I'm still waiting to hear what Dean has to say this afternoon, but in the realm of real impact, I don't think it matters. It would have been nice for him to have placed better in Wisconsin, but I didn't really expect it. (Hoped and prayed for it, yes. My faith is lacking it appears.) But I've spent the last week or so seriously contemplating what is it I intend to do, as an individual and whether I'm willing to once more put my heart and soul on the line for a process that I know is basically flawed.
Not the democratic process as a whole, although it certainly has its problems. Come March 2nd I plan to vote for Dean, whether he's in the race or not. My guess is he will still be on the ballot, regardless. Barring a sudden independent upsurge among the remaining primary states, it's more symbolic than anything. I don't consider it a protest vote at all, because I think the protest is showing up in the high voter turnout for the primaries. The protest isn't about one candidate, it's about a whole lot of democrats and independents and not a few republicans, jumping up and demanding to be counted one way or another.
November is a bit more complex. And please, no offense, but spare me the ABB cries. I'm fully aware that Bush needs to go, but at the same time, I'm looking at a galvanized primary season and saying...wow, people are definitely interested, and some of them are pissed off and scared, but are they pissed off and scared enough?
In my opinion, they aren't. They aren't because despite their record numbers, they are voting for the same kind of candidate and the same kind of campaign and the same kind of agenda they have in the past -- and which lost. We can split hairs all we want about the Bush-Gore face off in 2000, but after six weeks of both the campaigns and the judiciary and the state and Florida hemming and hawing about how best to handle it...by the time a decision was handed down, most of the country was just thinking "Thank God it's over." They weren't really paying attention to the consequences -- and they still aren't.
A few thousand more voices have been speaking up -- from unlikely sources, outside the politics as usual spectrum. Maybe even a million more people more active than they were a year ago, over various issues thanks to groups like Moveon, Human Rights Campaign, Act for Change, but the Right has their 527 and activists organizations too and their army is greatly more committed to the fight than the left seems to be.
And why is that? In my mind, the right has exactly what we need, and what we're seeing inklings of this primary season. Both sides think they are right, or correct, that their view of the world as it should be is the correct one, the viable one, the most beneficial one. It's unfair and inaccurate and dangerously naïve to portray all republicans or all voters or all right leaning citizens as bigoted, racist, self-serving and vicious, because they aren't. In a great many cases, what they are is trusting. Maybe naively so, but trusting nonetheless.
What they do have and what the Republicans are so very good at fostering on a gut level, intentionally or otherwise, is fear. Sacrificing the future for the present crises is a fear-based response. Keeping the world's oil economy viable now is a way of calming present fears about the cost of energy, about the income generated, than it is any kind of long view at what the world or the US will look like in ten years, or even five. Even the war on terror, the invasion of Iraq are more about quelling fears now than they are about anything else. I can disagree with the Bush administration's opinion all I want as to whether having a Democracy forced on Iraq in the middle of a volatile area is good or not. It probably is, but foundation building takes time and this administration has managed to do the equivalent of building a prefab on a slab, rather than taking the time to dig out the foundation and use tried and true and enduring foundation and structural building.
All of this though, points out that the left is not scared enough. Not enough to actually want change except in small increments. Maintaining the status quo, if they can even manage to do that with Kerry or Edwards, is sufficient. For now. But the hard left is more like the hard right then they may realize, at least in motivation. Because they are afraid: afraid of what the government is doing to our environment, to our civil liberties, to the future of our children if not our nation. The bulk of American fall into the center somewhere and the DNC isn't wrong about that, but at the same time, the middle of a sinking boat fills up first and there's a point where bailing doesn't keep you from sinking. And the center of the country is sinking and sinking fast but they are working so hard at trying to maintain, rather than trying to fix the problem, they aren't even noticing and that goes for Democrats and Republicans and Independents alike. Unable to see the forest for the trees isn't a much used cliché for nothing.
So, what's it going to take? My view is, (and it's my view, you can disagree but please don't waste my time or yours by telling me I can't have it) that Kerry and to some extent Edwards, really do represent a political mind set that will continue to bail -- and they may keep us afloat for awhile. They have (any democrat does, if they win the White House) a tough job, maybe even impossible, against a republican house and senate, but even so, they could keep us afloat, at least until the midterms in 2006.) Dean may not have been the answer either. Personally I think he'd do better having to deal with the R house and senate than either Edwards or Kerry but that's just my opinion. What he did do, however, was offer up a few alternatives to bailing -- like jumping ship and striking out for shore, or diving deep to find out where the hole in the hull was and patching it. In both cases, somebody took offense or was too anxious -- not being strong swimmers, or maybe having had a hand in the boat's construction and not wanting to admit that the hull was flawed. The difference is/was that Dean offered alternatives, a bunch of them and people were free to choose the one that works best for them. We'll have to wait and see if Dean jumps ship and starts swimming for shore or tries to patch the breach: and you can decide for yourself which is the better analogy.
November is the drop dead date to decide. Part of me still thinks the Democrats aren't scared enough that they'll cling to their sinking boat until they are forced to swim or go down with it -- or fix it. As little as I like the idea of another 4 years of Bush, and even acknowledging the disaster (in the epic sense) it could be, at the same time, I feel that a democratic candidate elected for the total purpose of maintaining the status quo is equally disastrous. It won't stop the decline, it will only make the agony longer. I will vote for the Dem nominee in November, but as I've said in other posts, without someone to really shake things up, it's only marginally likely that Georgia will swing Democratic.
But the thought still lingers: What's it gonna take? We know 9/11 scared the whole country into a protectionist, surrender their rights kind of mindset...even if you disagreed, you can't deny that's what happened to most people. Keep us safe, don't let them hurt us...anger too, but anger is primarily fear turned outward. And the illusion of safety is nearly as good as the real thing...but what other economic or social disaster has to happen for people to be scared enough to change the direction we're taking? Because the current path is leading us nowhere.
Assuming that something will happen, or that more of the same will continue (job loss, economic downturn, less liberal judges on the USSC, more people losing healthcare or entering poverty), whose watch is it better that it fall under? More economic failure on the part of the republicans will absolutely resonate with the public as it did with Reagan or Bush I. But if we put a dem in the WH and he's unable to affect change -- regardless of the reason -- it will further disenchant those people who might vote democratic from doing so again.
Bush remaining in office is damn scary on a lot of levels. At the same time, I look at four years without him and I'm not actually seeing a different outcome...it may take a couple of extra years to completely fall apart, but its still there. It would be nice to be able to find the key or the trigger to motivate the American people before they hit the bottom of the lake...but I'm not sure how. All I know is that at some point, they will, and they will strike out for the surface anyway they can...but by then it may be too late and we will have drifted far, far from familiar shore.