Friday, November 7, 2014

Democrats still infuriating


Yesterday, I noted that the Democratic Party makes me want to pull my hair out in frustration. Here's another example.

Barack Obama agreed not to do anything his supporters wanted him to do, because doing anything makes some people angry. Democratic candidates in red states asked for the delay.

They all lost, anyway! Well, of course they did. Right-wing voters already hated Obama with a passion, partly because he's a Democrat and partly because he's black. Haven't they figured that out by now?

At the same time, the Democrats didn't actually do anything their supporters wanted, so why would the Democratic base care enough to get to the polls?

The Democratic Party tried to use fear to motivate Democrats, but they're not nearly as good at it as the GOP (and Democrats aren't nearly as easy to scare as Republicans). Why not try to use enthusiasm to motivate their supporters? After all, that worked superbly in 2008.

But Democratic politicians tend to be terrified of offending anyone. And, as I noted before, doing anything offends some people. What they forget is that doing nothing offends people, too! It certainly does nothing to motivate the base.

Now, I am not saying to just write off red states. But what's the point if you're not going to stand for anything? As I said yesterday, you're probably going to lose anyway, but you'll lose while not standing for anything. And in the long-term, you'll never persuade anyone if you don't stand up for what you believe.

Furthermore, if you do get elected, but you're too timid to actually do anything, what's the point of getting elected in the first place? I wish the entire Democratic Party would fire their political consultants and just say - and then do - what's right. Jebus, how refreshing would that be?

You know the craziest thing about this? It was the Democratic Party which performed the greatest act of political courage in the past century - heck, maybe in American history - by repudiating their own racist Dixiecrat wing and supporting civil rights for racial minorities. They suffered politically for that, as they knew they would, but they still did what was right. Hard to believe these days, isn't it?

(In response, the Republican Party gleefully - and cynically - took advantage of that and began their notorious 'Southern strategy' of deliberately wooing white racists. Politically, that worked great. They took the entire South, all those former Dixiecrats, for themselves. But in so doing, they changed the GOP into the Dixiecrat Party, and they continue to get crazier by the minute.)

Hey, as long as the Republican Party remains batshit crazy - bigoted, faith-based, anti-science, incompetent in domestic and foreign policy, alike - I'll be voting Democratic. But why can't you give me good reasons to be enthusiastic about that, instead of always wanting to pull my hair out?

Heck, I don't have that much hair left.

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