Thoughts On A Gloomy Week

I have voted for the Democrat in every Presidential election since I could vote.  I am a liberal - don't tune out, try to hang here and understand.  I want to know that when I turn on the tap clean water comes out.  Since the tragedies in West Virginia and Flint, Michigan I fear a water crisis in my own location - not only that it will happen, but that if it does, no one will fix it.  I understand that significantly more people die each year from lung cancer caused by pollution than were killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11.  Clean air and clean water are vital to our future but I don't see anyone taking that seriously.  Definitely not Republicans and I'm sorry to say, not so much Democrats.  We're fracking at an alarming rate and one of the smartest countries in the world refuses to innovate for clean energy at the same pace.  We're the country that put a man on the moon and created the Atom bomb and we can't seem to get off our asses to solve the problems presented to us by how we live our lives and the threats to our environment.

I'm talking about this because it's one of the reasons we've just ushered in one of the most terrifying people to occupy the White House in my lifetime.  As some of my friends are talking about White Lash I actually think things are much more complex this time.  I'll talk about the non-Obama voters in a minute, but first I think we should acknowledge that we, that's Democrats, forgot our purpose.  We are supposed to be on the side of the average man/woman - no matter their race or where they live or even their point of view.  That used to be the guts of our support.  We call ourselves Progressive, but we're not doing the things that progressives would do.

Bernie Sanders was in Michigan.  He got it.  Hilary didn't.  She has the power of the Clinton Foundation at her fingertips and could have made a point of visiting Flint and bringing resources, but she didn't.  If your kids have lead poisoning - a lifelong challenge they've been granted through no other effort than drinking the water in their house - and the Republicans are responsible for poisoning it and the Democrats don't show up to fix it, why would you bother to turn out to vote?  They were failed by Democratic institutions that we profess to love like the EPA.  Any time Republicans try to tinker or bastardize the EPA we scream and shout about how awful it is, but at the end of the day we didn't fix it.  Us, the people who pride themselves on looking out for the little guy.  Michael Moore pointed out yesterday on Morning Joe that 90,000 voters in Michigan completed every single line on their ballots except for President.  They opted out of a system that's failed them.

Then, there's the economy.  In hindsight, I'm kind of shocked Hilary didn't get this.  Her husband ran on "Its the Economy Stupid".   Again, I'll point at the Clinton Foundation.  Bill Clinton is trying to change the world and good for him.  I think that's tremendous.  Guess what?  Here in the United States there are parts of our country that are in a lot worse condition than some of these undeveloped countries around the world.  Sometimes you should take care of your own house.  We are seeing high rates of addiction, high rates of infant mortality, and depression and suicide.  I shared an article about that on my Facebook page and no one felt empathy for these people at all.  It was a wake up call though.  These folks voted for Trump.

When something new comes along there are always early adopters or what politicians would call their 'base'.  These are the people who are in it and they're going to stick with you,  Then, there's the group that can be convinced to come along and says "Okay, I might be dubious, but I'll give this a chance."  That second group are the folks we just lost.  They gave Obama a chance and it didn't work out, so now they're going to try this other guy.

I want to talk about personal responsibility too and how the majority of the American people act just like most businesses - they have a model they follow and if it ain't broke they won't fix it.  We the people are and have been contributors to our own demise, and willingly.  We've allowed ourselves to be sucked into voting against our best interests with social issues that the Government should keep its giant snoot out of.  The gay couple down the street is not keeping you from getting clean drinking water or from getting a job but many people have been convinced that this is something they should vote on.

In the 1980s we hated drugs and we hated unions so we started incarcerating a ton of people who can't contribute to the bottom line from prison and we don't have any unions around who might have been able to keep jobs from heading out of the country.  We also hated regulations and started tearing down those protections because we were told they were 'job killing' even though there was no evidence.  Then we started eating a heck of a lot more food than we needed and industry gave us what we wanted - more, more, more.   There's a connection here between good union jobs with health benefits and no job and a bunch of sick, fat people.  We voted for that.

