Tea Party figures like Alan West in Florida. This equivocation by media allows the same obstructionism to continue. It has even been suggested by the Des Moines Register that its endorsing Romney could end Republican obstructionism.

If Republicans dominate all branches of government, they could get their radical program against the middle class through and devastate the fragility of democracy in our country. That distinct possibility eroded at this hour when Obama achieved enough electoral votes. It is potentially the same deadlock we had before with a few more Democrats in the Senate.

Allowing this to continue will have consequences for our nation. It encourages Republicans to continue the common practice of obstructing and lying, while dominating the media story. It frustrates progressive Democrats to the point of criticizing their president and lending him lukewarm support. It makes too many in the middle class livid about the very rich not paying their fair share in taxes and defrauding them on Wall Street and the market place. Sabotaging fairness in government is the ultimate goal of these Republicans, remember.

If the voter is not informed or too busy making a living in a society dominated by plutocrats, voters often cast votes against their own interests. Meanwhile Republicans lie; Fox News distorts and demonizes Obama; the media equivocates and in the meantime corporate America picks our bones clean. In such a world, why wouldn’t middle class America not know which side will provide them relief. Republicans will again block all progress. Will Democrats again lack the courage to go after them.

The past 2012 campaign illustrated the problem. Media coverage had a relentless focus on campaign trivia, not life-or-death issues like climate change, immigration, poverty, jobs, or even Republican obstruction of investment spending on education and infrastructure. Then there was the inability of mainstream reporters to admit to and account for the radicalization of the Republican Party.

The ultimate slap in the face of all thinking Americans, though, was the treatment of deliberate lies by all Republicans, especially Romney and Ryan, to be treated as legitimate positions from which Obama and Democrats need to defend themselves. Even the disclosure by Candy Crowley that Obama called the attack on Benghazi “an act of terror” in the beginning, dispelled a ridiculously trivial point made by Romney.

Will all this continue and will we allow it to? After all, we know the scam already.

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