Specifics: Why Obama and Dems Don’t Get My Vote

I see people aren’t getting why the Dems don’t deserve a liberal’s vote, even though I’ve stated my reasons several times in various posts on this blog.

So here are my reasons again.

The biggest reason: The last eight years, and actually, the 2000 election. Had I been able to vote back then, I would have voted for Gore. And I would have been royally pissed at the Dems for not fighting back and winning Florida when all they had to do to win was stand up to Republican bullying.

The Dems lost in 2000, not because of Nader or because of the media (though the media certainly helped), but because they didn’t, and don’t, have any spine or guts, and the Republicans do. They let the thugs win because they didn’t have a bigger will to win, and in caving, they failed the millions who had wanted them to win.

That is pretty fucking unforgivable, given what the Republicans got away with in 2000. They stole an election and the incumbents let it happen. They let that happen to America, the land of free elections and democracy.

They also employed a strategy back then which they have further refined since, in the 2004 and 2008 election seasons. They think the tie-breaker vote is that of the Independents and someone has told them that Independents are centrist, if not right-wing, and so they abandon their base in an attempt to win over the “swing voter.”

Get this: They abandon their base.

They do this because they think they can take us for granted. As a pro-choice atheist feminist with liberal political views, I’m part of their base. And they’re not paying much attention to me because they’re too busy chasing after that elusive assholish Independent.

Can I say it again? They’ve abandoned their base because they think they’ve got us down – we’ll vote Democratic no matter what. So they’re free to chase the few swing voters it will take to get them the tiny majority they need to win.

This is not the way to maintain the loyalty of your base. You can’t afford to not cater to the demands and expectations of your base for too long without alienating a good chunk of it.

They pander to the religious. They pander to the “pro-life” crowd. They talk about the sanctity of life, but they support the death penalty. They are not for drug reform. They don’t care about prison reform. They’re just dandy with guns. They are hawkish about war, because they don’t want the Republicans to call them pussies. They are sexist in their staffing choices. They don’t want all Americans to have civil rights (think, gay rights, particularly marriage equality). They aren’t much concerned about the separation of church and state. They are doing nothing to defend the little guy against corporations. They are on board “tort reform.” They will do nothing to improve schools. They have destroyed welfare. They are standing by and watching quietly as the Republicans shatter the last fragments of what made America a great country (often referred to as the “New Deal”).

I could keep going, but you get the idea.

Most egregiously of all, perhaps, they suffered through Clinton’s bullshit impeachment and they haven’t done the same to Bush and Cheney, despite, literally, mountains of evidence that would have been enough for ten indictments. They have colluded with the Republicans, not able or willing to do their part as a meaningful opposition party. They are not, in fact, an opposition party at all. They are the somewhat saner wing of the Republican party.

It pisses me off that the Republicans fight like little furies and prevent any possible good that government can do if it’s proposed by Democrats. What do the Democrats do when Republicans scheme to take away our rights and trample all over everything put in place for public safety? They sit by and let it happen, because hey, they need to compromise to get shit done.

The Dems have failed America pretty badly in the last eight years. It’s not like it can’t be their fault AT ALL because the Republicans have been the main architects of the wanton destruction. It IS the Dems’ fault in part, because they have had some measure of power in the House and they have not used it. They have not lifted a finger to protect us against any of the sorry mess that both wings of the Republican party have created together.

Then we get Obama and Hillary Clinton and a primary season full of the sort of egregious sexism I thought I’d left behind in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Truly, it made me ashamed of this country. A lot of it came from “centrist Dems.” Centrist Dems are the devil’s spawn, I tell you. They think they’re doing us people with uteri a huge favor by giving us some basic bodily autonomy – perhaps, if we beg hard and are good little girls – and beyond that, we need to shut up and let someone else have his turn.

Never mind that abortion rights in this country are a joke. I never feel so demoralized as when I attend Planned Parenthood meetings – the mountain that we in the private non-profit sector have to climb in the face of enemy legislation and cuts in funding and local laws that threaten to chip away at our rights just a little bit more, is all but a losing battle. And we’re fighting it by ourselves. We get fuck-all from Democrats.

Obama voted for FISA. Obama talks about God an awful lot. He is willing to compromise on a bedrock Dem principle (offshore drilling). He is not going to do anything for gay rights. He’s not going to cut any taxes for the middle class. He’s not going to pull out of Iraq or not go into Iran. He’s not going to put any of the controls and regulations back in place that the Republican have destroyed. He’s not going to bring manufacturing back to America. He’s not going to do much for the environment.

