If we lose in November, understand this: you'll have two choices:
- You'll have to fight to get back Congress;
- You'll find some reason not to fight to get it back.
If you like the idea of having to do either of those two things, if you like the idea of either being resigned to the BS of Republican leadership in Washington, or having to take back Congress from the nuts, feel free to follow through with whatever plans you had for not voting, or discouraging people from voting.
I know we like being the underdogs, but this is ridiculous. The Republicans fought for years to get the kind of government they wanted, and they're getting what they want, by all appearances. We? We're letting our pity party get out of hand.
We've done better than we've done in a long time. We've pushed more liberal legislation than we have in a long time. But we operate in a system designed to create checks and balances on the powerful, which right now we are.
I think what's missing out there is not merely good politicians, it's the people who have the push with the public to make them do what they should be doing. I don't see Democrats protesting. I do see Republicans doing so, as nutty as their protests can be. I don't see Democrats trying to take the initiative in the public sphere. I see Democrats basically dying of shame.
Dying of Shame? It's from the movie The Edge. The one where Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin get stranded in the Alaska Wilderness.
Charles Morse: You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame.
Stephen: What?
Charles Morse: Yeah, see, they die of shame. "What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?" And so they sit there and they... die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their lives.
Robert Green: And what is that, Charles?
Charles Morse: Thinking.
Our party is dying in this election because both politicians and party activists like ourselves are getting all wound up about what we did wrong, what the politicians did wrong, about all the political controversies that are started up.
But we're not thinking. We're reacting, we're getting defensive, we're sulking, we're asking, "Why haven't things gotten better?" But we're not really asking the question with an answer in mind.
We're compounding the problems of the Republicans's campaign to push the country back to deeper right-wing fringiness with our own willingness to punish ourselves, and drop support for our own causes on little cause and pretense.
We're not stopping for a second to sort things out. Things like what the facts are. Things like What the Republican's intentions might be with a controversy. Things like how to defuse and detoxify those controversies, even turn it back on the Republicans. The politicians are running scared from Republican politics (unsurprising, given how many of them came to office in the time where running from Republicans was a medal sport in the election season).
We're allowing all the adverse conditions to get us down, to sap our morale. We're allowing ourselves to lose one assumption, one "political reality" at a time. We're so depressed about prospects, we're not even seeing, much less selling the achievements we've made.
Folks, you joined here for a reason, and it wasn't to watch the Right Wing make fools of you, make you second-class political citizens. They need no, deserve no help in putting us down.
Your question from here on out is how you respond to your circumstances. The Republicans decided not to give in, and they're pulling ahead. That means they'll be much likely to push policy. But what have you decided to do? Are you just that despairing of change, that despairing about undoing the Republican advantages?
These are people just like you. They are not any smarter, they are not any wiser, they are not any more competitive or agressive than you can be. The question simply is whether you are reading and willing to bring your political A-Game to the competition, or whether you're just planning to be a spectator to your political future.
The decision is in your hands. Either do the one thing that will save your political life, or sit here and let liberalism and progressivism die of shame.