As a liberal political citizen, I have had a difficult two years since Obama’s election. And it’s not getting any easier in November, because I can no longer vote for a Democrat.
First, let me briefly explain my politics. I used to call myself a progressive, but that term has been co-opted by Democrats, so I don’t use it anymore. I now use the label "hard-left." I’m a populist, anarchist and libertarian with a green ethos and an optimistic liberal heart. I would be completely stoked if Dennis Kucinich were president.
When I was wooed and won over by candidate Barack Obama, I had no illusions. I knew he was moderate and he wasn’t promising many substantive left-wing policies, despite his soaring rhetoric. But I thought maybe the time had come for change. Maybe America had seen enough of the damage of the right-wing extremists.
Apparently, I was wrong.
I’m not upset with now-President Obama because my list of left-wing policy goals hasn’t been achieved. I knew he couldn’t get that done. I’m upset because he hasn’t even suited up for the fight. Not once. He has either broken specific campaign promises or come to the negotiating table from the right. In every battle. On every piece of legislation.
Everyone knows that when you haggle, you have to start by asking for MORE than what you want, not less. Your opponent — especially a bargainer as unwilling to compromise as the current Republicans — won’t give you more than you ask for.
Maybe Obama has led from the right because he doesn’t want anything liberal to get done. After all, the Democrats are NOT a liberal party. They might have been once, but I’m only 38; I don’t remember that far back.
The GOP might be the party of conservatives, but the Democratic Party doesn’t represent liberals. They’re moderates. Some folks will argue with me. They’ll say that the Republicans would do too much damage to America if given the chance, so we need to vote for the moderates. Yeah, sure, except I’m not moderate, and I think their moderate policies stink.
But it’s not just a policy disagreement anymore. The White House — the leadership of the Democratic Party — has openly declared war on us hard-lefties since the inauguration. Rick Warren, a direct punch in the face, was only the beginning. The Democratic leadership has ignored us, insulted us, not given us a seat at the table, insulted us some more, and then passed crappy legislation while demanding that we congratulate them for it.
(Sorry, I don’t give out huzzahs for crap. Some folks will argue that if it were President McCain, it would be worse crap. Maybe, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s crap.)
Rahm Emanuel called me "fucking retarded" for having my own opinions — and then DIDN’T get fired, unlike poor Shirley Sherrod, who was actually doing honest liberal work. Now Robert Gibbs says that I must be on drugs because I expected more than moderate crap from a president who promised change.
Being told to talk to the hand would make more sense if us hard-lefties got stuff wrong all the time. I would understand them not wanting to listen to people who don’t know what they’re talking about.
But we’ve been right for the past decade. We were right that Bush would break our nation like a 6-year-old with Grandma’s good china. We were right that Democrats wouldn’t win elections by posing as Republican-lite. We were right that a violent tantrum as a reaction to Sept. 11 wouldn’t make us safer or solve the problem of Muslim extremism. We were right about Afghanistan being an immoral sinkhole. We were right about right-wing economic policies driving the country into the ground.
We’ve gotten it right over and over again. Often, we were the only people speaking truth to power, when all the Democratic moderates were kowtowing to the right-wing extremists. When we were called traitors (because we didn’t think bombing an innocent country was a rational response to Sept. 11), the Democratic leadership kept quiet and let us be demonized.
And then, after Americans finally woke up to the Bush/Cheney nightmare, we thought something might change. But rather than Obama explaining to the nation how progressive ideals ARE American values, and then fighting for them, the White House has run from the left while spitting at us.
So I’ve had enough. I’m getting out of this abusive relationship. I’m going to vote for someone who might actually represent me — even if he or she tries and fails — or I won’t vote at all. Maybe I’ll vote Republican as a hip-check.
Maybe Americans need a few more years of Republican destruction in order to learn the lesson that the GOP doesn’t represent the best of America, it represents the worst in us. Maybe then the Democratic Party will realize that to form a more perfect union, to guarantee liberty and justice for EVERYONE, to make our country work again, we need better than crappy moderate policies from crappy moderate politicians.
Until then, the Democrats just lost another voter.
(Originally posted on my personal blog.)
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