First a little about me and DKos: I joined Daily Kos in January 2009, buoyant in the wave of excitement that arrived after the 2008 election. I just checked my profile and since then I have recommended nearly 8200 diaries and made 2700 comments, a rate of about 10 diaries recommended and 3 comments posted per week for over 800 weeks! But I’ve only written 4 diaries total - a rate of about one per presidential election cycle lol. I decided to try another because in my 16 years here, I have not felt so much genuine bitterness in so many recent diary comments. Something real is going on and we need to discuss it.
On Dec 6, I read a diary responding to Barack Obama (PBO)’s first post-election remarks. PBO was reasonably predictable; essentially saying that we are in a long political fight and we will have to keep working at it. But the response here was uncharacteristically bitter and angry, with a lot of the anger directed at him. So what changed? In a nutshell, in the recent election we didn’t just lose – we got rebuked. Upside the head. We ran a candidate, Kamala, who united and excited the Democratic base (us), who embodied what we believe in, and she lost to an unqualified con man convicted felon rapist. We were rudely informed that the majority of voters would knowingly rather have that sh*tgibbon lead us than an experienced, talented woman. That f*cking hurts. And we can’t blame the loss on how the campaign was run etc. – the majority of voters rejected the concept of a woman as commander in chief, they rejected the concept of diversity, equity and inclusion – meritocracy – that we believe in. We discovered that we are in the minority because of our beliefs; in this case, because we believe a woman can lead, but in general because of our belief in capable people from all backgrounds leading. And that hurts.
There is another part to the bitterness: the Democratic leadership. With regard to Kamala’s campaign, it really feels like they brought a knife to a gun fight. So words from our genuinely heroic leader PBO fall flat when he says we’ll just have to work harder etc. PBO’s belief, and that of his successor Joe Biden (JRB), is that given a choice, the American people will do the right thing, they will choose goodness and fairness (Is this Bido-Obamaism? Obamobidenism?). How many times over the last few years did we hear “That’s not who we are” and “We are better than this”? I’m sorry PBO and JRB, the data are in and regrettably they say that we are NOT better than this. Note: I am proud that 70 million Americans agree that Kamala is ready to lead, but as they say in sports, there are no moral victories.
JRB, you decided to not actively and appropriately punish the criminality, sedition and treason in the Republican leadership after January 6, instead counting on voters to reject MAGA at the ballot box. I admire your belief in the character of the American people, but guess what – it was a bad bet. You had a chance to erect social guardrails, to say “we can disagree on a lot of things politically, but attempting a coup? Severe consequences.” But you let the opportunity to do this pass. For that matter, you, Nancy, Chuck and PBO let the Supreme Court slide into MAGAland with essentially no fight; a slow motion coup in front of our eyes. Essentially, they all got away with it. No wonder the Kos-ites are bitter.
PBO and JRB, you believed that if the public saw improvements in their economic well-being, for example through the ACA and the Inflation Reduction Act, people would act rationally and think “that’s swell, I’ll choose more of that. Thanks, competent Democrats!”. But where TFG was right (somehow through the rust-covered gears turning in his lizard brain he understood this) and Bido-Obamaism was wrong is that Americans have chosen to fight a culture war, a civil war about beliefs and perception, and that this fight supersedes basic economics. I wish it wasn’t, but the culture war is where political power is won or lost. The rational decisionmaker from microeconomics is not the one who is voting. To win political power in today’s American society, one has to win the culture war. And to win it, one has to fight it.
We are currently locked out of political power in Washington, and are about to suffer the consequences. If the system doesn’t shatter over the next few years with the sh*tgibbon in charge, we will have a chance to win again. On this, PBO is right: we have to keep fighting – but: let’s make sure we’re fighting the right war.
