November 11, 2014

  • We Need A Spiritual Awakening!

                You can’t deny it, Election Night 2014 was brutal. That is, if you’re not a Republican, or – more importantly – a member of the increasingly-powerful oligarchy. So, what the hell happened? Why did the Democrats fail so badly, even beating the expectations of pollsters as to the degree of same said failure?

     

    The finger-pointing and hand-wringing has already commenced, but this moment of reflecting on how we in the left dropped the ball won’t have much time to be resolved before the 2016 campaign gets started early next year. That’s right; the time has come for yet another two year-long slugfest to determine which pet of the powerful elites deserves to take the presidential oath. No, I’m not ecstatic about Hillary Clinton’s widely-expected second bid for the White House. Reason being, that she – while being incredibly qualified for the job – is most certainly not going to face a tough primary battle for the Democratic nomination.

     

    Though the word “democracy” inspires the name of the left’s supposed mainstream party, our presumptive 2016 nominee is on track to be effectively coronated in an undemocratic process aided by a party desperate to seize another historic opportunity and a media complicit in silencing any opposition for the sake of upholding their narrative that the next election is Hillary’s to lose. Honestly, President Obama’s 2012 nomination was equally undemocratic, but at least there is precedence in a party uniting behind a sitting president running for reelection. With 2016, we have no excuse for not demanding a fierce battle for the heart of our party by the “centrists” who’ve done a bang-up job of running the party since the late-1980s and the “base” which the party loves to “fire-up” when it’s election time only to stab us in the back, shoot us in the face, and then subsequently throw us under the proverbial bus when the time comes to govern.

     

    Every successive campaign over the past twenty to thirty years has featured this same disheartening pattern. As the Democratic Party has been scrambling to avoid an electoral beat down such as what they endured with Ronald Reagan’s reelection in 1984, and then with George H.W. Bush’s election in 1988, the liberal base has been regarded as little more than useful blindly-supportive idiots by the only party we have as a viable option in our rigged two-party system. Yes, we successfully elected President Clinton - twice -, who presided over the longest ever peacetime expansion of our economy, but it’s worth noting that that same President exacerbated outsourcing and the destruction of our Middle Class by pushing for and securing NAFTA. Also, we must remember that President Clinton triggered the countdown to the 2008 economic collapse by decimating – via the repeal of Glass-Steagall - the depression-era safeguards put in place to protect the people from the abusive practices of banksters.

     

    Sadly, there’s more to the war waged by centrist Democrats on the base under President Clinton. From the “tough on crime” standard of “three strikes, you’re out” to the poor-punishing, much-praised “welfare reform”, our then-Democratic President took it upon himself to steamroll over the interests of those most politically loyal to him and his party so as to add another “accomplishment” to his legacy. If you think that President Obama has done better, then you are sadly mistaken. Actually, he’s done more to shift the party further right on economics than his Democratic predecessor could’ve ever dreamed of doing.

     

    When campaigning for office, President Obama – as every politician does – made a series of promises to the base that he apparently had no intention of keeping. Among those promises was that he would support the Employee Free Choice Act – which would have made it easier and less risky for laborers to form a union -, and he allowed the bill to die; despite having overwhelming Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress and the power of what Teddy Roosevelt called the “Bully Pulpit”. Don’t get me started, yet again, on his weak-kneed, centrist approaches to stimulating the economy, reforming Wall Street, and in addressing healthcare. All of that, I’ll remind you, President Obama and the Democrats did in spite of what the base supported even though they had COMPLETE control of the Federal Government!

     

    Then, they wondered why the Republican Teabagger wave of 2010 came. What’s sad is that the data was clear, right in front of the party leaders’ eyes. The Democrats lost so badly because voter enthusiasm was sorely lacking on the leftwing while the rightwing was energized. It wasn’t just that the Republicans won largely thanks to lower voter turnout, but that our voters didn’t turn out because they were disenchanted by the party which didn’t turn out for them when it counted. You would think that the “shellacking”, as the President called it on the night after, would’ve serve as a wake-up call. I will hold on a second until you stop yourself from laughing…

     

    No, what happened instead was that the 2012 election gave us Democrats a false sense of encouragement. We had concluded that our gains in both congressional chambers that year, and the mini-landslide victory for President Obama that year were both endorsements of our half-assed principles and a nationwide rejection of the Republican brand. It gave us comfort that we had successfully tarnished Mitt Romney as an elitist robotic tool serving the corporations and that we had painted the entire Republican Party as being anti-women. To us, it became a sufficient electoral strategy to point our fingers at the other side and remind the voters about how bad the Repugs were as opposed to promoting what’s good about us.

