To: My President, Barack Obama
CC: Congressional Democrats
Dear Mr. President,
I want to thank you for all you have done in your short time in office; you have accomplished several pieces of historic legislation, and have done a great deal of work restoring our tarnished image in the eyes of the world.
We know that we can’t win every battle with the republicans, so you might wonder why we are so frustrated with you and the democratic congress? Let me break it down for you.
War - The Democratic Party base questioned whether the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were necessary from the very beginning. We said things like "There are no weapons of mass destruction," and "Saddam Hussein is not linked to Al Qaeda." Not only were we not heard, but we were roundly told to shut up by republicans and there apologist, as well as many Democrats. We were called unpatriotic and treasonous. While our Democratic leaders were cowering in the corner, afraid of questioning anything that might be used against them in future elections. We dissenters were on our own.
By the time you were elected, sufficient evidence existed to suggest that the war in Iraq had been ill-advised (if not worse) from the start, and that our hand in Afghanistan had been badly played. A multitude of evidence also existed that senior officials in the Bush administration had acted in ways that at the least warranted investigation, and most likely, much more.
We expected you to get us out of those situations. We expected you to hold people accountable for acting in ways that go against the very core principles of what America stands for, but mostly we expected you to not continue some of the most misdirected and offensive foreign policies ever enacted by our government.
Though troop numbers have been reduced in Iraq, it’s clear we will be there in some form for years to come. When we finally leave Afghanistan, if all goes as planned, we will have been there longer than the Soviet Union.
Thousands of lives lost, many more have been irreparably damaged. We must leave Iraq and Afghanistan immediately.
Economy – There has been quite a bit of coverage of our struggling economy the last couple of years, but the economy has been in trouble for much longer than that. The number of jobs is of course a huge part of what we need to fix, but even when we add jobs back, they won’t be like the jobs we had ten years ago, and they for sure won’t be the types of jobs our fathers and mothers had 20 years ago. They won’t be jobs with good benefits or any stability. Many will be the types of job that I have now; a long term (or short term) contract job that has either no health benefits or extremely expensive health benefits, no vacation time, and occasional forced time off without pay. There is no chance to organize labor, because we know if we even thought of that, our jobs would be shipped to China. That’s not just a suspicion; it’s a guarantee.
The truth is, many extremely well qualified; extremely talented American workers will be working jobs they are over-qualified for, in environments where the fear of being laid off or fired is a constant, never ending feeling.
Since 1999, I have been laid off three times. Additionally, my house has lost $100,000 worth of equity in the last three years, largely due to people on Wall Street who could care less about the effects of the gambling they did with our slice of the American Pie. I also started a business that recently failed.
Each time I have been laid off, it has taken about two years to normalize my household finance. My wife and I have worked tirelessly to dig ourselves out of the massive hole that months of unemployment left in our finances. Mr. President, why do CEO’s get paid millions for failing at a company, but honest, dedicated workers get tossed aside without a thought? Why do the people with less have a bigger sense of responsibility than people who already have more money than they could ever need?
Please fight!– Like I said in my opening, you have accomplished some very important things. Things that I think history will see in a very positive light. Survey after survey shows that the majority of Americans support Democratic policies, but we constantly lose the message war and are perceived as weak.
When I wonder why Democrats are perceived as they are, I think back to the revolutionary war. I think of reading stories of how the American’s hid behind trees and practiced guerilla warfare, and the British march in lines towards our troops and failed to adapt to the tactics that were being used.
That is what is happening in politics today; the right is not playing by the same rules, and the democrats sit around and wonder why they get slaughtered every time they get in a fight. The republicans care about winning and stopping any democratic success. They don’t care about governing, and they don’t care what tactics they have to use. I know you are big on bi-partisanship, but for it to work, you have to have two sincere parties. The republicans are not sincere.
Your only hope to move your agenda forward is to use every legal trick and procedure available, whether its recess appointments, or legislative maneuvers that go around republican obstructionism. The Republicans aren’t going to play nice, ever. They feed on weakness and compromise. If you want their respect, punch them in the mouth. Stop trying to explain things to people who feed at the teat of Fox News. They will not come around; your base has been talking to them for years. Facts don’t matter to them.
Stop giving in to these people before negotiations have even started. They won’t move an inch if they know you’ll chicken out first. The republicans got a lot of their ideas into the healthcare bill, stopped a public option without any substantive debate, despite 70% public approval for it, and how many republican votes did we get for health care? Zero.
Mr. President, stop playing nice. It’s not worth it.