The US political world changed dramatically when Franklin Roosevelt was first elected President in 1932 and began an intense and intensive struggle to lift the country out of the Great Depression, allow the labor movement to organize, and consequently began a Great Struggle with what we call the Financial Elite.
Politics changed dramatically again in 1964 when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and in 1965 when he signed the Voting Rights Act. During his term we also won Medicare and Medicaid.
Thus began the basic racial and ideological divide that continues to this day, so that most progressives vote and support Democrats.
I’ve taken my share of guff for supporting Democrats, but as much as there is a traditional emotional pull, there is also a strategic reason for all of us to support Democrats — even when they don’t deliver all we want. With Democrats we can fight offensively for progressive change. With Republicans we have to fight like hell just to keep from losing what was won by our forebears.
This question was sharpened for me by a great Daily Kos diary: Why I’m a Democrat, a Scandinavian perspective by Swedish Liberal.
Among other great things, the writer said, “I think the Republican party is giving democracy itself a bad name, which is not only perilous to the US but destabilising to the entire world. I may never have the privilege to cast a vote for a Democratic candidate (we have some good politicians in Sweden too but what happens in the US is simply more important), but I stand in awe before you. Your fight is truly a good fight and in so many ways the future of the world depends on it.”
No American could say it better. Republicans are giving democracy a bad name — trying to answer negatively the question Abraham Lincoln posed in his speech at Gettysburg — whether a government by the people, of the people, for the people can stand.
Sisters and Brothers, that is our fight!
Photo source:Vox Efx on Flickr via Creative Commons License: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
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