the great divide

i am once again in my home away from home, in my other home city, and following a weekend of wondrous national security overload at a truman conference extraordinaire, i here sit contemplating the political scene this one year past the inauguration of a lifetime.

and i have to say, being a tried, true, and dedicated democrat, the one thing i've found i can consistently expect from our party, and liberals generally, is disappointment. we are so good at shooting ourselves in the foot, letting run rampant our self-righteous diatribes of disappointment in a status quo we can't even stop falling over ourselves bitching about to do anything to correct, that we lead ourselves right down a losing lane.

and then we have the audacity to blame it all on a president we lent blood, sweat, tears, and our hearts to see elected, only to abandon him in his hour of greatest need (see falling poll numbers, a healthcare debate gone awry, climate change legislation climbing deeper into a sinkhole).

why?

because our liberal elitism, our over-educated masses of deep thinkers, is too deeply embedded in pragmatism and intellectual prowess to recognize that the great divide our rifts cause do nothing to bring our party together. in fact, it does everything to keep us divided enough that we don't even stop to notice that the republican crazies are telling the only story anyone can hear, and the only story the masses are starting to believe. i mean, when i support the president, i'm accused by liberals of "drinking the kool-aid", or "clapping for tinkerbell".

the thing that republicans do well (and in no small part i credit the absence of intellectual acumen in its rank and file) is stick together, and stand up for one another. when reagan was president, his poll numbers fell like a house of cards his first year. yet instead of sitting back to see conservatives pointing fingers at one another, the republican party came together, to stand stronger together, and brought enough emotional patriotism into the narrative, that they were able to get those poll numbers back up, and win in a landslide come re-election time.

we are letting these teabagger dummies rant on about socialism and obama's far left agenda (lest we forget that our president is also the same hawk who upped the anty in a war in afghanistan), that healthcare will bankrupt us, when it's actually doing nothing about healthcare will bankrupt us. that big government intrustion is what caused the economic crises, and will continue to plague our unemployment numbers whilst we're delving deeper and deeper into an irrevocable abyss of debt, as if the bush administration had nothing to do with the economic crumble.

we are letting them tell the story, we are letting them write the narrative (in words so small they can all understand), because we are too busy bagging on our president, attacking one another because healthcare doesn't go far enough, because obama hasn't closed guantanamo, because he doubled down in afghanistan after promising us peace, love, and togetherness (not sure where _anyone_ heard such nonsense in his campaign stumping). because we think too much to stand down and be supportive, because we are so selfishly engaged in wanting more attention for ourselves, and being right, that we can't stop making liberal noise loud and long enough to be on the side of america.

the worst part about it is that the republican party itself is under the barrage of a great dividing firestorm, with no real leaders, and voices like glen beck, sarah palin, and rush limbaugh speaking the loudest. and instead of taking advantage of this opportunity to help them nail the final coffin in their dwindling party, we're helping them move even farther to the right, and pick up steam along the way.

and what's the end result of all this nonsense? we are going to lose our majority in congress this fall, and then we'll really know what it's like to be behind a president who can't get anything done, because the party of no will hold all the cards. and we'll have no one to blame but ourselves, because when push came to shove, we didn't have the ability to do the hard work, get behind the people trying to help our agenda, and tell a better story than "i'm better than you".

and you know what, we'll deserve it.

~k