As this year draws closer to the end, I have to recall where I was in 2000. I was a Clinton Democrat, really. While I would follow the election that went on later that year with dismay, and thought Bush really didn't help the appearance of his legitimacy with his vote, I was willing to admit he had won the election and move on.
I believed Democrats could act as a counterbalance, and that eventually, in the fullness of time, they could move things towards a more liberal political balance. Four years later, though, I'd be actively blogging on Watchblog for his defeat.
Every year that Bush's misrule went on, I became a fiercer, more committed liberal and progressive. Why? Because what I saw I had to counterbalance in American politics was a dangerous, self sustaining closed loop of incompetence, sociopathic politics, and the refusal to innovate policy to face the incredible problems we faced as a result of thier policies. Change must start with us, and with the rest of America, or the shadow of Bush politics will continue to darken our nation's future.
I think that above all things, what we want is government that is wise, that is just, that regards the rich and powerful and poor and lowly as equals, which doesn't withhold the law so that the wicked or careless can prosper at everybody else's expense.
We look at many of the Tea Party Candidates, and see in them the error that we saw from Bush, and the other Republicans. They profess to be different, but they are only graver in the sin of their pride and their confidence in their foolish policies. They would make beggars of the people of this nation and make its prosperity a dim, shadowy memory, just to vindicate their theories on how it should be run. The results do not matter, so long as they are able to remake this country in their image.
They simply assume that things will turn out for the best. But as they have applied their theories, so have the results refuted those theories and made a ruin of this nation's fortunes.
But things can get worse. We are still a prosperous nation, a wealthy nation in comparison to the rest of the world. Our suffering has not found its limit, nor is it truly suffering by the standards of many. Do not hope for the Republicans to stay their hands, to be satisfied with simply being back in power. I say this not to scare you, but to warn you, to tell you in advance what years of my own false assumptions about the limits of Republican folly have taught me.
For to win, the Republicans in power have sold their souls to a self-sustaining system of ideological and factual reinforcement. All those who would tell them to stop, to reconsider, they cast aside. All those who point out that folks like Rand Paul, Christine O'Donnell, and Sharron Angle are terrible candidates get mocked and vilified, and either retract their words or get tossed out of the system.
They have put themselves in a position where nothing short of catastrophic defeat will teach many of them, and many of them will not even learn then. We wrongly supposed that once we got the White House, once we got a firm hold on the House and Senate, we could just sit back and relax. We were wrong. The other side was not content to sit back and consider what they had done wrong. No, they thirsted to win again, to put us back in our place. If we don't watch out, it may be we who end up wondering what went wrong this election.
Worse yet, people in the Republican party will continue to justify the kind of politics which justifies putting forward leaders like Christine O'Donnell, which justifies putting thieves, charlatans, and fools in power, and does not consider the consequences of this.
It will confirm a politics that is sociopathically unconcerned with the wishes and needs of the average person, which sustains a prosperous elite even as it strangles the prosperity of the lower classes.
We talk about holding our own accountable, but neither they, nor the individual Republicans even, are the ones that must go. What must go, what must be weighed and found wanting is the paradigm that the current Republican party operates by. Break that, defeat that, and the power of the Republicans to continue their misrule of the country will wane, and the strength of those who depend on the Republican's paradigm in our party to maintain power will go with them.
That is why I emphasize supporting the party over settling our grudges with any one candidate. If the Democrats come out of this election still holding a majority, all the Republican drape-measuring will collapse of its own weight, and many who still held out the hope of escaping accountability will understand that even in the worst of times, they can no longer fearmonger and lie their way out of being held responsible for what they have done.
We know what we want out of a government, what we expect. If we want that to matter, we have to make it matter to those in charge, and we have to be strategic enough about it that the message gets sent at the highest and the lowest levels of government. We have to make it clear that the fun is done, the party's over, and the days of corruption and decay are finished, and we have to do this by showing up in every election, in every county and parish, in every state and city, and making our voice heard through our votes. We may make mistakes, elect the wrong people, and be betrayed by our candidates, but if we let that keep us home, keep us apathetic, then those who support the kind of nihilistic politics that would put fools and madmen in charge of this country will win.
It is only through the persistent wearing away of the old generation of politicians, of the old practices of politics, that we can hope to turn this country around, and restore integrity and accountability to the process. If we want want change, we cannot be passive spectators. In fact, there will be times where we must lead the change, and toil away until the politicans finally get it, and follow us. There were will be times when we even have to make the good leaders do what we want to do, force their hand politically.
This is a Democracy, a Republican where we elect Representatives. It will not be our wishes alone that shape the nature of this government, but the wishes of all. If we choose to sit home on election day, and we do not encourage others to stand up with us, then we have surrendered our nation to the kind of politics whose iniquity led us to fight for change in the first place. We will have fought Bush Politics, and Bush politics will have won.
