I’ve been sifting through the various analyses and post-mortems, and I don’t know that I have anything insightful to say that others haven’t said better. Also, I just don’t have the energy. I think it’s clear from what I have had to say in recent years – and I have said it in various forms more times than I can recall – that I am incredibly disenchanted with the Democratic Party in its current incarnation. Anytime the best thing I can muster to say about you is that you’re not quite as bad as the Republicans, you know the bar can’t be set a lot lower without bringing in a backhoe.
In Colorado, for instance, am I happy about Cory Gardner? Hardly. Do I understand how people like me might have been underwhelmed by Vichy Democrat Mark Udall? Yeah, I do. Do I get why you wouldn’t want to knock on doors or man a phone bank or write a check for this FISA-loving illegal drone-surveillance pimp? Hell, I admire your commitment to the cause if you drove a block out of your way to vote for him.
We’ve had some issues through the years with Colorado’s BiParticrat Senator, Mark Udall. He’s worked hard to cultivate a reputation as a guy who’s looking after our civil liberties, and his chief tactic in doing so has been
an insistence on no-nonsense, pro-rights policya nigh-Cirque du Soleil-esque commitment to misdirection, sleight-of-hand, obfuscation, backpedaling, smoke-blowing, singing in tongues and tapdancing. Recall, if you will, his silver-tongued bullshittery back in 2008 when I wrote him about his anti-Constitutional collaboration with the Bush administration over FISA. I don’t know who his Propagandist-in-Chief is, but his/her gift for doublespeak could, in a month or two, transform Charlie Sheen and Paris Hilton into poster children for abstinence.
We all want to believe in something, to believe that our efforts are making things better. And trying to keep them from getting worse, that’s not the same thing. Not practically, and certainly not emotionally. After a certain period of time I think we all grow weary of supporting the lesser of two evils. And that might as well be the Dems’ new motto: vote for us – we’re the lesser evil!
I just keep thinking that progressives need a Tea Party of our own. The Dems need to be hijacked from the left and forced to dance to Woody Guthrie tunes until their feet fall off.
If only we had the kind of cash those “grassroots” groups tripped over right after Obama got elected….
Categories: Politics/Law/Government
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 
As the Biparticrat-in-chief once said, “I feel your pain.”
Had a convo about this with a mutual friend who’s a scientist of some repute. We were both lamenting that at both the federal and state levels, people like us, people who try to educate and help cure diseases, have targets on their backs because – greed and Jesus. I said this:
I have given up thinking that “the people” are anything but short sighted, selfish, distracted asses without any sense of civic responsibility or admiration of anything but greed, xenophobia, and self-righteousness.
They deserve what’s coming, Unfortunately, we will pay for their stupidity even more than they will, I fear.
Sums it up nicely, I think. Of course, being able to sum up is a skill of little value in our current culture.
Being able to lie while quoting scripture, now that would have some value…
the major religion of politicians is Greed.
Right. I’m fine with the idiots being victimized. Problem is, there are millions of innocent bystanders paying the price, too.
I agree violently.
You know, I’ve turned very fatalistic over the last few years. Reading that book I told you guys about made me think about humanity’s place in space and time, and any individual’s place in humanity, and any single action’s place in an individual’s lifetime, and instead of depressing me, somehow it provided me with a sense of relief. “Whew, when I fucked up that time it really didn’t matter.” It’s also freed me from feeling guilty over stuff like not voting and I didn’t even watch the election this time around.
But it’s also made me a bit optimistic, because often things turn out better than we think.Who knows, this could turn out well, either directly or because it provokes a left wing Tea Party or some such. I’ve argued, on this forum and others, that the only reason the south is livable for black people is because the federal government provides and umbrella of safety, scant as it is, that protects them. I’ve also argued that government social programs may have had unintended negative consequences, etc, etc. Well, we may be about to see if those arguments are right, because now the Dixiecrat Party is running the country. Strom and Jesse would be proud.
(And in a wonderful bit of irony, some of the faces of the new Dixiecrat Party are black and women. It’s interesting in a way that shared superstition (religion) and bigotry (anti-gay) are able to unite sexes and races in a way that a desire for justice and equality could not.)
Let’s see how this turns out. Best case, it might take us to a better place none of us can anticipate, as a Labour Government did in Australia a few decades ago. Worst case, it will be an interesting experiment.
Otherwise not even the Federal government will protect African Americans when this is deemed okay…….http://m.nydailynews.com/news/national/negro-acceptable-term-soldiers-u-s-army-article-1.2000759
We are pedaling backward so fast you can’t see the spokes moving. I truly believe women’s right to vote will disappear in my lifetime (sooner than later, I fear) so casting my last votes this week is just a headstart for me. As I said earlier this week- I don’t have millions of dollars to make my vote count. I’ve been priced out of the market.
Well, what’s stopping you from running for office? Er wait, never mind… intelligence is a liability in US politics… makes you look godless and America-hating.
As you know, the regularity of my blogging died with Citizens United four and a half years ago. But I still “believed” that democratic processes would prevail. That was foolish of me.
Yes, the Repubs tossed three and a half times the amount of dark money in this mid-term election. And yes, we can draw a conservative arc from Barry Goldwater (who looks sane now by comparison) to Reagan to Newt Gingrich in ’94 to Bushes Galore. But as Repubs marched ever rightward, so did the Democrats. Fewer and fewer countervailing voices remain.
No one tells me the truth, let among a truth, any more. Not media. Not incumbents. Not challengers. If there is an emotion that pervades the United States of Disarray now, it is fear.
Were I far more activist, I would set about defining and articulating that fear. But at a few hundred page views per post, I doubt that screed would register anywhere.
God save the Republic, because politicians sure as hell can’t.