I have never once been disappointed in President Obama. I think it's probably because I saw him as a fairly standard centrist Democrat, and so I wasn't surprised to see him pursue a fairly standard centrist agenda. This is not to say I didn't want more. Of course I did. I just didn't expect it.
Apparently, a lot of other people did expect more. A lot of people are disappointed, and by the tone of the diaries and the subsequent commentary, very angry. It is to these folks I address this diary.
Honestly, I tend to side with the pitchforks-and-torches crowd more often than not. I don't share their feelings of outrage and betrayal, but I do share many of their ideas about what should be done that isn't getting done. After 8 years of unchecked aggression by the lunatic fringe on the right, I wanted a reckoning. I wanted to see old white dudes in $5000.00 suits taking the perp walk down Justice Lane and being fitted for their new, $6.50 orange suits. I wanted health care as a human right. I wanted zero troops in Iraq. You get the idea.
Well, I didn't get any of those things. I got what I expected to get: Democratic centrism, with business-friendly, compromising warts and all.
I don't spend much time here at DKos anymore for a number of reasons. I do spend a lot of time agitating for the things I want, and much of that agitation sounds a lot like the "not the change I voted for" stuff that has been diaried extensively here. (Mind you, "sounds like" isn't the same as "is exactly like", thus the Intro part of this diary.) But I felt it might be useful to come back and write this, since I have a perspective that seems to be missing in the vitriolic flame-wars that keep popping up and passing for debate.
My perspective is that of siding with the disappointed while not actually being disappointed, if that makes any sense. I have many disagreements with the ardent supporters of President Obama (especially those who believe that Tester, Webb, etc are the future of the Democratic Party). Like the disappointed, I have been fighting for the past few years to roll the sisyphean rock of the Democratic Party back to the left. For this, I have taken the same kind of heat given to many of the diarists who share my goals, only not in the form of snarky comments on a blog. I've share my fellow agitators' ideas and their status as disapprobation-manget, if not their emotional foundation. In short, I'm one of them. However, I do have a simple message for my fellow agitators, one that I hope does not fall on deaf ears.
It is this: Join me in taking the month off. Put down the bullhorn and the homemade protest sign and help preserve the step toward sanity this country took in 2008. Take the month off from fighting for what you want and spend your energy on continuing to reject what you don't want. I am speaking to those who understand that the difference between "Candidate Obama" and "President Obama" is utterly insignificant compared to the difference between "President Obama" and "any of the mutant-crossbred theocrat/oligarchs running under the banner of the conquered Republican Party". If you don't see that difference, you can stop reading now. Nothing I have to say has any bearing on you.
For the rest of us, remember where you left your tools of protest and activism, and retrieve them after the election. In truth, you don't even have to take the whole month off; you can just take Election Day off. But it might be better if you built up some steam by encouraging others to turn out, IMHO. Either way, let the message be, "There. I voted for you. Now get off your ass and do your damn job! Give me my (repeal of DADT/Public Option/repeal of the Bush tax cuts/indictments for war crimes and/or general criminal behavior from 2000-2008/Federal law requiring them to be called 'teabaggers')!"
There is a lot of bad blood, anger, frustration and ruffled feathers out there. But don't for a second think that any of it compares to the supercollider of batshitty, clusterfucktastic dementia that will follow if the "Republicans" yank control of the legislative branch back into their sweaty, fanatic, stupid-as-a-football-bat hands.
Take a break with me. Join me this November in turning from the trenches to give a temporary-yet-familiar middle finger to the lunatic fringe. Afterward, it's back to work. I'll be the one holding the blown-up photo of H. Ross Perot and shouting, "How sad is it that this guy was the sane one when it came to NAFTA?!"