This week’s holiday mandates giving thanks. For many Americans, that is complicated by the harsh years since 2008.

There’s the bitterness of lost jobs, foreclosed homes and diminished opportunity. There’s the resentment over bailing out Wall Street, then watching banksters grant themselves sensational bonuses while denying Main Street loans to save businesses. There’s the fear generated by county club conservatives demanding draconian cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

It’s hard to muster gratitude while suffering, to feel appreciative while dreading a meaner future.

Dayen gives his assessment of yesterday’s election results. Election Day 2011 is over, and the victories for Democrats – and more accurately, for liberal values – across the country largely shared a characteristic – they were successful defensive actions to stave off extremely draconian conservative objectives.

So, last night: 1. The “unholy alliance” of dirty fucking hippies unions and the middle class sent Pundit/Governor John Kasich down to crushing defeat in Ohio…overwhelmingly. “It’s clear the people have spoken,” the humbled Republican leader said from the Statehouse… ” And as a result of that, it requires me to take a deep breath [...]

Mitt Romney, recognizing that he stepped in it by refusing to endorse an anti-union ballot measure in Ohio while standing in the Republican Party HQ, where they were phone banking on that ballot measure, reversed course today, and desperately tried to associate himself with the initiative, which is doomed to go down to defeat in two weeks time.

The Ohio campaign to defeat SB5, the anti-union bill, has really ramped up over the past couple weeks. And it turns out that when both sides get to make their arguments, the state of Ohio dislikes the stripping of collective bargaining rights and the right to strike, according to the latest polling.

Their irresponsible position is that corporations and billionaires should not have to share the sacrifices needed to keep our economy on track for recovery. That is why they vehemently oppose efforts to cut corporate welfare and to eliminate subsidies for the oil companies. Unlike most Americans, who believe we should pull together to find real solutions, these politicians are intent on dividing Americans by destroying programs that have broad public support. At the same time, they have done all in their power to create instability in the economy and put more Americans out of work.

Across the country, politicians have been selling off public assets to private businesses in exchange for hefty campaign contributions and sweetheart deals. The politicians claim they are saving tax dollars, but when the real costs are examined, it’s only the corporations – who back them financially at election time – who are making a financial killing on the deals. This kind of corrupt pay-back to wealthy corporate-CEOs has produced numerous disasters for taxpayers, who end up paying more in the long run.

The bad economy, Democrats’ terrible political handling of health care reform and an unusually high number of positions up for election allowed a wave of Republican governors to be swept into office across the country last year. Yet this wave of success, and the poor economy which enabled it, could become a real political headache for the GOP in 2012 as the try to take the White House.

Earlier this year, Republicans in Ohio pushed through SB 5, which would extremely limit public sector unions’ collective bargaining rights, effectively crippling public labor unions in the state. Ohio unions have been gathering signatures to put the law to a public referendum this November, and a recent poll by Quinnipiac shows that if they manage to get the issue on the ballot, it will likely be repealed.

Societies collapse suddenly. Maybe the hyper-rich can find one of their trained seal economists to prove they don’t.