General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: 7 years! [View all]passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)started with Occupy wall street. Then Obama picked up on it and it carried him to victory, but instead of keeping the grassroots base powered up to put the pressure on congress, he tried to do it through his usual method of working with recalcitrant people. He is very much an organizer who can bring people together, but what he wasn't counting on was the hatred from the right that a black man was in the white house, and their constant obstructionism seriously limited what he was able to accomplish. He did amazingly well on some things, just through his own tenacity, but as the years went by, congress became more and more obstructionist. They were seriously pissed when he won a second term.
What he really needed, and what we should have kept up on our own, was a grass roots powered revolution that pushed congress to act and cooperate with Obama. And I think we could have done it. If enough people tell congress to do the will of the people or lose their jobs, they will get scared...especially if they don't see us backing down.
But we didn't stay in formation and that is what we needed to do. We need a leader to keep us together and that is what Bernie is trying to be for us.
Our young people get it. It's us older fogeys who need to stand up and fight for a change. Not something we are very good at.