660 DAYS: STOP THE INSANITY
Back in the spring of 2016, in the heat of the primaries, it was obvious things were derailed in the Democratic Party. Accusations were flying from both wings of the party, nasty and biting, as bad as anything from the potty mouth of our current so-called president.
Somehow all this accusation and innuendo was okay when it was evident it was hurting the leading candidate. The results of the subsequent election were close. Very, very close. Statistically negligible. A little this way or that way and I wouldn’t even be writing this. But the ball took a weird bounce and here we are.
I bring this up because only this morning I was reading (for about the hundredth time) how if only Hillary had spent more time in the Rust Belt things would have turned out differently. While that may be true, because we’re discussing whisper-thin results, several other things might have made a difference as well.
If only the FBI had stayed neutral.
If only Putin had kept his finger off the scale.
If only there had been a hard-core progressive on the ticket.
If only we’d been dealing with an actual debate of ideas.
If only majority rules.
If only the GOP hadn’t mounted a 30-year anti-Hillary tirade.
If only Benghazi.
If only emails.
If only truth counted.
If only, if only, if only.
It’s 660 days until the next election. The infamous non-general election. People don’t vote in this election as a rule. That in itself always blows my mind. The entire House is up for election. Plus a third of the Senate. It is more than possible for the Democrats to take control of both ends of Congress. But 660 days is not a lot of time. How much longer are we going to bitch and moan and tear each other down?
The best point I heard in the entire recent campaign came from author (and neighbor) Tony Kushner. He said he had a lot of problems with Hillary, and he said he expected to march in the streets against some of her policies, but he asked who would you rather have in the Oval Office when you’re marching in the streets? He said you needed two things to make an effective progressive government. An active street protest, a loud and boisterous voice of We The People, and a focused administration to craft and execute policy. When you have both, things get done.
Well, we have a raucous We The People. Now we need the other bit.
It breaks my heart we came so close to closing the deal on our progressive push. In the end, nothing was more important than getting Hillary Clinton elected. And yet we never came together. We still haven’t come together. Hillary still gets gnarled fingers pointed at her from the left, and she certainly bears responsibility, but so do a lot of people. We all bear responsibility because we couldn’t pull together. Be honest. I was still fending off nastiness about her right up until the day of the election, and you can’t pretend that didn’t hurt her, not with the final results so close they were actually in her favor.
Hillary won a majority of votes cast. Don’t lose sight of that. It means her policies, her choices, her ideas, and the ideas of the Democratic Party were favored by more Americans. We don’t have to throw out the baby and bathwater. We need to get better at winning elections. The GOP is very good at winning elections. They’re also pretty bad at running governments. It’s why we’re stuck on this ridiculous pendulum. Eight years of bad followed by eight years of recovery from bad. It’s like clockwork in America. It needs to stop. And it would be great if it stopped in 2018.
660 days.
