You and Me Against the World, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

November 8, 2014 Martha Thomases 1 Comment

It’s been a mixed week for progressives.  On the one hand, Republicans took control of the Senate and strengthened their hold on the House.  On the other hand, Washington, DC, voted to legalize marijuana.

Okay, those are not equivalent.  I’m not happy with Tuesday’s outcome, and I don’t particularly want to talk about why I’m not happy.  You can guess the reasons.  Instead of griping about the specific results, I want to talk about what I consider to be a bigger problem.

Democrats suck.

It’s the conventional wisdom that Obama is not popular.  That’s what the polls say.  That is traditionally what happens to a president at the midway mark of a second term.  A lot of people, especially those who subscribe to the conventional wisdom, think he’s not popular because he’s too far to the left.

If only.

Despite the fact that many of the more insane Tea Partiers (not all!) think he’s a Kenyan Muslim socialist, Barack Obama is actually pretty centrist.  His health care plan, which some consider to be socialized medicine, in fact put billions of dollars in the hands of private insurance companies, as well as doctors, hospitals and clinics (via the insurance companies).  It was created by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

A lot of other things that he’s done that the (wackier parts of the) right wing accuse him of doing are equally moderate.  The build-up of troops in the Middle East isn’t something that any leftist supports.  We certainly don’t support a blanket approval of everything Israel does.  We think his environmental efforts are tentative at best.  Don’t get me started on gun control.  The list goes on and on.

However, the right accuses him of being “liberal,” and the Democrats flee in fear.  Instead of taking pride in the things Obama has done successfully (job growth, increase in support for health care reform, etc.), they strive to paint themselves as something other.

You know what I call something other than a Democrat?  A Republican.

Not every Democrat agrees with Obama, nor do I expect that.  Traditionally, there has been a wider range of opinions within the Democratic party than the GOP.  That’s healthy.

However, when Alison Lundergan Grimes won’t say if she voted for Obama, even though she was his delegate to the convention, that’s not a matter of disagreeing on issues.  That’s cowardice.

It’s also stupid.  Faced with a choice between a fake conservative and a real conservative, most voters will choose the real one (or not vote in those races, which is what I do).  They may or may not agree with conservative positions, but they know where the candidate really stands.

It’s a disservice to the voter, who is trying to select a representative in the marketplace of ideas.  We don’t get a real sense of what the people want, only what the handlers think we want to hear the candidates say.  We don’t all want the same things, but it’s hard to tell when the same commercials air all over the country, with only the names changed.

When there has been a real choice between progressives and conservatives, we can see that, in some places, the progressives win.  Here’s a quote that says what I’m trying to say:

“One trend that was interesting last night is that clear, strong progressives like Jeff Merkley (OR), Tom Udall (NM), Brian Schatz (HI) and Al Franken (MN)– who had massive right-wing money thrown at them– won, while conservative Democrats like Mark Warner, Mary Landrieu, Mark Udall, and Kay Hagan stumbled and the most conservative Democrat of all, Mark Pryor, lost badly”

There’s also this:

“All of it has left some to wonder whether Warner would have won bigger if he had eschewed the middle and embraced the left, and whether the winning path for moderates that Warner forged during his own bid for governor 13 years ago is becoming extinct.”

Does this mean progressives would win everywhere?  No, I’m not saying that.  I’m saying that running on sincerely held progressive platforms is more appealing than fly-by-night conservative flip-flopping.  One might lose, but at least one fought the good fight.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to try to book a weekend in Washington.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, wishes more people would vote, even those with whom she disagrees.