Dear Rachel…
Please, STOP CALLING US DEMOCRATS!
Rachel, I love you. I’ve loved you since I first heard your show on Serius Radio’s America Left Channel. You, Ed Schultz, Mark Thompson, and Tom Hartman were voices in the wilderness. Back then, I was living in Tennessee, surrounded by folks who viewed the world through a very different lens. Still, I couldn’t keep my lefty-liberal opinions to myself. My many letters to the editor of The Tennessean provoked some unsettling responses, the most worrisome of which came in a hand-scrawled envelope I discovered one evening in the mailbox of the vintage Craftsman house I shared with my wife and daughter. After accusing me of sedition, the author of the aforementioned missive capped off his neighborly message with, “I only wish I could put a bullet between your traitorous eyes.”
But, every afternoon, there you were, somewhere out there, wafting to me over the radio waves, with a dollop of sanity. And that helped. A lot. A belated, but sincere thank you for the comfort, the sense of solidarity you provided me at that time. And so, for that reason, and because without a doubt you’re pretty much the smartest person on TV, I’ve remained a fan, a devotee, an apostle ever since.
But, please, please, please, Rachel, stop calling us democrats!
Admittedly, you’re not the only offender, and certainly not the worst. That very same presumption, that same simplified generalization gets repeated day after day on network and cable news, even on NPR. Phrases like, “An angry group of democrats showed up at Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz’s town hall meeting today,” followed by footage of protesters chanting, “Do your job!”
With all due respect, I must pose this question… Why do you assume, HOW can you possibly assume, simply because a person demands accountability from his or her elected representative, that he or she represents the opposition party, or is affiliated with any party, for that matter? Certainly, it’s not beyond comprehension — especially at this critical juncture in the history of this very troubled nation — that individual citizens are finding the motivation to get out there and join the resistance without needing to pin some prescribed party label to their chests.
Democratic candidates may benefit from our passion, our conviction, our energy. This we can only hope. But, beneficiaries be warned: You better freakin’ represent! That positive outcome, however, does not justify the assumption that this very essential, extremely important resistance is, in any way shape or form, a faction of the Democratic Party or a movement for which the party can take any credit whatsoever. (I will restrain myself from discussing how that pack of lamebrains are directly responsible for the quagmire in which we find ourselves today.)
This much is true, my dear Rachel. We are citizens. We are individuals. Many of us are Independents, some are Greens or Libertarians. Regardless, it is imperative that this coalition remain united in our conscientious resistance to bigotry, fear, and willful ignorance and in our commitment to progressive ideals.
And by labeling us Democrats, you, along with the media at large, run the risk of alienating, fragmenting the many who refuse to or simply cannot identify with major party labels because of what our dysfunctional, two-party, us-against-them, always-blame-the-other side system has wrought.
Please, Rachel, stop calling us democrats. I love you.
Sincerely,
Rand Bishop
Newport, OR