The past few diaries I have written here have been received with serious criticism and a lot of personal attacks in the comments. This was because they were intended (and received) as challenges to the central ideology that is seen on this site. So I want to lay out my reasons for writing diaries that do not fit in the mainstream of the Democratic Party or this community. I'm not averse to criticism, and writing that falls outside the confines of party discourse is obviously subject to it, so I'm not complaining here, just arguing for a different approach for this site and Democrats in general.
The Work Isn't Over.
Read it again. Digest that statement. I know there is great euphoria over electing Barack Obama and enlarging our majorities in Congress, and well there should be. Obama's ascension to the presidency is a monumental achievement, and if you are still enjoying that, more power to you. I respect that, but for me, I cant really sit still. We have won a major victory, and that's huge, that's awesome, but there's more to do. My vision for the role of the progressive netroots may be different than yours, but I think there's value in having a debate and discussion on what we as a community should be doing now that a Democrat has won the White House and we have majorities in Congress.
This is something of a seminal moment for the netroots, because we haven't been here before. This site was born during Bush's rein and is experiencing it's first really significant political sea change. What do we do?
My own experience in politics sort of follows the trajectory of the netroots. I came of age politically and starting paying attention to political news during Bill Clinton's impeachment trial. Being raised in a staunchly Democrat family and, geographically speaking, a very liberal area, I assumed the orthodoxy of the party during the late 90's, leading up to the 2000 election. The talk that I remember hearing was that the choice was between bad and worse. My feeling at the time (as a 12-year-old) was that Al Gore was not very popular, or at least his supporters were not overly enthusiastic. In retrospect, obviously, the choice was between catastrophic disaster and someone in Al Gore who probably would have been a capable President, but I digress.
From Bush's election in 2000 until Obama's victory two weeks ago, I have lived and breathed opposition politics. I knew nothing else. In 2006, my first voting experience, I volunteered for weeks on the closest congressional election in the country (an 83-vote victory for the Democrat), and I was inspired by the political process for the first time in my relatively short political awareness. If you remember the 2006 midterms on this site, that roughly traces my own emotional trajectory--euphoria at regaining majorities in both houses, followed fairly quickly by disappointment at the lack of noticeable progress enacted in the early days of the 110th Congress.
This story is intended to make a point, and that is that we can never rest on our laurels. My own politics place me out on the left of President-elect Obama on many issues, but on others we have similar views, and I might be more conservative than he is on certain other issues. My political activism, which has included working to elect Democrats as well as protesting war in Iraq and pushing for education reform, is focused on seeing the realization of the progressive worldview; electing Democrats, for me, is more or less a means to an end, and not an end in and of itself. You might disagree, but I think people generally get involved in politics at the grass/net-roots level in order to see change enacted, not just to see the (D) next to a particular elected officials name.
So we must not let this moment pass, this moment when although we may think we have reached the mountaintop, we have only arrived at a plateau, with a great deal of climbing left. We still do not have universal health care; we are mired in two wars in the Middle East, there is growing economic chaos in our country and around the world, and the world looks to us for leadership looking forward to the next 8 years. Barack Obama is likely capable of enacting a lot of the change we seek without our help and insistence; but single-payer health care will not become a reality without activism in the netroots and on the ground.
So get active and stay active. Don't shout down those who disagree with you on the need for change simply because you think we're done--we are not. There is work left to be done, there is change we must still push for, and I want you all to be there for the effort. We have won a victory in the election of Obama, no doubt, but it isn't enough, and in reality it can never be enough.