… you could be a Republican.

For all of our ranting and raving about our erstwhile Dems and our infighting over our choice of candidates, it could be worse – a lot worse.

Imagine being a Republican these days; imagine what a dark world that is to live in.

Imagine living in fear, all of the time. Your president, who you still support and whose every word you trust, keeps reminding you that terrorists are just waiting for a chance to attack your country and destroy you. You try to ignore that uneasy feeling when you read about intelligence reports confirming that the number of terrorists has increased since the invasion of Iraq. You try to ignore the fact that Al Qeada has actually grown stronger, that our own borders are totally insecure, that the vast majority of the cargo that enters the country goes uninspected – cargo that could contain that dirty bomb or that biological weapon you’ve been taught to lose sleep over, night after night.

Imagine supporting the War in Iraq, and endlessly posting on websites to praise the Noble Cause. But in the back of your mind, there’s that niggling thought that keeps popping up: the fact that you are able-bodied and of military age, but you haven’t signed-up for the fight yourself. You try to counter it with that well-rehearsed litany of excuses as to why you can’t enlist, but they wear a little thinner every time you conjure them up.

Imagine trying to restrict your information-gathering to FOX-News and Limbaugh, but every once in a while, a fact or two gets through from other sources. And then you can’t help but notice things: like the fact that your fellow Bush-supporters have been steadily jumping ship, driving his approval numbers lower and lower; like the fact that just a few years ago, the country was divided equally between the parties, and now there are far more voters identifying themselves as Democrats than Republicans.

Imagine that you supported Bush from the beginning, because he was an honest man who cared about the country and its citizens, a man of his word. But then you catch some footage of NOLA in the aftermath of Katrina, and you can’t help but remember how your president ignored the warnings, ignored the people stranded without food or water. You can’t shake that memory of his grandiose speeches after the fact, and the promises he made to rebuild – promises that were never kept.

Imagine hearing about executive privilege being claimed over a list of items that gets bigger every day. You hear about WH insiders who agree to speak to Congress, but only on the condition that they not be placed under oath, and no record be kept of what they say. For all of your efforts, it gets a little harder to dismiss that gnawing feeling in your gut that maybe the Administration you have supported so wholeheartedly isn’t quite as honest as you thought, that maybe they have something to hide.

Imagine trying to stay optimistic about your party keeping the White House in 2008, when you look at the candidates you have to choose from.

Imagine being secure in the knowledge that McCain’s position on staying the course in Iraq would speed him to the top of the heap, and then watching his campaign crash and burn because the support for this war actually is waning, and the polls showing that – the ones you dismissed as leftist propaganda – are actually accurate after all.

Imagine pinning your hopes on Rudy Giuliani, cheering him as he bragged about having spent more time working at Ground Zero than the crews who actually operated there – only to find out he’d spent only a few hours there per month, those hours being restricted to PR and photo-ops.

Imagine looking to Mitt Romney as your political savior, all the while trying not to think about that Fundie base your party depends on being comprised of voters who consider Mormonism an anti-Christian cult.

Imagine dreaming about Fred Thompson, the Great White Hope, getting into the race at the last minute – again refusing to acknowledge that those Fundies might not take too kindly to a man married to a woman who could be his daughter, a man who once lobbied on behalf of pro-choice, a man who abandoned politics years ago to become an actor – you know, one of those Liberal Hollywood types.

Imagine it all, and how lonely that place must be. Imagine having to remind yourself, day in and day out, that using torture is consistent with Christian behavior, that the escalating casualties in Iraq are a good sign, that the climbing national debt won’t impact the country’s economy, now or ever.

Imagine the effort it takes to convince yourself that you will never be the one whose job is outsourced, whose insurance company will deny coverage when you need expensive surgery, whose child won’t die in combat due to not having sufficient body armor, whose relative won’t die crossing a crumbling bridge that wasn’t maintained because the necessary funds were spent in Iraq rather than at home.

Imagine the fortitude necessary to keep looking the other way as billions of dollars go missing in the fog of war, as the corporations that are making record profits keep raking in your hard-earned tax dollars in the form of government subsidies, as our nation’s standing in terms of healthcare and education keeps slipping, year after year.

Imagine never watching TV without the remote in-hand so you can quickly change the channel before you see your beloved president making a fool of himself with yet another inane, nonsensical remark, before your eyes can register the pictures of the destruction in Iraq, before your mind can take in the widening difference between what is glaringly real and what you are being told is reality.

We can argue amongst ourselves about the course the next Democratic president should take. We can vehemently defend or promote our choice of candidate – and we have many fine ones to choose from. We can complain when our representatives fail us, when their actions disappoint, when they compromise when we think they should have stood their ground, when they fight when we think they should have sought compromise.

But things COULD be worse: we could be spending our time pretending we are right, instead of being on the side of what is right.

We could be living in that darkened place where one’s eyes and ears must be closed in order to maintain belief in one’s party, where intellect must be abandoned in order to believe anything one is told by one’s most glorified idols.

At times, we may think we have it tough. The truth is we don’t know what tough is compared to people who have to spend every waking moment trying to hold on to the fantasy world their politicians have built and demanded they live in – the one that is now crumbling beneath their feet.