The letter I am sending to the President of the United States.
Dear Mr. President. I am a liberal. I am your base.
You have failed the country and put every policy issue up for hostage taking by the GOP with the horrible deal that you signed to get the debt ceiling raised. In fact, the GOP is now refusing to pass a clean deal on the current FAA shutdown without some “compromise” from democrats. Unless democrats cave, the estimate is 1 billion dollars of lost tax revenue. The GOP does not want to govern, they want to dismantle government.
I think not only was the debt deal horrible for the country, but it proved that you are TOO committed to compromise. To have real compromise, you have to have two honest brokers involved in negotiations. The debt ceiling should never have been allowed to be held hostage. You should have threatened the 14th amendment from the beginning, but instead, took it off the table from the beginning. Why?
Things are bad out here, Mr. President. I have been in a temp job for the 9 years (I am 45). No one around here hires regular employees anymore. Why would they? Temp workers have no security, no benefits. When the economy hiccups (or tanks), there is no incentive for companies to keep us around when they can lay us off and then rehire us when things pick up. They can rehire us, Mr. President, because there are no other jobs for us to go to.
I want to give you credit; you have done some great things in office. You have lifted the Global Gag Rule, promoted gay rights, courageously acted to take out Osama Bin Laden, ended co-pays for catastrophically disabled vets, and many other will documents successes.
Maybe the wake of the disastrous Bush policies would have been too much for anyone to handle. It may be a generation before the callous stupidity of that administration is fully revealed, but you promised audacity. You promised to change the culture in Washington. That may have been the most naïve goal of your administration. Maybe the goal should have been to do the right thing, no matter how loud the GOP howled.
I know you are a fan of FDR, as most democrats are, so I am sure you know the quote:
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.
If the GOP wants to govern and work on policy compromises as honest brokers, then I say welcome them in. If they do not, then you must be prepared to “welcome their hate.”
I live in Idaho, one of the most conservative states in the country, and from my view, the Tea Party and GOP are not trying to implement conservative policies as much as they are trying to either impart political anarchy, or return us to the divided country of the past. Mr. President, you are fighting a cold war version of the civil war. They will not give up, they must be defeated. Are you up to the task?
At this point, my vote for you in the next election is all but assured, but the enthusiasm attached to that vote has diminished greatly. My vote will be about keeping the completely insane out of the Whitehouse, not about my belief in you.
Our country is literally at stake and you are dealing with people who honestly don’t care if it continues to exist. Mr. President, you must fight.
Regards,
Phillip Nelson