The media frenzy has begun.
WHAT DO THESE ELECTION RESULTS MEAN FOR 2012?? WILL DEMOCRATS LOSE POWER NEXT YEAR?? WHAT DOES SARA PALIN HAVE TO DO WITH IT??
They ask only the most important and logical questions.
Yet I can’t decide if it matters at all who won or wins next year or wins ever. I have the growing sense that Democrats can’t represent real progressive interests. Too many are corporate pawns. Too many do too little and they allow the Right to remain powerful.
The Democrats begin negotiations having already given up half their hand. They start out low and somehow get drawn into going lower by an opposition party that offers no new ideas. The largest of legislative projects that will affect millions is left to a “Gang of Six” Senators to make as moderate as possible, only to end up hinging on the vote of Joe Lieberman and/or Olympia Snowe. How is that democracy?
Climate progress is being held up by Republicans in committee that won’t even come to the table. People are losing jobs every day and the establishment can’t stop talking about how well the banks are doing. Barack Obama wouldn’t even oppose a Maine referendum measure taking away the already granted right to marriage for gay people in that state.
The supposedly progressive party is in power, yet progress remains elusive.
But then I ask myself. Is progress not slow? Is it a not a step-by-step process? And have there not been steps? Yes, Congress passed a large stimulus to save the economy, a feat that would be impossible with a Republican congress. And yes, the EPA is invoking its power to regulate carbon dioxide. And yes, we may have a public healthcare option after all.
But it all seems fragile, like it could be turned over in the next election cycle. And all the while, the Left has to accept these compromises as the best we can expect from the better of two evils.
I fear that the longer Democrats are in power, the more they’ll take us for granted. They know that we who believe in change have little other recourse, and it allows them to ignore things that many of their supporters believe in. They can deliver dollars to their corporate friends while forgetting about the people that worked on their elections. The power goes to their heads and they fail to deliver on progress.
To quote candidate Obama, “The people are getting hosed.” And it’s a shame that President Obama won’t put a stop to it.
So what am I to do? Keep supporting the slow and unsteady efforts of Democrats? Or stop giving them my vote, my volunteer hours, and my trust until they present some real change? I’m not sure, but for me and millions of other Americans who are losing faith in the system, the next couple of years may be pivotal in re-affirming or dissolving confidence in the system.