In the 1990s we continued our love of deregulation and started tearing down more of the New Deal that had kept the economy in decent shape since the Depression.  That New Deal was now no deal and we continued locking up anyone who looked at us funny and we wanted to kill people with the death penalty even faster - despite the fact that a lot of people on death row turned out to be innocent.  And, we reformed Welfare.  No more lifetime welfare recipients.  And guess who uses welfare more than any other demographic?  Poor white folks in rural areas who if they turned out to vote on Tuesday, voted for Trump.  What did it matter to us though?  The economy was great.  Because like everyone, even those early adopters, we don't act if things aren't broke.

We also started making Wal-Mart our best friend.  A store where nearly everything on their shelves is made in a country other than the United States. We're really mad that all those good union jobs are overseas, and then we shop at Wal-Mart because we want a bargain.  We work against ourselves on almost a daily basis.  We gave up on the Mom and Pop shops - those small, family owned businesses we profess to love.  My sister lived in northern Idaho for a few years and while visiting I took my nephews out and about and we walked into a little store that had art supplies.  A woman in the same store looked at the stuff I was buying and said "They have that at Wal-Mart for a lot less".  Knife in the heart to that small business owner.  We the people abandoned those folks.  That's us.  When you're bemoaning the loss of these businesses, think about where you shop.

Are you tired yet?  I still have a bit more to say and if you've hung in this long try to stick it out to the end.  Remember the Bush election of 2000?  He ushered in tax cuts, and a war we fought but didn't want to pay for.  Remember Al Franken bringing bullet proof vests to soldiers in Iraq because we weren't providing them to the military?  All those folks who think the Republicans are pro-military let me lay out a fact for you.  The military makes up less than 1% of our population.  You're useful as an election prop and that's about it.  The VA is a mess and that right there shows you how much either party is doing.  Once more, opportunity for Democrats but we didn't fix that either.  Still, we the people keep hitting our heads against that same brick wall and expecting a different result.

In 2008 we gave up on Bush and put Obama in office.  Where the first thing he worked on was Healthcare.  His plan relies on all those young people who voted for him to now buy into the insurance plans, and they didn't.  People who really need healthcare bought in and they're seeing premiums that are bigger than their mortgage and deductibles that they can't pay.  We're also a lot sicker than we used to be.  Remember our need to eat, eat and eat again and the bigger the portion the better?  We drive places we can walk, we sit at home glued to television and we wonder why we're not healthy.  We wonder why health insurance rates have sky rocketed.  You can blame doctors and hospitals and drug companies, and I do, but we are part of the problem  Remember how upset everyone got when Michelle Obama suggested we shouldn't drink soda?  Drink up fatty fatty 2x4 can't get through the kitchen door (and I say this as someone who needs to lose weight).  We still smoke.  Despite all the evidence out there around cigarette smoking, we are still smoking.

We have been gluttons.  We are consuming things and food and never once stopping to wonder if what we're doing might not be the best thing for us, our kids and our future.  We are buying houses and cars we don't need and then wondering why we have no savings.  We don't know where our jobs went.  We don't know why our kids have lead poisoning.  Well, you do know.  It's us.  We did all of this to ourselves.  Some people tried to tell us and we scoffed at them for their political correctness and for being hippies.  We don't have a safety net to keep us on our feet - remember welfare reform? - while we look for a new job and try to make it in this world.  We keep hoping old jobs are coming back.  That way of life is gone.  Time to wake up and build something new.

Let me end on a high note here.  I have always said that we should never bet against America.  We're not perfect, as I have so plainly pointed out, but we can make America great.  I'm not going to say again because way too many people have been used and abused for what we had before.  This is a wake up call though.  We should protest what happened in this election.  We should organize and reach out and figure out how to make these politicians understand that they're not doing what we want.    The new president is being surrounded by excited Republicans hoping to get a piece of his magic and convince him that he should do things their way.  That is not good for us at all.  Let's really pay attention this time and we will be the change and stop relying on politicians to bring it to our door.