     

    After the shutdown last fall, we were emboldened in this conclusion as the polls showed that the public was turning against the Republicans for their reckless disregard of the people’s well-being. It apparently never occurred to the people running the DNC, the DSCC, the DCCC, or any of the state parties that the people have a terrible case of political amnesia for anything which happens in government more than a few weeks ago. The Democrats were dependent on a fantasy that the electorate would remain angry enough at the Republicans that they would forget about the Democrats doing – or at least saying - NOTHING to earn their votes. Sure, there was a brief rumble about raising the minimum wage to a pitiful $10.10 an hour, but that never gained traction or took center stage in the campaigns of Democrats running for office in competitive races this year.

     

    What the Democrats did this year was rely on the 2012 strategy which they had mistakenly interpreted as successful. You see, the Republicans lost so badly in 2012 for a number of reasons, but it was mostly due to a difference in the electorate as well as a handful of unelectable candidates nominated by the GOP. Democrats didn’t beat the Republicans in 2012, the Republicans beat themselves by repulsing a demographic which slightly favors the Democrats, but which also only turns out every four years. In the midterms this year, which reportedly had the lowest turnout in seven decades, the voters who showed up chose to give Republicans control of the Senate despite the attempts by Democrats to reuse the strategy of demonizing the Republicans without offering an inspiring alternative message.

     

    Interestingly, the election results - which not only gave the Republicans control of the Senate, but 249 seats in the House, 30 governorships, and a record number state legislatures – were NOT a rejection of liberal philosophy. Quite the contrary, it appears as though the electorate – either by how they voted, or by their decision not to vote – was rejecting the absence of a genuine liberal counterpunch. How do I – and others who love to analyze politics – draw this conclusion? By examining how the electorate voted via direct democracy, primarily in “RED” states.

     

    Let this sink in for a second: not a single liberal proposal which came up for a vote on Election Day 2014 by the people was defeated! Marijuana was legalized in Alaska, Oregon, and WashingtonD.C., the minimum wage was increased in numerous areas, and paid sick leave was passed as well. We shouldn’t overlook these “silver linings”, because they actually hold the key to the Democratic Party not only bouncing back from this year’s resounding defeat, but dominating our political system for a generation…or more. The combination of the election results, the dismal statistics pertinent to turnout, and the added fact that liberal measures passed relatively easily given what was happening elsewhere on the ballot all present a helpful caveat for Democrats: WAKE UP!!!

     

    Whether or not the people want to say it aloud - especially to a pollster -, they are far more liberal than what they realize.  There is a hidden liberal spirit within the American people. They collectively love, yes LOVE, liberalism and everything that it has done for them. Not one of them would seriously like to live in an America without Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, minimum wage, weekends, overtime pay, protections against discrimination in the workplace or in our democracy, safety regulations, family and medical leave, or even things as simple as having a decent and modernized infrastructure. These people are dying for the Democrats to re-grow their spine; which only existed when the party wasn’t going out of its way to silence the liberal base. If we fight for the vote, we will win, and we will win BIG!

     

    Tonight’s Conclusion

     

    I hate losing, but losing is sometimes a necessary evil to gain some perspective. This needs to be the moment that Democrats realize that our three decade experiment with centrist politics has done nothing more than assist the Republican agenda and demoralize our voters. No, I’m not advocating that we follow the Republicans’ lead in becoming so extreme that we forget the importance of compromise; a vital component to making democracy function. Rather, I’m merely saying that we hold off on compromising our positions until such has become unavoidable AFTER we’ve taken our case to the electorate and – if divided government remains the choice of the people - have forced the other side to show a good faith effort to budge to the same degree.

     

    When we finally see that there is much to be proud of in calling ourselves Democrats, the people will respect us and WANT us to be in office, instead of just holding their noses whilst choosing us as the lesser of two evils. As you can plainly see from last Tuesday’s Election, the latter option just isn’t working for us.

     

    Until next time…

     

    TAKE CARE

Comments (1)

  • You're one sick puppy that's for sure! Name me one dam thing Obama has done that's positive for this Country. How could you possibily be proud of folks like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid (and don't talk about bipartnership as long as he's alive), Dianne Feinstein, releasing the CIA interroration report, so our enemies will know what we do to get information from those captured. About the only thing I enjoyed reading some of your drivel was the part about Obama doesn't have a clue what he's doing in the Middle East at this juncture! Did it ever strike you around the side of the head, that maybe that's on purpose? Obama is a dam Muslim, get that through your head. Why did he give all that money to the Muslim Brotherhood, all those tanks and planes, etc? What he didn't expect is they'd get ran outta office. I will return, can't stand this silliness!

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