Learning to be the Loyal Opposition

Excellent post by Ed Morrissey at Hotair.com.

If one participates in politics long enough, disappointment is inevitable. Great issues and dangerous times are always present, and elections and their results always matter. By no means do I want to minimize the importance of elections, but the truth is that people make choices with which we don’t always agree, for reasons we don’t usually like. In a democracy, we have to accept that as reality, and transition to other efforts that impact policy decisions until another election comes along.

Sometimes that transition is hard to make. A few people never made that transition after the 2000 election, for instance. It takes more than a few hours, or a few days. But eventually, if we value democracy, we have to accept the legitimacy of those elections we lose. Without that commitment, we can’t support democracy at all.

We now have to adjust to the fact that Republicans no longer control any of the elective parts of the federal government. We’re now the opposition party in the House, Senate, and the White House simultaneously for the same time since the 1994 elections. How we handle that role will help determine how long we have to remain in the wilderness, and how long it will take to rebuild our credibility.

I strongly reccomend a click-through to read the whole post here.