Today, a lot of people at a blog that I greatly respect and admire are upset and feeling rocked to the core on the proposed Obama/GOP Bush Tax Cut deal, and with good reason. Politically, today sucked.
I've seen the gauntlet run over the last 12 hours, from the kind of ranty not-too-well-thought out cathardic eruptions of people in pain, right up to those almost inevitable comments, and diaries, from burned-once-too-often partisans talking about 'walking away' from politics.
If you are one of those people who is so frustrated and angry that you are thinking about walking away.... don't. Double down on sticking around. The bad guys win if they win, if they cheat, or if you walk away because you let them finally get to you and break you like a dry stick.
If you are one of those people who is sticking around, but numb, or just stewing in bile and betrayal, the best revenge you can take is to not let the craven cowardice and cynical calculations of others cause you to stop fighting before the fight is over.
It's not too late. Nothing has passed and been signed by the President.
Now is the time, if there ever was one, to be a complete political pain in the asses of the powerful. The biggest pain in the ass you can.
Call your Democratic Senator or Representative and give them hell about the idea of supporting the 'Bush Tax Cut' deal. If you don't have a Democratic Senator, or a Representative at all (big surprise considering what passes for brilliant tactics inside the beltway) call the House and Senate leadership and let them know you think it's a bad deal and don't sign off on it.
A battle is not over until it's over, and getting you to quit before it's over is a tactic the inside the beltway crowd is one of the most proud of.
But, longer term, I would suggest taking all that pain, anger, and frustration that you feel burning deep inside your guts right now and go about using it as a fire to forge your resolve in.
I made a promise to myself after I donated more money than I should have directly to the Democratic Party in the past, and ended up watching the party spend money on Democratic candidates who were as hostile to Democratic Party policies as any Republicans I could name. After that, I vowed to never donate money directly to the DNC, or to its Congressional fundraising arms.
Only on a candidate by candidate, issue by issue, basis.
One of the unforeseen benefits of my taking this stance was that I actually became more engaged. I had to. If you don't want your time and money wasted, or going to the wrong people, you have to know pols and policies on a level that you didn't have to before.
Lastly, on a more personal note, I have been here on this blog since 2004. I'm as deeply proud of the vast majority of you now, and of being associated with Daily Kos, as I was then. We are here because we give a shit. If we didn't give a shit, we'd be with the low-information voters who vote against their best interests, if they vote at all, or we'd be Republicans. For all the inside-the-beltway hostility directed towards you, the Democratic Party would have been utterly fucked without the Netroots.
Today, the bad guys won a significant round, I can't lie or sugarcoat that. But they haven't won the battle or the war yet. Nothing is over, yet, and we have good reason to keep digging. It's going to be harder on the Center-Left politically to move the country away from Movement Conservative policy because of what happened today, even if we do derail the deal, but it will be worse if we don't make it hell to get done.
Win or lose, we will bounce back from this.
How do I know this?
I know this, because we have to bounce back from this.
People will be out on the street if we don't, sick and vulnerable people will die if we don't. If we cave, if we break, things will get a lot worse than the worst potential setback we suffered today.
We are still the good guys in this long national fight to move the nation forward, and we believe in what we believe in because it is best for the poor, the vulnerable, the working poor, and the middle class of this country.
Thank you for giving me 10 minutes of your life to get this 'no pie fight, no finger pointing, no Jets v. Sharking' diary off my chest.