If I was cautiously exalted at the '06 results, in '08 I was in love all over again. After racking up my third win in eight presidential elections, and watching Reaganomics ride into the sunset, I was ready to start workin' on a whole new thing. Maybe we could even save the world, at its most desperate 11th hour.
The total implosion of the opposition party provided a worthy distraction, I'll admit -- and I clung to the train wreck of McCain-Palin; the blunt-edged dumbass comments of Michael Steele and the bat crap crazy all-purpose agitations of the tea party set.
Even the recent non-machinations of the NY-23 race provided what felt like much needed relief for political junkies following breaking developments just a bit too closely.
But like eating a starchy lunch, I feel bad now -- kind of dead tired, disappointed and melancholy.
The long health care debate is almost closed, and we are poised to deliver a thorough compromise that will probably be a giveaway to corporations who don't need it, and little help to anybody who does. And the Democratic Party, for better or worse, will have 100% ownership.
In my less self-effacing moments I feel like my own development as an adult was a good American experience. I managed to succeed in an endeavor for which I received no formal education, by dogged perseverance and zero reliance on public assistance. Starting off during the '80s recession, I learned to scrimp and scrap and find opportunity where it was scarce.
Now that my race is two-thirds run, I'm reflecting on my progress. I haven't always been a registered D, but I have acted like one, faithfully going to the polls every election since 1980 and voting a straight Democratic ticket almost every time. I have contributed to candidates; enjoined the debate on a local level; and tried to influence local decisionmakers on issues where I had something meaningful to contribute to the debate.
I always thought, when it came down to it that I was supporting an organization that would not forget the little guy. I never felt like the private sector was more trustworthy than government regulation, regarding mortgage and financial markets, lending practices and consumer credit.
I believed that, with Democrats finally in full responsible charge we would wind down endless foreign occupations and detainment of political prisoners; and promote peace and reconciliation in all parts of the world. I thought we would give the ongoing and impending catastrophe of the biosphere the attention it really needs. And I was sure we would be trying to reverse, however sporadically/haphazardly, the ever-widening gap between the haves and have nots -- and stop outsourcing our manufacturing base, the presence of which used to close said gap.
Instead, we are being subjected to a mass culture that accuses liberals of having an 'entitlement mentality'; a culture that still wants to polarize society by marginalizing certain groups and making the rest of us fearful; a culture that is literally draining us dry.
A majority party that does not act on majority will is merely a tool of the plutocracy, and a hollow victory for most of us. Please tell me it isn't the case, because if I still have any faith in the political process, it is a faith against all odds.