Girls Gone Political!

A girl's gotta have her offline life, too, right?  And while lately I've been guilty of indulging of late in a little too much of things apolitical, it always helps to have an ear to the ground.  

My friends don't read Daily Kos.  They don't really understand why I went to Chicago for a political nerd convention" and they were really surprised when I told them we got profiled in LA CityBeat for this campaign we are working on down in CA-42 for Ron Shepston. And even though they love me, they don't listen to my Political Nexus radio shows.  

But you won't believe what I have been hearing. Because it sounds a lot more like drinking liberally than girls' night.

The mood in this country is changing: we all seem to know it and the dems' failure to realize the change has us beating our heads against a wall and calling them out.

Poll after poll shows that the American people will follow us--that they are looking for leadership and are finished with the status quo and more of the same. And they don't trust republicans further than they can throw them.

Yet even I was surprised how much had trickled through to the apolitical general public when some friends and I got together for Girls' Night.

As I said, many of my friends are not very political.  Actually, that's an understatement.  Some of my friends are not political at all. And yet on the same night I got the question, "what is a Democrat and what is a Republican?" (To be fair, definitions of both have gotten fairly schizophrenic over the last decade) I also got a bunch of comments that will blow your mind.  Literally, within 30 minutes the conversation had turned directly to politics--of a form that would make freepers' heads explode.  Here's some of what I heard from my apolitical friends that night:

9/11 was a conspiracy and there was a coverup.  The towers were blown. It was set up weeks in advance and there were tons of other explosions around the DC area that were never reported because they just threw everything at the wall to make it a big event.  One of the girls recommended In Plane Site and everyone said they would download it.  (One girl watched it at work the next morning).

The US is on a descent into Fascism, but you can never trust the government anyway, so just know it is bullshit and keep chugging along.  There was near universal agreement we were pretty much already there.

It is only a matter of time before our own government starts bombing American cities so they can blame it on an external enemy and solidify control at home.  The first 10 minutes of centered on 9/11, the Bush presidency and the corruption of our government.

And of course they had all heard of Larry Craig and his footsie in the bathroom and they all nodded knowingly about that repressed "moral" hypocrisy crowd.

I was shocked.  Not only were we talking politics, but this was the type of far out stuff that many of us do not believe belongs on the site and that would probably get you troll rated(and rightly so) for a bunch of fear mongering tinfoil-hat troll baiting.  And yet, here were my girls bringing it up and agreeing with each other about how bad it was.  But something else came up as well that was very telling: every single one of them brought up some version of the statement, "But the dems are no different and they will do nothing about it."

Senator Reid, I tried as best as I could to explain why you had caved on FISA and why you thought it was ok to make a deal on the last $200 billion Iraq supplemental.  And I told them about Daily Kos and the Netroots and what we are fighting for and how we are trying to take back the Democratic party from the inside out.  And that even if they weren't happy with Dems, even at their worst they are far less destructive than the Republicans. None of them had heard of the contract fleecing, in Iraq so I told them about the Rolling Stone article The Great Iraq Swindle. They all wanted a copy and made me promise to send it to them.

But they had a hard time believing that the Democratic party was going to do anything for them.  And while they won't vote for a Republican, they aren't motivated to vote for a Democrat either.

But while I will talk about politics and economics for hours, they had had enough after about 25 minutes.  As I launched into the subprime problem they decided it was just too depressing.

But it really stunned me that the topic came up and held sway for as long as it did, and that my friends were so decidedly negative on the current administration.  They may not have had the facts on Iraq spending and signing statements and they didn't once mention Alberto Gonzales, but their minds are made up when it comes to this administration and their opinions of the government.  The problem for us is, the jury is still out regarding whether Democrats will provide an answer.  And we must do the hard work of educating our friends and family on the details and facts behind what they sense on an emotional and intuitive level.

The next day one of the girls sent me an instant message to tell me she had watched In Plane Site.  Another friend sent out a YouTube video for everyone to watch about Larry Craig. I clicked the link--and it was none other than Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks.  My friends don't have any clue who he is, but with the new media, they are stumbling all over my political playground and they have no idea.  The general public is there, it is coming over to our side and they are even starting to play in our sandbox.  

Oh, and my other friend just had her baby. She sent me an email to tell announce his name is "Marcus."  It's a start...

•  tip jar

  we could be seeing a real breakthrough...

  by theKK on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 12:44:45 PM PDT

  •  Glad to hear it and I've been noticing the same

    thing.  People that don't pay attention, usually, or, at least, don't express an opinion are starting to make some very interesting remarks.  I work in a fairly conservative environment and the other day I made a remark overheard by a client.  I blushed and stammered, "I'm one of the angry left you hear about".  The woman nodded and said, "Is there any choice?"

    I was shocked and delighted

    by real world chick on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 12:50:32 PM PDT

    •  People really are beginning to sit up and take

      notice of the political things going down these days.  It's as if a pall has been lifted off the country and our citizens are waking up.  

