My apologies if this is overly rant-ish.
Ever since Novemeber 5th, it seems as if I can’t venture into the blogosphere without wanting a bottle of Prozac nearby. Apparently, while I wasn’t paying attention (audaciously daring as I did to drink in the joy of Barack Obama’s election, for, oh, five minutes or so), the progressive movement has been all but decimated, and the Democratic Party has been reduced to an even more pathetic, value-less shell of its (way, way) former self.
The litany comes across as endless: Prop 8’s narrow passage in California; Janet Napolitano being tapped for Homeland Security, and Arizona’s governorship being handed to the GOP; Paul Carmouche’s loss in LA-04; [Indicted Dem Who Shall Not Be Named]’s loss in LA-02; the collective Senate appointment clusterf*** (since, evidently, Ted Kaufman, Michael Bennet, and Caroline Kennedy were/are the worst possible candidates imagineable); relatedly, the spectacle of Rod Blagojevich, the irrevocable taint it lays upon the Obama transition, the spinelessness of Harry Reid for offering to negotiate Roland Burris’s appointment (or was it his spinelessness for denying Democrats another reliable vote just so he could grandstand?), and Mark Kirk’s imminent, virtually inevitable ascent to the Senate; the utter inadequacy of Tim Kaine as a pick for DNC (since, as it turns out, he isn’t really on our team); the lack to date of LGBT representation in Obama’s cabinet; the SCANDALOUS! withdrawal of Bill Richardson from his nomination to head the Department of Commerce…
I could go on, but I think the general message gets across.
Practically every day I run across some message board comment invoking the specter of 1994, and how Democrats are inescapably headed toward a similar bloodbath in the not-so-distant future. I even recall one comment, on the eve of the Louisiana debacle, expressing a yearning desire that Obama had never been elected.
Huh. That’s one opinion, I suppose. Personally, I beg to differ.
I would ask: do any of us realistically expect a fattened majority in both Houses of Congress, and a party with unified control over government, to function completely smoothly, or to have the exact same electoral fortunes as a minority party unified in opposition against a comically unpopular president? We all (myself included) seem to be stuck in an ’06 mindset in which any vaguely competitive contest must, by default, tilt ‘D’ in the end, and any divergence from that pattern is obviously an ominous harbinger of things to come. Moreover, we hold No Drama Obama to an unattainable standard in which NO member of his circle can be associated with even the slightest whisper of impropriety, lest he be swiftly admonished as categorically full of crap (thanks, Politico!) just like every other politician.
Plainly I am exaggerating to a degree, and this diary isn’t meant to say that there aren’t perfectly legitimate grievances to be voiced, when clearly there are. I mean, come on: we’re Democrats. We draw breath to kvetch, wilt, panic, and recriminate. It’s practically sown into our DNA. And frankly, given the state of affairs to which the country has become sadly accustomed over the last eight years of GOP rule, we ought to hold our representatives to a higher standard, both in terms of personal ethics and ideological consistency.
Maybe it comes from my living in Downtown DC, where excitement for the Inauguration is palpable some two weeks out from the event — but I cannot help but think we’re starting to overlook the magnitude of our accomplishments. Soon, a liberal African-American president will be working hand-in-hand with a solidly Democratic congress. In the darkness of Election Night 2004, who among us would have had the temerity to predict that this is where we would be four years on?
And hey, even if Obama isn’t the Messiah, let’s at least revel in self-delusion for a short while longer before the real work begins. We’ll have a whole term to develop ulcers and foster our deep-seeded fatalism.
From my own perspective, I’ve truly never been prouder to be a Democrat. I’ve never been prouder to be a progressive. And I’ve never been prouder to be an American.
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