I’m in despair! The results of Tuesday’s elections have left me in despair!
... Okay, despair over. Time to get back to work.
The 2012 elections have already started, and we are on the defensive. There are a number of reasons how we got here, but they aren’t nearly as important as what we will do about it. We need a plan, we need to draw battle lines, and we need to fight.
First, and most unlikely, is the lame duck session. This is the only time in the next two years Democrats will have a majority in the House and 59 votes in the Senate. Therefore this is the only time to get anything remotely progressive done. Call and email Pelosi and Reid, call your representative, even if they got defeated. Hell, especially if they got defeated. Tell them to get shit done, shit that should have gotten done months ago. Repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, because it’s the only bone gays will get thrown (no pun intended [okay, maybe a little]) in the next two years. Tack on amendments for renewable energy, unemployment benefits, anything else you don’t expect to get after January. Extend the tax cuts for those making under $250,000 a year. Let’s see if the Republicans want the first action of the new Congress to be tax cuts for the rich. Use tricks and parliamentary maneuvers, use reconciliation. Republicans will bitch, but until January they’re still the minority. Hell hath no fury like a Democrat with nothing to lose. Obama might waver, but this is the guy who said he was willing to be a one term president over health care reform. I don’t think he’ll veto anything that comes up, since he will get no other chance to please the base in the next two years. But if he doesn’t care about pleasing his base...
Second, we must become the message machine. A lot has been made of the Democratic message failure of the past two years, and rightly so. They overcame the hardest message of all by getting a black man named Barack Hussein Obama running for President of the United States. But since then they’ve rolled over in the face of refutable, ridiculous, and sometimes deliberately false claims. Death panels, tax cuts, "a center-right nation," nonsense like that. Republican success did not come because they defeated liberalism or affirmed conservativism or tacked to the center. They got it from a well-crafted media message, making the Sunday rounds speaking with one voice, harnessing the mood of the people. They turned unrest into a wave, made opposition into a party platform, and won five dozen seats despite being less popular with the public. If Democrats media message, if they have one, sucks. There’s no united voice, no talking points memo full of punchy phrases that stick in peoples’ minds. Democrats earned the ire of voters because not only did they fail to sell their plans to the voters, they ran from those plans when they were attacked. I’m from Virginia, where Glenn Nye (VA-02) ran away from Democrats about as hard as he could and Tom Perriello stuck by his tough vote and said "here’s what it did for you." Nye lost by about 10 points, Perriello lost by about 2. Voters reward unpopular principled stands over cowardly politicking any day.
But listen to the way Democrats are talking now. It’s like they lost the House, Senate, the Presidency, and somebody ran over their dog. Was Clinton this conciliatory? Hell, was Bush this conciliatory? Clearly it is incumbent upon us the fight the fight, to carry the water. Yes, a lot of you are sick of it. But at least before you were getting water. Under Republicans you’ll be getting fetid, stagnant swamp muck. And you won’t get a bucket to carry it in. They’re in charge now, but don’t despair over this. Relish it. I know that as a community we don’t agree on every issue. But I think we all hold a common dislike and distrust of Republicans. Their holding the majority means they have to convince us shit is gold. Our job, then, is to expose feces for feces. Every lie, every hypocrisy, every distortion must be brought to light. Posting it here is preaching to the choir, so branch out. Bring it to the attention of as many folks as possible. Most of us don’t have national televised media access, so we will have to work with what we’ve got. Facebook, internet forums, contacting elected officials, letters to newspapers, local media, Twitter, friends, family, coworkers. It may be tiring, it may alienate some people, but it is necessary. And if everybody does a little, it adds up to a lot. We can either do it ourselves, or wait and hope the Democrats learn to do it themselves. After all, it only took them how long to realize Republicans were making war against them?
So take some more time if you need it. Squabble and spread blame. Express disbelief. Gloat about how you told them this would happen. Post cute animal pictures. Talk about where we went wrong. But don’t forget how important it is to make it right.
(By the by, I'd love to stick around a chat but I gotta go play Dungeons & Dragons. Did I mention I'm a nerd?)