http://www.dailykos.com/ When Barack Obama drubbed decrepit former Republican hero John McCain, it was more than a mere change of political leadership, it was generational, and it seemed to signal an epochal maturation of the electorate. Polls showed that people truly wanted transformational change. They were ready to reject a known past and embrace an unknown future.
That just two years later the Democrats received their own electoral drubbing would seem absurdly incongruous. That the very people so decisively defeated would be returned to power would seem to defy both logic and common sense. But that assumes that most voters are as politically aware as are most activists, that most people have the time and energy and make the effort to steep themselves in the intricacies of policy. We know that isn't the case. And with people having to struggle harder to make ends meet, to find jobs in a depressed labor market, to earn adequate wages as income disparity and home foreclosures shatter record levels, it's little wonder that so many are angry and restive and end up falling victim to political narratives concocted by manipulators and charlatans, from right-wing PACs to traditional corporatist media hacks. People know something is fundamentally wrong and demand change. Things don't improve enough and they demand change from the change. And now just months into the new Republican House and a slate of new Republican governors, the polls show that the electorate already wants change from the change from the change. And it actually makes sense.
What this means is that the enormous political opportunity of two years ago, which was seemingly lost just months ago, remains viable. The Republicans learned nothing from their electoral disasters of 2006 and 2008, and if anything, have grown even more ridiculous and dangerous. They are now open about it: They are waging war on labor, on women, on immigrants, on the environment, and on people in general. They are wholly owned tools of a corporate oligarchy, and democracy itself is in their crosshairs. But among the people, the spirit of democracy and opportunity and the goal of a bolder modern future are very much alive and well. They only need a champion. The Democrats still need to decide if they want to be that champion. The means are there. The opportunity is there. The public support is there. The question is about political will. The question about will is not about strength or boldness, it is about ideology.
Will Democrats seize this unlikliest of historic moments, seemingly lost but still awaiting to be seized? It's not enough to be better than a political party that is ludicrously inept and deliberately destructive, it's a question of who the Democrats want to be. Do they want to stand with the people now taking to the streets by the hundreds of thousands? Do they want to do more than acknowledge these immediate political crises and take it that critical step farther, to an agenda that confronts the elite special interests that are so intentionally toxic to the functions of democracy and justice and to the very idea of broad economic security? The Democrats are better than the Republicans. That's a given. The Democrats are capable of accomplishing greater goods toward which the Republicans not only don't aspire but of which Republicans can't even conceive. But do Democrats want merely to be better than Republicans? Do they want to continue to define themselves mostly by which increments of extremism they have managed to block or delay this time, or do they want to try being habitually and ideologically proactive and positive?
More at Dkos. As always, the comment thread is worth spending some time with.
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