This was originally posted on my (now defunct website) in July of this year, right around the time of the great healthcare cave in by Democrats. I again posted it on open salon around October. It is now December, and this has come to pass.
Come November, the Democrats are totally and absolutely screwed. They will be punished by both the left and the right for offenses real and imagined. On the right you will have the vast hordes of Americans influenced by faux news and the vast right wing media conspiracy (yes I really said that) bent on convincing America that Barack Obama and the Democratic party are nothing more then Socialists and fascists bent on enacting some sort of communist revolution. On the left you will have progressive groups (the same people who got President Obama elected) who will be staying home, based upon the Democratic party not doing enough.
Instead of going in with a unified party and shoving his agenda down the Republicans throats, he followed the course of "Bipartisanship". I call it appeasement. The Republicans used Fox News and the right wing radio commentators to paint any half hearted efforts of legislation to fix the enormous problems this country has as a "Socialist takeover" and a "Marxist agenda" . And faced with an almost complete and total failure to manage the Democratic party message the American people took this as a truth.
Barack Obama should have used the office of the President of the United States as a bully pulpit to discredit and attack his detractors, he should have used truth to disarm the vast nets of fictions that the right wing had used like lilliputian threads to tie the Democrats hands behind their back.
President Obama should have used the power of his office as the defacto leader of the Democratic party to threaten, cajole and outright terrorize his party into line. He should have made it clear, "Okay, you don't want to vote for this bill? Fine. I'll tell the American public about how you obstructed progress, and I will NOT be backing you for re-election."
Instead the Democratic party decided to be "bipartisan". The Republicans smelled weakness and decided that they would filibuster and lie and generally speaking be the party of "no". Then when elections roll around come November I have no doubt that they will use this to their advantage to paint the Democrats and Obama to be weak (as they are).
The Republicans will point to the lack of economic progress, the massive bailouts to the banks and the massive debts that this country has run up for the sake of the privileged few and the vipers will be elected in droves and continue to dismantle whats left of the middle class.
This goes without saying: Where is the Obama I elected? Where is the "Yes we can". All I hear out of the Democratic party is "Oh please mother may I?"
When you finally get down to the heart of the issue, President Obama took a mandate and a majority in this country and had eight months to push his agenda, to make good on his promises of change. I am not foolish enough to think that Washington would change overnight, but the President and the Democratic party made one key mistake: They did not manage their message.
They had a supermajority, they blew it. They had the hearts and minds of the American people, they allowed the Republicans to manage the message. They had the backing of a massive network of volunteers to go out and push for real change, and the Democratic party did NOTHING.
Instead of a new public works project, we got massive bank bailouts. Trillions of dollars shoveled into the feeding trough of the moneyed elite. Instead of real finance reform we have the watered down toothless legislation with future mandates to bail out troubled institutions again should the "need" arise. Instead of real healthcare reform and a public option we have a federal law forcing Americans to purchase health insurance plans from the very people who drove healthcare costs sky high, and no real controls on costs.
So, to recap, through corruption or incompetence the Democrats screwed their base. And now they expect us to vote for them again?
Nahhh. I think I'll vote green.