We sure showed those Democratic politicians, didn't we? Welcome folks, to the greater evil. We thought we were too good to stoop to chosing the lesser of two evils. Well, guess what? The greater of two evils is here, and there can be no doubt that there is a price to be paid for our inactivism in 2010 and before.
The plain truth is, we let our disappointment at the failure of our ideals become a practical failure as well. We let the Republicans retread their entire policy, and our response was not to confront them then, when they did not yet have power, when they were still reeling from their defeat, but instead to join in their criticism of our party.
Yeah, I know, many of them deserved to be held accountable, deserved to lose an election. But did Americans deserve to be represented by such incompetent, partisan ideologues again?
This is not about blaming anybody. This is about what you decide your focus will be for the next two years. This is about deciding what you will say, and who you will say it to.
We thought it was good enough to knock the Republicans back on their asses. We thought that after all that had befallen them, they'd stay there.
They did not. Regardless of who you were after, blue dog or hippy, if you weren't focusing your energies on defending our gains and keeping the Republicans down, you made a mistake.
Fortunately, you don't have to keep making that mistake.
But it won't be that easy, will it?
Fact of the matter, we're not just fighting the GOP, but two or three generations worth of their button-pushing conditioning on the people of this country. We cannot simply assume that our politics makes as much sense to us as it does to everybody else, or that people are just blank slates to our appeals.
We have to deconstruct that conditioning, make people aware of just how fucked up the number the GOP has pulled on them is. We have to do that in such a way that these independents and even moderate Republicans are open to it. Then we have to create our own emotionally pungent, clean and clear appeals to people, again in language that they are receptive to.
It will be one difficult motherfucking job. You will not win every battle. But you will only be defeated if you allow yourself to quit, or if you turn on mediocre, rather than those that even they are better than. Take down the worst first, and work your way up towards electing better quality politicians. If you can get a better guy and get them into office quickly, go ahead and do so, but keep the Republicans on the defensive at all times.
Do not let the Democrats in Washington get you down, or you will never get off the floor. Fact is, those Democrats are the consequence of three or four decades of institutional decline. I don't expect better because I was paying attention to what they've become and why. Many of them probably still think American politics is defined by the GOP, and that they should simply become lighter versions of the same.
But we know the truth: we have to be Dedicated Democrats.
But, to be Dedicated Democrats, folks, we can't be inconstant voters or inconstant supporters of our party. We cannot form the new backbone of the party if we show up for one election big, but bug out in the next one. We got to be there.
We've been blaming the politicians for our party's decline for decades now, and have been opting out of the party more and more. I don't think those two trends are merely coincidental. Like it or not, the conservatives and centrists in the party will make advances at certain times. What we have to do is stick with it, and retain our influence so that when they lose their steam, we can rush right in, push them back, and defeat them. Perhaps get the far-right wingers shuffling their way out of political participation for the time being, rather than our own people.
It's time to stop paying the price for our lack of power, our lack of pull, and proactively seek it. It's time to stop answering setbacks with despair and turning away from the cause, and to start answering it with a re-dedication to the efforts of pushing it back.
The time to indulge our inferiority complex is over. We don't have the time to waste on letting Republicans rule this country for the next four years, much less the next decade. I don't care whether you are enthusiastic or not, whether you feel that healthcare law was good or not, or whatever. You are either committed to gaining power for your cause, or you are committed to witnessing the decline, slow or fast, of everything you care for and care about.
I have seen enough bullshit go down because of Republican policies. I have committed myself to seeing the change in this country coming sooner rather than later. We have to stop acting like a bunch of emo amateurs, and start forming ourselves into the determined, professional grade political operatives this party and our cause needs in order to win.
Let's stop kicking our own ass, and start kicking theirs, relentlessly, without cease, whether they say Uncle or take your best shot. Let's act like we actually want change, not just like we'd prefer it, if the stars all lined up.