You know what's worse than watching House and Senate Democrats botch the tax cut vote? All the emails from folks throwing their hands up in the air and heading for the exits, swearing off voting Democratic or ever again donating money.
I know it's cathartic to howl at the moon, and in most cases it's just a heat of the moment reaction. But the "take my marbles and go home" crowd has always struck me as peculiarly both overinvested and underinvested in politics: overinvested in the way a rabid sports fan's mood rises and falls with the fate of the hometown team; underinvested in that they go from supposedly caring so much it makes their hearts ache to washing their hands of politics entirely.
What I think it speaks to is a lack of control. A helpless feeling washes over people who care passionately about the issues that confront the country but who, because of the demands of work and family, are limited in how involved they can be politically. They have their vote and in some cases they have some disposable income to give to campaigns. But they don't have much of a voice, certainly not a loud or influential voice. In casting about for some way to exert more control, a take it or leave it mentality starts to seem like a viable option.
I don't have any silver bullet to offer. Politics is a long hard slog, with frequent reversals. It's about making the best decision from among the available choices. Often the available choices, as they say in political science circles, suck. The fact that political successes are so rare and fleeting is what makes them so glorious. But you have to gut it out through the lean times. No guts, no glory.
David was good enough to lend some air to the dissenters, but reading them over, maybe he shouldn't have.
This is why as a Liberal, I tend to loathe a lot of Liberals. This is why we lose (or get our asses kicked). There's no sense of the long game. There's no sense of "what's next". There's no perspective. You want what you want right now, and damn all the rest.
Well F you too.
I'm sorry, this is getting sickening. I'm not quite getting the math here. You say you want better (read: more Liberal) governance, and your reaction is to make it harder for there to be better-slash-more Liberal governance.
Again, voting in Congressional Democrats, as lame as they are, are not Barack Obama's reward for doing a good job. They are not points accumulating in some political video game you're playing in your head. You are not, as you deluded jack-offs seem to think, sending any kind of a message this way. Either you want a Liberal or Progressive Agenda to succeed or you don't. If you do, you first vote for the best candidate in the primaries. You can fall in love all you want during the primaries. You can vote for the most progressive, green, uber-Liberal man or woman you want.
But when the General Election happens, you fall in @#$%ing line.
Hopefully, your dream Candidate has made it to the General Election as the Democratic Nominee, but if he or she hasn't, then guess what?: the people have spoken however lame that may be. And you better get on board, because you the opposition is never going to give your ideas the time of day. Better a Blanche Lincoln, as worthless a Senate Candidate as she may be than whatever neo-Teabagger wingnut that's running against her.
But Liberals never figure that out until its waaaay too late.
So are you jackoffs really telling me that even if a majority of citizens don't want to go the way you're going, you're going to spoil the party by going home and turning your back. How does that, in any way, resemble Democracy?
That is the attitude of a worthless, good for nothing citizen, and frankly, the Liberal/Progressive movement is better off without you.
There's the door. Don't let it hit you on the way out. I don't want your fat-ass damaging my door.
UPDATE 11:34am, Pacific: Gulp. Dad was right. David Kurtz wrote this, not Josh.
