So, its 2018 and the Democrats have just taken the House. A part of me feels like I should celebrate the end of the Republican majority in Federal Government. But, another part of me is enjoying the good economy said majority most likely bolstered, or at least didn’t mess up. As a practical man rather than a partisan, I value facts over party allegiance. You may say that makes me unrealistic given today’s tense and tribal political climate i.e ” How can anyone not choose a definite side!” But I would caution my critic just as I will caution the democrats -that what I see today I have seen before.
When I was in college, I was an ardent supporter of the liberal agendas of the time, especially its social reforms like same sex marriage and native american policy. I remember distinctly being exhilarated by the news during the fall of my senior year that a blue wave of democratic candidates was about to score record wins in the post-FDR era. In fact, in 2008 Democrats swept into the house and Senate and took the presidency on a election day that seemed to mean that this country had finally chosen a side. Gone would be the malaise of non believers who decried Republican traditionalism and Grand Ole America, gone would be the legacy of the counterintuitive Republican witch hunting of the 1990’s and gone forever would be anyone’s loyalty to the party of George W Bush, Dick Cheney and the war hawks of the Iraq War consensus.
But, despite the affirmations of pundits and winning politicians at the time, America did swing back to the Red side of the aisle, where the Elephant party had been waiting to not change but double down on its most conservative policy platforms. So with the end of the Democratic majority during Obama’s second term and with a Republican majority that has existed up until this Nov. 6, my little liberal hopes for the possibility of a brave new world are dead on the streets, ghostly haunting me with tales of my misguided younger passions and far too presumptuous belief that a democratic majority would last forever. Here today, I caution all of us to understand that politics is about recycling as much as it is about cycling. What seems to die off inevitably comes back again and again and that includes both democratic and republican agendas. If the democrats want to make this round count, then they must do more to remember that one day the republicans will return to undo whatever isn’t “bolted to the floor” and hard to overturn. The Democrats must be effective enough to create another Democratic majority by promising not recycled hashtags and movements, but bold initiatives that reflect what is to come. Single payer, progressive tax policies that level the playing field for all classes of Americans, a stable education reform policy that allows funding for schools while providing a consistent platform for them to address early childhood education and guaranteeing nursery through kindergarten, a solution to the war on terrorism that minimizes the death of American lives, an acceptance that racism is still alive in a not yet post-racial society and that it informs the debate on everything from police brutality to illegal immigration and finally there needs to be a Democratic party that stops covering over its achievements and like the Republicans do, brags about them -boastfulness is the new black. And it is effective. You don’t have to remember how in middle school the kid who always plays quarterback at recess is always the most popular one; popularity comes from projecting confidence, a sense that you not only know better but defiantly know better. Democrats have lacked in this personality department and were beaten by a certain someone who never lacks in it for a moment.
That’s the dividing line, the new color line that will determine entry into the realpolitik. So If we as a people are sick and tired of the interchange between party majorities, then it will be because we start to understand that some people are always allegiant, until they are educated, and others are sometimes allegiant, until they are afraid. Democrats must begin to be the party of safety while being the party of progress, they must not shy away from preaching because they seem professorial, they must double down and preach about accomplishments and explain them with the ease and gravitas, but not the history of Pres. Clinton. I know I was less excited about this blue wave because I , in my young life, have lived through one and watched others who have lived through many more still somehow maintain a naive enthusiasm that kingdom had definitely come. In politics, the day after comes quickly and just as sure as republicans have gone they are rapidly coming right back. America is on a yoyo string, lets demand that democrats stop playing that game too.
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