I wouldn't have, and neither would have a lot of people like me. People who are about 24, who knocked on doors and made calls in 2009 not for an adrenaline rush or to fight the big bad republicans, but to elect leaders who would enact universal health care, raise taxes on the wealthy, destroy insurance companies to the greatest extent possible. And us sort of people, we're not stupid. We're not smart either, but we sure as fuck aren't as stupid as we'd have to be to believe that the democrats actually have our interests in mind, or that the republicans are genuinely worse.
And that's the main thing. That's the main part is that we've thought the republicans were worse because they were owned by all the corporations, they were fighting abortion rights, they were set against GLBT rights and protections, etc etc etc, but now we realize that this was not a function of their being republicans so much as their being in power. Because not smart but not stupid kids like me, we weren't paying much attention under clinton. We were in elementary school. We were in 8th grade when the supreme court gave Bush the presidency, and we thought, "Oh good, we have a president," because it had been two months or so and we'd not known who it would be. This is our first big chance to see what a democrat run USA looks like.
We started paying attention under the corrupt republicans. Now we see that this corruption is a quality of the party in power, not the republicans. And we especially recognize that our actions have so little actual impact on what the corporations decide to do, that we can do as much to effect the legislation of this country by reading a book and taking a nap as making phone calls to Massachusetts. And that's what I did today, I read a book, and then I took a nap.
The solution to this issue is not to attempt to trick us not smart but not stupid kids into being really really fucking stupid and thinking we can make a difference. The solution is for the democrats to show that they are willing to sacrifice everything to pass the agenda they were elected for, that they are willing to fight for us when we fight for them.
The dems have seen how well the right has been able to manipulate the religious right to vote republican (out of fear of the godless left) while the right never had to so much as throw the religious right a fucking bone for their vote, and now they are hoping to use us in a similar fashion. I think they'll find our response to be a pretty nonchalant fuck you. We're just not smart or stupid enough to be as afraid as they'd need us to be. We're not the fucking religious right.
It's the dems choice. They can lose every close race in 2010, and more than that, they can write off our generation as another (like X ers) jaded, cynical, non voting one, or they can prove themselves to be willing to act responsibly while in power, which is to say, to make decisions, to pass legislation, to risk pissing people off, to tell the republicans to go to hell when hell is where they belong. Of course they won't do that, I mean, realistically. They could. It's really their call.