Most importantly, Obama is not quite sure what being pro-choice means. I don’t trust him on that as I trusted Bill Clinton on that. I’ll give you an example of what I mean by trust. There is a video of Bill Clinton at a rally, getting red-faced mad and tearing an anti-choice heckler in the audience a new asshole. Unless you get passionate-mad about this issue like that, I don’t know that you really get it. Bill got it. I cannot imagine Obama losing it against anti-choicers. He will probably say, “I know where you’re coming from and respect your point of view that women aren’t fully human.”

Bill Clinton at least talked a progressive game, even if he was a centrist. Obama talks a centrist and alarmingly right-wing game and will be even worse in practice. He’s no liberal.

Obama clearly has no principles. He’ll do and say anything to win. He is an opportunist who doesn’t give the impression of having given much thought to the good of the people, beyond that it will be kind of all right for the people to have him as president because look how bad McCain sucks.

That’s it right there, that is going to bring about the downfall of he Democrats. It is not a winning strategy to point to the other guys and say, “Look! They suck worse than us!” if that is ALL you’ve got to say for yourself.

And that’s pretty much all the Dems have to say for themselves. It’s no longer just the argument that cynical voters use, ‘the lesser of two evils.’ It’s how the Dems advertise themselves.

They aren’t even trying any more. If they get elected, they implement the Republican agenda because shit, we’ve gotta be bipartisan!

This is the kind of ridiculous “choice” of leadership that makes third-world countries like Pakistan such a huge joke if they try to do any electioneering.

Why should I, as a third-world transplant, reward the very brand of politics I’ve long held in contempt in countries that have far more excuse to be that way than America?

Here’s what the Dems need to do to win my vote. (And no, they have not tried to win me over yet. Not since Bill.)

They need to stop talking about God, period. It’s simply not something that belongs in politics and I don’t care who says what about needing to do it to win. It is against our constitution and it has no place in this election. That includes getting rid of “God” from the Pledge of Allegiance and American paper currency.

They need to be unequivocal about a woman’s right to choose. No pandering to the forced-birth crowd. And I mean, no pandering. We’re over 35 years past Roe. We need this as an uncompromisable part of the platform of the Democratic party and we need it NOW. This extends to filibustering everything that seeks to limit the right to abortion and voting the right way, all together, on every choice issue.

They need to be unequivocal about gay rights, down to marriage rights.

They need to stop pretending they think drugs are bad and commit to stop sending black people to jail for drug “crimes.”

They need to demonstrate some commitment to getting the ERA passed.

They need to get serious about gun control.

They need to give everyone free healthcare.

They need to admit to themselves and everyone else that Republicans don’t love America and are doing everything they can to destroy everything that is great about this country. And they need to use that against the Republicans in elections. Religion is off-bounds but patriotism is not.

They need to put lowering the cost of a college education as part of their election agenda. Then they need to actually do it. They also need to fix the sorry mess that is our public school system.

They need to reign in corporations. Not just talk about it, they need to actually do it.

They need to raise the minimum wage to be a living wage.

They need to actually do something to prevent the continuing collapse of the middle class.

They need to hold Republicans accountable for their misdeeds. That’s what opposition parties are for – can someone tell the Democrats that’s what opposition parties are for? They don’t seem to have internalized that elementary lesson sufficiently.

They didn’t stop torture. That’s huge. America tortures and the Democrats are complicit in that crime.

They didn’t stop the erosion of civil liberties through the Patriot Act and other legislation that has given government more power over ordinary Americans.

Again, I could keep going. Tell me if you aren’t seeing a pattern here of liberal ideals.

I want the Democrats to actually be what they claim to be: The liberal party. I want them to stop pandering to the Republicans. I want them to wake up and realize that that has not won them the last two elections and it will not win them this one.

And if they think they need to be Republican-lite to win, then they will have to win without me.

They clearly think they can. Well, they’re welcome to try. I hope they succeed. But I’m not going to thank them in the ballot box for stiffing me throughout their campaign.

We can do better than this. We need to demand better than this.

P.S. I’m listening to Obama’s convention speech now. He’s talking like a liberal. Let’s see if he can keep it up and get my vote. I doubt it, and my vote is not solely dependent on his behavior, but I’m listening, Obama. Update: He lost me at abortion. Now the Dems apparently won’t go any farther than birth control to protect my right to choose. He’s also disingenuously saying a lot of things he himself has not supported or has worked against. Who does he think he’s fooling? This is typical cant.