The Republican Party is a lot like a Batman villain...actually, all the Batman villains: a little bit of Two-Face, a little bit of Ra's al Ghul, a little bit of Bane, a little bit of Scarecrow, and a whole lot of Joker.
They've got Lex Luthor. They've got Dr. Doom. They've got Magneto.
In the Spiderman universe, you have the uncle figure Norman Osbourne. Wealthy, well-connected, and quite unhinged. Whether he was being the unscrupulous businessman or his alter-ego the Green Goblin, his MO was always indulging his own selfish desires.
On the other side, you have the actual uncle, Uncle Ben. He has compassion, integrity, and he's willing to sacrifice for the greater good. He knew that "with great power comes great responsibility."
The GOP is Norman Osbourne to a T.
The GOP is all of these supervillains.
Does that make the Democratic Party Uncle Ben?
Does that make the Democratic Party the superhero?
Batman was kind of an anti-hero. He fought the villains, but his tactics were not as within the letter of the law like Commissioner Gordon, and at times mirrored the actions of the villains he fought.
The Democratic Party is kind of like that now. More like Batman than Commissioner Gordon. Obama is willing to call for spending cuts, to try to reach a deal with the Republicans. He and the Senate Democrats are blurring the line between evil and justice. Right now they are more Sith than Jedi. But ultimately, they are on the side of justice!
But this is where the analogy breaks down: At the end of the day, Batman defeats the villains. Spiderman and Superman and Ironman, they win their battles.
Batman even had his spine broken, and he still managed to defeat the villains.
When was the last time the Democrats won a battle? When was the last time the Democrats took a stand for justice? When was the last time they even showed that they have a spine?
So how do we go about defeating the villains?
If these elected officials are not the heroes we need, then we need to find the ones who are.
When the villains are winning, heroes don't abandon their values. They call for reinforcements.
The Democratic Party needs help. And like how Superman has the Justice League, Fury has the Avengers, and Dr. Xavier has the X-Men, they need a stronger team.
We do this by retaking control of the House next year. By maintaining control of the Senate, and aiming for a super majority. By retaking as many state governorships and state legislatures as we can. By replacing as many Republican politicians with Democrats as possible.
This is not a simple task. This is an off-election year. That alone spells a Colossus-level problem.
This is not to reward the Democrats we currently have. This is to highlight the fact that they have not been doing their job, and that they need help.
Because as a whole, the Democratic Party has been failing.
It failed on the sequester, highlighted by the whole air traffic delay cave-in.
It failed us on filibuster reform.
It continues to fail us on environmental issues, the Keystone XL and fracking.
It continues to fail us on civil liberties, and the continued War on Terror.
It fails us on reforming Wall Street, and women's rights,
It fails us on economic reform, with strengthening unions and raising the minimum wage and tackling unemployment.
It fails us on improving education, with charters that bleed funding from the public system and a problematic reliance on standardized tests that cripples schools that need the most support.
It's failing on decreasing gun violence and will likely fail on immigration reform.
This is not to pass a failing grade on every single Democrat. Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and Gabby Giffords come to mind as Democrats doing their best to live up to the ideals on which the Democratic Party is supposed to stand.
But we need more like them. And we're not going to find them amongst the rabble we currently have.
So back to the task. How do we win all these elections during an off-presidential year?
It is not a simple task, but the answer is simple.
In this country, elections are not won by convincing the opposing party's voters to vote for you, or even convincing undecideds.
Winning elections in this country is all about motivating, mobilizing, and inspiring the supporters who otherwise would not vote.
Increasing the number of voters inherently favors the Progressive side. This is why the GOP spends so much time disenfranchising voters.
We must be sure that we are engaging every Democratic vote that is out there. If we can't even convince them to vote, what chance do we even have of defeating villainy?
It is always the side that is better organized, has the better strategy, and has the best plan for reaching this group that wins. It is not just about money, or campaign slogans, or even the specifics of the candidate. But perhaps most importantly, we need to start now.
I'm sure the people who frequent Dailykos are already 10 times more involved in this process than me and already on top of most of these. But for the rest of us, here's what we need to do.
1. Get your states to increase the opportunities to vote. Fight for legislation moving Election days to the weekend, increasing the number of voting stations and number hours the polls stay open. Call for early-voting, absentee voting, and if they already do those, call for expanding them.
2. Volunteer for registering voters. Convincing nonvoters to simply register is probably the hardest part; once they are registered, they are more likely to follow through on voting.
3. Get more informed in the issues you care about, and more importantly, get others informed as well. Just being better informed about the country's politics work out in the Democrats' favor. If not, how else would you explain the GOP's efforts to keep citizens as uninformed as possible? If others don't care, make the case for why they should. Some might be put off by your outspokenness, but focus on inspiring them with your passion.
4. Come up with a nationwide plan to address the factors that hinder voter turnout.
5. For every Captain America there is a Hawkeye. For every Obi Wan there is an Anakin. These are people who seem like they fit the role of a hero, but too often they are more bad guy than good. In other words, even while the focus is on replacing Republicans with Democrats, we should also be primarying the Democrats who have betrayed the ideals of the party.
For years now, we have been living under the presumption that America is a right-centrist country. It is time to send the message that this is false; this is a country of Progress. It is time to take back our country from this rogues gallery of evil. There is no better time to change this glaring fallacy. By sweeping the Republicans out on an off-year, we stand poised to ride the momentum up to the next Presidential election, and truly break the stranglehold that the
It is time to fight our way out of the well, to rally the forces, and save the day.
It's time that we found our Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
P.S. It is undeniably juvenile to be comparing the current political landscape to fictional characters and universes. But if that betrays the juvenile nature of my mind, so be it. Because when I look at the GOP, all I see are evil villains. I can't help this.
P.P.S. There are probably readers here who will read this and fear that characterizing the GOP as evil comic book villains is too inflammatory. To that I say, I'm being generous as it is.