      This is a very good thing.

      by funluvn1 on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 12:54:48 PM PDT

      •  And if you ever feel

        like you're experiencing Bush Rage Fatigue, just sit down and watch Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke. Guaranteed to stoke your outrage to a new level.

        by DJShay on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 01:09:28 PM PDT

    •  Yes ...

      Something is going on out there. The Ayn Rand type bullshit that the GOP benefited from for years is getting old, and people know it doesn't match what they see around them. There's definitely a latent progressive, waiting to be locked in.

      We do need to shoot down the black helicopters, though.

      by al Fubar on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 02:31:45 PM PDT

  •  the public is there, where is the party?

    Your friends, if they vote at all, will likely vote as independents...

    The independents are the ones who make the difference in national elections; In 2006, they broke almost 2-1 for Democrats.

    Yet Democrats have done nothing to reward those votes, or to give them a reason to vote Democratic again in 2008.

    It's no wonder your friends see no difference between the parties.

    by commonscribe on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 01:04:28 PM PDT

  •  I wonder

    what the best answer to this type of commentary is? On the one hand, you certainly don't want to sound like you're a personal press agent for a political party. (Nor do you want to be one.)

    And there are really two questions there:

    1. are Democrats and Republicans different?

    2. will Democrats function any differently than what we know Republicans will do?

    Unfortunately for us, that 2000-era Naderite argument is pretty easy to knock down.

    But the second question?  Hmmm.

    This some good Friday afternoon food for thought.

    by vernonlee on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 02:19:03 PM PDT

•  We really, really, really, ....

  Need a JKF to step forward.

  by egarratt on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 12:49:44 PM PDT

  •  Perhaps we already have one

    or two, even...

    by GTPinNJ on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 12:54:13 PM PDT

•  When you get Nancy Pelosi to...

  ...go out with your friends and get the conversation
  going in that direction, get back to us, please.

  by JeffW on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 12:51:42 PM PDT

•  Cue the Bob Dylan

   Come writers and critics
    who propesize with your pen

  And keep your eyes wide
   the chance won't come again.....

  For the times they are a changin'

  by Boxer7 on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 12:53:12 PM PDT

•  I talked to my Dad

  this morning and he is not usually vocal at all about politics. He definitely has opinions, but never really vocalizes them, so you never really know which way leans. Anyway, one of the first things he said to me this morning was, "Ya know, we need to start giving politicians memory tests before they can be sworn into office." Which floored me, because it's something he never really brings up. People are aware and fed up. We and our views are becoming mainstream.

  by DJShay on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 12:55:04 PM PDT

•  Speaking of 9/11 nuts,

  I was invited by a moderate-to-conservative friend to a rally of the following description (via Facebook):

  Join Students Defending Democracy, College Republicans, and thousands of DC area workers and residents in honoring those lost on 9/11/01.

  In 2005, Pentagon employees created The America Supports You Freedom Walk to commemorate the attack on the Pentagon and honor all lives lost on September 11. The National Freedom Walk will be held in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, September 9, 2007, at 9:00 a.m. It starts near the Lincoln Memorial and ends at the Pentagon. Following the walk there will be a rally with big name bands and other patriotic activities.

  The College Republicans and Students Defending Democracy will be meeting at 8AM in Kogan Plaza with free food and H2O before the walk. We will walk over towards the Lincoln Memorial as a group after a light breakfast.

  What the hell have Republicans done to honor their lost lives? Bin Laden's still at large; the Clinton administration captured the masterminds of WTC I and Oklahoma City in far less than 6 years with less allocated resources and with no idea at the time of the attack who was responsible (whereas anyone who'd been paying attention to the global situation, including 13-year old DemocraticLuntz right when he heard about it in Geometry class in 9th grade, knew it was Osama bin Laden who was likely responsible).

  Rudy of course specifically dishonored their lives with his numerous shenanigans.

  by DemocraticLuntz on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 12:56:12 PM PDT

•  This story worries me

  It's good that folks are getting riled up. But when they're also utterly ignorant they can easily be lead in any crazy direction. If your friends are typical, then America is primed for dictatorship, looking for a demagogue who offers scape goats and final solutions.

  It could happen here. Easily.

  by Nab on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 01:10:56 PM PDT

  •  Knock knock...

    ... too late.

    by Eddie Haskell on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 02:44:52 PM PDT

•  People aren't happy

  Some of my Republican friends are beyond fed up with this version of the party. They think the social issue card they play is a joke. They laugh when yet another Republican hypocrite is exposed. They think people should be left alone to run their own lives, which is what they say the party used to stand for--but no longer does.  

  Here's what I notice: "The Democrats are terrible" has become "Both parties are terrible."  Or, "I'm a Republican" has become "I'm an independent."  That doesn't seem like much, but it's a start.

  Some things never change, though.  They still don't trust the Democrats on security matters and will come out to vote against Hillary if she's the nominee, no matter if they like the GOP candidate or not.

  It's interesting because the apolitical people I know don't talk politics (elected officials, candidates, etc.) yet they are consumed by issues like healthcare and jobs.  

  by turning blue on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 01:25:10 PM PDT