Us against them (rant/draft)

Frustrated with current events but I only have half an idea here. This blog has been more cartoonist than political lately or I wouldn't even post it:

There are two disturbing possibilities about the recent vote on Defense Authorization Act. If you are not familiar, this is the law that takes away "innocent until proven guilty" if you are an American citizen accused of terrorism. Many Democrats like my own Senator Claire McCaskill voted for it though it seems exactly the kind of thing she  would have been critical of if Bush was in office... anyways two disturbing possibilities for why Democrats voted for it:

1. That Senate Democrats will vote for anything to keep from looking weak.
It goes something like this "I know Obama will veto it. So it's okay that I vote for something horrible that will make me look strong on national defense."
The flaw in this thinking is that somehow being a weak coward will make you look strong. The problem is that support for it gives it momentum. If the bill gets enough momentum it could either accidentally become veto proof (super majority) or the bill become misinterpreted as popular and dissolves the will of The President.

2. It isn't one side of the aisle against the other- it's us against them.
If the Democrats in the senate are not really bad at strategy. Then it means that they are not actually worried that a Republican will come in next fall (or later) and abuse the law. They say they are worried about this scenario, but we can not assume this is true by their actions.
It is hard to believe any adult would gamble that one party or another will stay in power for a significant amount of time. Even with the lackluster selection of Republican candidates, Obama is far from unbeatable. Between the weak economy and the ability of unflattering information going viral-
 polls are extremely volatile.
We are being told by both sides that the other side is going ruin this country. If they really believed that why would they pass laws to make it easier to ruin the country, when they know the elections could go either way?  The answer is that they are liars. Either the feud is a fraud and they know that things will not change much based on election results, or the concern is just a way to coerce. The latter means that they know how much damage can be done, but are betting that they are immune to it and screw the rest of us.

Okay it's not that I entirely believe that these are the only two explanations but when the Senate is passing resolutions to congratulate the Cardinals for winning the world series- WTF? I don't even understand why they are bothering with this right now. Are we that worried that a potential terrorist will get a fair trial? Do they have secret information they can't share with us? Or is this an existential threat like the extraterrestrial exposure law (a flawed comparison but I'm going with it anyway).