I'm tired of the obvious. The necessary wound licking and experiencing of the 4 stages of grief put aside for a moment, it's interesting to read a number of the recommended and front page diaries today, to say the least. Some obvious things have already been said regarding the demographics, geography, motivation, GOTV vs. Koch, etc., and a burning question I have that seems yet unanswered is how much voter ID laws played a role as well, if not directly at least its potential intimidation factor.
The other interesting and to me the potentially biggest question coming out of this election is whether or not the Democrats were liberal enough vs. being more neoliberal or Republican-lite. This has historically been an issue for us since in the last 3-4 election cycles ever since we enlarged our umbrella to include the so-called Blue Dogs in the Red and even Purple states. As these Neoliberal/Blue Dogs/Republicans-in-Disguise incumbents have slowly but surely fall by the wayside in election losses over the years, it's become obvious to me that we have indeed moved away a bit from embracing liberal ideals and a true liberal message. I believe that has once again cost us last night. Of course it wasn't gonna be pretty, but considering the true shellacking that occurred, I believe that message has once again become easily lost.
So in looking forward as we always do to the next election, the question becomes where we go from here. As it's been more or less alluded to from other diaries today, I believe we have no choice but to push harder towards a populist movement. And really, it just makes sense. People as a whole are not feeling the love of this recovery when the majority of the stimulus and the benefit of that stimulus feeds the very affluent. People do not feel entirely all warm inside about the ACA bill when, despite some 70-75% of the population supported a Public Option, it was dangled out in front of everyone but was never inserted. This doesn't even mention how it was negotiated by the President with Big Pharma not to touch pharmaceuticals even before the negotiations and discussion began. Americans as a whole don't jump for joy when they see the gap widening between the haves and the have nots despite a President initially defining himself as a "Hope and Change" kind a guy. And yes, I get it - the outright obstructionism of the GOP has a large hand in this, but again, where da hell was Obama initially on that? Yep, trying to negotiate with the freaking Right Wing terrorists in Congress.
As Ultron so eloquently states in the Avengers 2 preview, you want to save the world, but you don't want it to change. The Democrats we have on the Hill tell us all about wanting to save this world for us, but are they truly changing things for the better? And if they are being obstructed from that - are they truly yelling loud enough to point that out? How many people do you know outside of our obvious blogging circle and political groupings truly understand just how obstructive the Republicans had been? If we want true change to our system and are being blocked in doing so by special interest groups like the Koch Bros., Wall Street, Big Pharma, NRA, as well as their political puppets in office, where the f$ck was the fight?
This is where true Populism comes in. The uprising starts and ends with us, and we move our candidates as well as our incumbent politicians towards that end. No, actually, we f$cking shove them hard to it. We can't see this as anything but a war. Because the way I see it, lives are on the line. My daughter's lives are on the line, as are your kids and future generations. We have to fight for them, and the time is now.
So whom do we elect for this Populist position? Let's be honest here. I know there's a gargantuan position to get behind Hillary at any and every cost. But let's get real here - will that truly get the people behind a Populist movement? Does she truly represent that? I'm sorry, but to me she comes up quite a bit short in that regard. We have to do better than this. We have no choice as far as I am concerned.