“Are you the most liberal member of Congress?” Daily Show
host, Jon
Stewart asking then Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry.
Stewart handed Kerry a golden opportunity to reclaim the
nobility of liberalism
that had been demonized by the Republicans.
He could have launched into a gorgeous soliloquy: “If liberalism means a
decent minimum wage ... then yes I’m the most liberal, if it means economic
opportunity for all … then yes, I’m a liberal, if it means we should have clean
air to breathe and clean water to drink, then, yes, I’m a liberal.” The possibilities
were endless. But how did Kerry respond
to this softball of a question?
He said, “no.”
With that answer, Kerry, in essence, agreed that being a
liberal was a bad thing and he ran away from it. The problem was that with the Republicans
upholding conservatism as a great and noble calling- a position that was never
challenged by the faint hearted Democrats- there was no place to run to.
George
W. Bush, who was AWOL during the entire Vietnam War, went on to discredit
the military service of Kerry, a Silver Star medal recipient, and won the
election.
Fast Forward to Mid-term elections 2014. It is obvious that
the Democratic brand- as personified by Barak
Obama- is in trouble. But the
Democrats have weapons. The electorate
is angry due to gridlock in Washington.
The Republicans are responsible for the gridlock. They have set records for filibusters and
holding up presidential appointments.
People want to raise the minimum wage.
The Republicans are against raising the minimum wage. The previous Republican administration could
not find Osama Bin Laden. The Obama
administration had Bin Laden Killed.
You could just see the advertisements. A five year old blond girl holds a glass of
dirty water with oil floating in it. The
announcer reads,” The Republicans want to take the power away from the EPA
because they don’t believe in government.
If they do that, this might be what your family has to drink.” They
could have run an ad with a huge man taking a sledge hammer to a model of
Washington D.C. The narrator speaks,”
The Republicans hate government, but they want to run it. Would you hire a baby sitter who hates
kids?” The ads would all end with the
famous James
Brown song, with a minor variation, “Say it loud. I’m Democrat and I’m proud!”
Instead we got Democrats refusing to say that they voted for
the Democrat president, ignoring their bases and running around looking
absolutely ridiculous, shooting rifles.
Democrats cannot out-redneck the rednecks! Say it
loud! I’m Democrat and I’m proud!
Of course, the president hasn’t exactly set a tone or
example for the rest to follow. Obama
has shown himself to be tone deaf to the African American community and utterly
obsequious
to his Republican adversaries. All of
which brings us to the next related issue: poor democratic turnout in general,
and poor turnout, specifically, in the African American community.
All of which leads us to two salient questions: Do poor people not vote because they are
ignored by Obama and the Democrats or do Obama and the Democrats ignore
poor people because they don’t vote? I
have never heard anyone mention poor people since Obama has been in office.
The second question represents a phenomenon that completely
eludes me. It’s been just a few months
since a white police officer shot and killed the unarmed black teenager,
Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Mo. As the
story unfolded, we learned that while Ferguson has a two-thirds majority black
population, the entire power structure of the town, as well as virtually the
entire police department are all white.
The mayor and police chief, in the aftermath of the shooting, displayed
a disdain for the African American community that brought back memories of the
pre-civil rights South. All of this
occurred because, apparently, the black folks in Ferguson do not vote. Having watched all of this transpire, one has
to wonder how and why Black folks could have stayed home during the mid- term
elections. Have we learned nothing
from the Michael Brown shooting?
Has the African American community learned nothing from the
efforts of the Republicans, bolstered by an incredibly activist, Right Wing Supreme
Court, to deny them the right to vote?
The entire voting populace, black and white, needs to become much more
sophisticated if we are going to make what passes for democracy work in the
United States. But maybe if the
Democrats were not suffering from an identity crisis, their natural
constituencies might show up for mid-term elections.
www.williamgriggs.net
www.williamgriggs.net
Wow, so much to chew on here, Bill, one hardly knows where to begin. Let's start with the Democrats' incredible ineptitude at political rhetoric. That they so readily cede the moral "high ground" to conservatives -- given all the general good that has come from so-call liberal policies and all the f..ked up s..t that has resulted from conservatism -- is simply mind-boggling.
ReplyDeleteThen there is your very important existential question about whether poor stay away from the polls because they are ignored by politicians or whether politicians ignore poor people because they don't vote. To that, however, I might add that politicians kow-tow to the monied class that funds their elections, which is another reason why they ignore poor people.
One wonders what sort of wake-up call it will take for all of us in the 99% -- white and black -- who are getting royally screwed by the plutocracy to band together and effect substantive change in a system designed to take advantage of all but the already advantaged.
The reluctance to vote may be partially attributable to the difficulty in discerning any meaningful difference between self proclaimed moderate Democrats and their more right leaning opponents. Every politician you named including the POTUS chokes on the "P" word (poor).
ReplyDelete'Tis a sin and a shame.