Doctor_J
Doctor_J's JournalWe do show up. You are again only reading the part that you want to
When we go to the polls, we are allegedly electing representatives. Go look that word up in your Funk & Wagnalls. Everyone at DU votes for (D)'s because we know the stakes and we know how horrific the (R)'s are. But for the marginal/disaffected/uncommitted voter, if he shows up and walks the streets and sends money like he did in 2008, and finds that most of the change he was promised doesn't happen, he realizes that he was voting for a lie, or at least promises that can't be met - IOW, he's not being represented, and will to some percentage not be as enthusiastic next time around. The Repukes don't have this problem, because every radio station, newspaper, magazine, and TV "News" station blares their message every day. Without this huge propaganda machine, the Dems have to work harder at it, and then follow through on it.
Look at it this way. Suppose that after, say, the 4th time that the Repukes "filibustered" a bill in 2009, Harry reid had said, "OK, that's it. This is good, crucial legislation, and a minority of bought-off zealots are preventing the entire country from benefiting from it. We are going nuclear, and if and when they ever get the Senate back, we'll deal with it then". Assuming you believe that our (D) program is the correct one, then from that point in 2009 right up until the 2010 mid-terms, our (presumably) beneficial laws would have been passed and implemented, a nice chunk of "change" would have begun, and the hopeful from 2008 would have kept the spark going. We might have kept the House and continued to undo the Bush/Frist/McConnell/Boner damage.
Both parties have to keep their voters engaged. It just is much easier for the Repukes because they own Big Media lock, stock, barrel.
It took awhile to grind me down
But the entire Obama term has been one long list of giveaways. Deepwater drilling. Arctic drilling. Corporatized Health Care. Union Busting. Teacher abuse (remember Rhode Island?). Arne Duncan and Michelle Rhee. Prosecution of whistle blowers. Offers to cut SS and Medicare. Renewing the Bush/Obama billionaires' tax cuts. Refusal to take a stand on LGBT rights (states rights??). And KeystoneXL and TPP are right around the corner.
Eventually anyone with any principles at all has to stop backing up. The president doesn't seem to have any. I have mine and was able to bend them for a little while, but stop giving in long ago.
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: MI
Home country: USA, for now
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 36,392
