Midterms!

No, not the tests.

The midterm elections are tomorrow, and with a baffling amount of people telling me they have no clue why they're important, I'm going to use this opportunity to explain why.

First off, a government is only effective if its members can all agree on what to do. In our case, if they don't agree, it's essentially impossible for any form of legislation to conceivably pass with a president and a Congress that can't agree on what flavor of ice cream is their favorite. A Democratic president requires a Democratic Congress, and a Republican president requires a Republic Congress. Otherwise, the president won't approve of Congress's policies, and vice versa. At this point you end up with a stagnant political atmosphere that is perpetually at a standstill. It's a battle between Congress, shooting down what the president proposes and bashing him left and right in the media, and the president refusing to pass what Congress approves. Nothing gets done, similar to Woodrow Wilson's last two years as president (Congress turned Republican halfway through is term and blocked the US's entry into the League of Nations). However, if both parties agree, everything runs smoothly. For the most part, anyway.

Now, with 37 seats up for election in the Senate and all 435 in the House, it's possible for the Democrats to lose their majority rule in Congress and be replaced by those dreaded Republicans (is the bias here obvious yet?). If this happens, we get that stagnant government I mentioned. On the other hand, if the Democrats stay in power, all of Obama's changes, including health care reform, will continue to be put in place instead of being repealed under Republicans.

On a somewhat less important note, if the Republicans gain power in Congress—more specifically the Tea Party members—then the far-left liberals like myself are likely to shoot someone. Probably ourselves. It's preferable to someone like Christine O'Donnell being in charge of this country. As was said in Religulous, clearly you don't need to pass an IQ test to be in Congress...