I have seen too much of this outrageous failure of government, read too much about its effects, seen too much lost and wasted in my own life to feel any peace with the idea of staying home, or shutting up, or going GBCW and settling back into an life of self-sedated oblivion, where I ignore politics simply for the sake of my own peace of mind. What wars will we fight, what recessions will we face, what rights will be trampled, what abuses will we suffer, if we stand aside this election day, and do nothing, as the Republicans try to scare, vilify, and lie their way back into power?
Some may scoff at the idea of voting for the lesser of two evils, But I don't counsel that with the idea that you settle for the lesser of two evils. I counsel that with the notion that in the next election, we push for the better candidate still, that with each subsequent election, we ask more, and we strive to get more. Rather than relent, and be pushed back towards worse government, and be pushed back further with each election, We have to push in the other direction. We have to be like the forces of natural selection, forcing more and more adaptation by our politicians to our wishes, until our politicians live up to the standards we set, rather than descend to the depths we despise.
President Obama said that we would have to be the change we believed in. Whether or not you still believe he is the agent of that change, his words remain true. In a Democracy, people cannot stand aside and hope to wield power, influence events. When we act or fail to act out of apathy, when we let the nastiness and frustrations of politics drive us away, we only make the politics that thrives on that insanity, that foolishness, that wickedness and corruption stronger.
I know change can't come quick enough for any of us, especially for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people who want equal rights, or for those who languish in unemployment, idled by a system that has five or six people competing for every job opening, oppressed by the poverty and shame that comes with being cast away. Well, let me tell you, a better day is coming, but it will come only when the folks who would see it come band together to force it to come through our Democratic system. If the example you set this November is to sit back and let the Republicans win, you can only lose. Others will see what you're doing and either do the same, or vote for the Republicans.
And then, change of paradigm, change in the nature of policies, will merely become change of occupants in Congress, and the price of that will be more setbacks that we may have to endure for generations to come.
Bush politics have done enough damage to this country. It's time we stop squabbling amongst ourselves, stopped feeling sorry for ourselves, and start doing what it takes to make the push for higher standards we started in 2006 and 2008 stick. Unless and until we become unbending in our commitment to shape government to our needs and desires, it will remain a source of heartache, despair, and disappointment to us.
Don't let the push for change in Washington, real change, falter now because our leaders in the Democratic Party haven't caught up to the reality of what we want. Don't rely on them. Rely on yourselves. Rely on your vote, and your personal power to change this country. Don't wait for Obama or anybody else to motivate you, and others to standing up for your rights, to look out for your interests. Leaders will always disappoint, fall short, because they are human, and because they have to deal with an imperfect world and a center of political power in Washington, which like all such places, draws the special interests, the flatters, the lobbyists and other agents of the power-hungry.
We will always see folks like that win some battles, and our leaders either willingly working with them or being forced at times to submit to them. Such defeats are inevitable. Power and wealth always wins some of the fights. But rather than let the inevitability of some wins by the special interests dishearten us, and thereby set the stage for them to always win, we should commit ourselves to remaining in stubborn opposition. We cannot be denied forever, and no politician can forever stand in the face of public contempt. Not even Dictators or Oligarchs are proof against the public's disdain. Even they must bow their heads to the crowds on occasion, or risk losing them in revolution.
Americans and Democrats like us must learn to stand up for ourselves, and make our will known. We can't get so caught up in the notion of voting being a referendum on candidates that we forget that its also a choice between the ideas and policies of one side, and those of the other. This is not an easy or simple choice to make, and sometimes we must face a choice between mediocre and outright bad that doesn't leave us singing a song in our hearts when we walk out of the voting booth.
But as adults, at least most of us, we should consider that not every necessary and good act, not every responsible and dutiful act leaves us feeling happy and inspired. Sometimes we just got to get the job done, and take care of what we need to take care of. Democracy is no different. Voting will not always be a right we exercise with enthusiasm. But damn it, it should be a right we always exercise when given the chance, because it's our personal check on the decay and excesses of our political system.
Recent surveys I have read have shown a majority of Americans believing that the Republicans need to be a check on Obama's power. But I think, if you really asked people what they thought needed to be put in check, what forces they would have opposed, you'll find that what they want to stop is much like what we, what President Obama wants to stop. It's all just gotten confused in the fancy language and perjorative talk that surrounds politics nowadays. We have to remind people that it's not just a difference in personnel that they're voting for, it's a difference in policy, and changing the guard back to the Republicans, or allowing that to happen, will only ressurrect the policies that were the start of their problems.
It was easy to go and fight for change when everybody knew that the Republicans were in error, but it's harder now that some people have been taken in by the Republican's rhetoric, and soured on Democrats by their apparent lack of performance. Now, though, is the time when we most need to push them and others to keep the Republican Party from reversing the changes we have put in place and debasing the politics of this country. Now's the time when American needs you most. Don't quit on it. Don't quit on change. Go out there and make it happen.