Like many Americans, I think a great deal about our political climate here and the upcoming Presidential election. Unlike even more Americans, I am not doing that while watching some sort of television program featuring a Kardashian, a boorish and dimwitted New Jersey resident, or an attractive vampire. Maybe I should try that, for at least it would be a separate and numbing distraction to the increasing anger and frustation I feel about the governmental leadership that is failing us all.
The clown parade that makes up the GOP Presidential candidates this year would be humorous, if they didn't actually represent a decent chunk of American beliefs, which seem to be anti-gay, anti-black, anti-Mexican, anti-Muslim, anti-atheist, anti-anything-but-fundamentalist/evangelical/Mormon-Christian beliefs, anti-worker, anti-union, anti-intellectual, anti-education, anti-health care...on and on and on and on unti you GET WITH THE PROGRAM, which is of course My Way Or The Highway. To a man (and one freaky woman) they hold that Big Business holds all the answers to our problems -- our national saviors, the job creators, the Benevolent Kings! But if you believe that, you're on their payroll or living in some kind of American Dream fairytale white picket fence advertising campaign. If money and hateful discrimination are your real gods, vote Republican!
And now let's check out the other side. Why did Barack Obama win last time? Because George W. Bush was that bad, and a lot of people wanted to see someone very different come in to clean up the mess. It wasn't because Obama had scads of experience, because he didn't. He won despite the fact that he is half-black in a country that is still openly racist, has a name that is poison here in post-911 times, and was well-spoken and intelligent. Yes, that latter assertion was typed correctly; most Americans now prefer their leaders not to appear in any way "elitist" or "uppity" because it makes them feel more stupid than they are already. So, the smart "black" guy became President, running on a platform of "hope," which is always the last possible thing you can offer to the desperate, right?
Hope is so cruel. Of course, America wasn't going to stand for having a "black socialist librul" in house! The far-right extremists organized, backed by enormous amounts of corporate money, and did a fine job of pulling moderate conservatives to their side, wreaking total havoc on Obama's ability to change anything. They threw up roadblock after roadblock, nearly causing the complete shutdown of our government. There were wins for Obama, definite and large, but will his presidency be defined by them? I doubt it. Why? Because in trying to achieve his goals, he was convinced that he'd be the bigger man and make compromises, sliding to the middle to meet some of these one-track loons somehow, and of course that only led to failure.
As it's been playing out, political moderates are the great losers in 2012 America. Obama's removal from office was Job #1 of the far-right; they were never, EVER going to work with him or compromise. And Obama's deafening silence on THE political topic of 2011 -- Occupy Wall Street, the devastating effect of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, and the manufactured income disparity that is driving more people into poverty every day -- is simply astounding. He keeps thinking if he wants to get re-elected, he can't do or say anything to further antagonize the right? Gotta all work together?
WRONG. So so so so devastatingly, horribly WRONG.
By staying silent as peaceful, lawful American political protesters were repeatedly pepper-sprayed, beaten with clubs, assaulted with sound cannons, and shot with rubber bullets by our own police forces, he failed us. Wall Street bailouts? Failed us. And signing the National Defense Authorization Act? Unforgivable. Obama, by trying to play ball in DC and politically abandoning many of the core values he claimed to hold, has accomplished something pretty scary: he's alienated a great deal of the people who voted for him four years ago, and cannot count on them now. Some of them are taking a hard look at the GOP front-runners and are jumping on Ron Paul's anti-Middle-East wars stance...without bothering to check out his other dangerous ideas. Other Democratic-leaning people, in droves, just won't vote at all, which leaves a huge possibility that The Worst President Ever In Our History, worse than Dubya!!, could get elected by default.
If you live in deeply polemic times, you have no business mucking about in the middle. Think about it: sitting on a fence just makes people wobbly and unstable with a picket post up their asses. If you are being treated as the enemy, stop making nice. TAKE A GODDAMN STAND. COME OUT SWINGING. Stop. Letting. Us. Down.
Will I vote for Obama in 2012? Yes. And if he wins and continues his fence-sitting, weak-character ways? I will be the first in line to sandpaper that picket fence post to a gritty point. Count on it.
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman