You Say You Want a Revolution? Well...

Michelle Bachman, Republican representative from part of Minnesota, has made herself well known in the past year. Her comments that then Senator Obama was un-American and a call to investigate the true patriotism of other legislators nearly lost her a re-election bid. She was at it again last week.

Appearing on radio with conservative commentator Sean Hannity she called for a revolution. She called for people to rise up in arms against the socialist agenda of the Obama administration. She even quoted Thomas Jefferson that every nation needs a periodic revolution to keep things going right.

Perhaps because I am also reading the book Nixonland, a review of the 60s political shifts, Bachman’s quote took me back those 40 years. First was her call for revolution. But even more reminiscent was the quoting of Jefferson. She actually sounded a great deal like those leftists of the 60s, right down to the Jefferson quote. That in itself was an eye-opener. Who would have ever expected to hear such left-wing rhetoric from such a right-wing conservative?

But even more surprising were the following thoughts:

1. Her party/ideology has been out of power for less than three months. She has not been in the wilderness, fighting a long battle against these supposed forces of evil.
2. The people she is yelling against were freely and duly elected. Yes, I know that Hitler was freely and duly elected. Election does not guarantee the right person. But after only a few short months we cannot know what will happen.
3. But what most shocks me is that the American system does not work. The election system that elected her, the patriotic American system, has failed. She believes this because the other side won. Her side lost. The system only truly works when my side wins.

Scary. Truly scary.