This article is going to offend people, cause arguments, and cause me to lose campaign and writing jobs. I don’t care, and neither should you. I am taking responsibility.
Every person has their moment. It is hard to know when that time will come for you, but when it hits, it is like a jolt of realization that goes to the core of you.
After watching Hillary Clinton lose the Presidency to the most unqualified, terrible human being possible, my moment came at the worst possible time. I spent two years trying to tell people why Trump is not the answer. But in defeat, I know now why it is I write, and what I have to do. I just wish I didn’t.
I am asking for your support, asking for you to listen, because this is the most important thing I have ever written, and it may be the most important thing you’ve ever read.
What annoys me the most right now is seeing the media telling us why she lost. The same people who were so wrong about polling, who talked nonstop about emails, who ignored the major injustices of President-Elect Trump, those same people now want to control the narrative of this country while making billions off of our suffering. And that needs to stop.
We need to write our own narrative, but I can’t do it alone. We need to stand together and take on President-Elect Trump, the GOP, the media, and even the Democratic Party itself.
Do you want to see a dead body?
That is the first sentence that came into my mind when Hillary Clinton lost the Presidency to Donald Trump, it’s a long forgotten scene from Stand by Me. Why I thought of that, I don’t know, I’m a puzzle.
The dead body is everything we have fought for in the last eight years. It is all the progress, all the success, destroyed in one single night — deceased, and with it now, I have to conduct an autopsy.
As progressives, we have to be clinical in defeat. We have to look at this with some harsh truth if we are going to unite and move forward, and I am in no mood to be divided.
Here are my first thoughts, in no particular order.
The Democrats are arrogant.
All of them. Staffers are jaded and elitist. They don’t care what you think, and even worse, do not value you.
Again, all-of-them. If you’re one of them, don’t get angry — listen to what I am telling you and change.
Election season is the only time you see a candidate unless they are doing events. You can harp all you want to about that not being true, but as soon as you donate, volunteer, and fight to elect a Democrat into office, you never hear from them again until it’s re-election time. President Obama was a tremendous President, but he did it too. He had a coalition behind him ready to fight for his agenda, then he went to the White House and everyone stood around. What a total loss of political force.
Have you tried to get a meeting with a representative/candidate? Go ahead, call your local representative and ask their staff for a meeting about an issue that you’re passionate about. I’ll wait…
Unless you have enough juice to make it worth their time, what you will hear on the line is a visible tension. “You, umm, have to fill out an online meeting request.” Then they just ignore you.
So, yes, Donald Trump won. Because many people feel (rightfully) that they are being ignored by do-nothing politicians and their arrogant, do-nothing staffs.
One of the many reasons cited for Hillary Clinton’s loss directly points to campaign strategy also arguably “arrogant.” She counted on the support of people in the rustbelt she didn’t speak to or visit. That has all the markers of a pretty arrogant thing to do — Donald Trump did, and look what happened.
So we need to demand a different breed of politician. We need to expect to be a more inclusive, out-reaching political force, not puppets who are used to stage nice rallies, provide photo-ops, and function as handy ATM’s for campaigns. And that is exactly what we have been. Force them to change it.
Candidates that Resonate.
The Democrats have a hierarchy, just as any organization does. The problem with this hierarchy is we also have candidates that are considered “status-quo.”
What happens is we get politicians at the top who aren’t electric, who feel it is “their turn.” That’s old politics.
We saw the results of that last night.
Bernie was as close to a shooting star as we have seen since Obama. Unfortunately, he was too old to be young and vigorous, and Democrats (understandably) felt Hillary was the Democratic candidate of destiny (whether he would have won or not is beside the point). What happened, like it or not (and I don’t), is that people simply don’t like Hillary. She “lacks charisma,” she “isn’t open to the media,” her campaign was “secluded,” and of course she had 30 years of political attacks against her.
That alone short-circuits any type of electric charge.
Be honest with yourself: “almost robotic” — and there was just enough truth to it to hurt. How she’s had to learn to survive and persevere can’t be part of this examination. It never should have been any part of anything, though it was.
And then the inevitable “When did Hillary come around? Only when she needed you.”
For all the good work that Hillary did throughout her life, people rejected the idea that “she felt it was her time.” They rejected the “status-quo.” At their own peril, yes, but at ours as well.
If progressives are going to live on and be a dominant party, we need new politics to challenge the “status-quo” and put forth candidates that reverberate, people who don’t accept toeing the long yellow line, people who’ll crash into the highway and cause a seismic event.
Barack Obama was seismic, and we should only reward candidates who push the envelope further.
We Blame Each Other
The most disturbing thing I am seeing on social media is everyone has somewhere to place the blame. “The black community didn’t turn out in higher numbers” — then how do you explain black women overwhelmingly voting for a white woman? “The Latinos didn’t turn out” — except they did. “White people let minorities down.” We did, overwhelmingly.
But here is the thing…
Where does all the finger pointing get us? Nowhere.
Donald Trump will still become the next President, only now he gets to have a divided progressive/ Democratic Party who are fighting each other. If we stand any chance whatsoever, we need to unite.
Not tomorrow when the shock wears off, not in two years when politicians are asking us for money to defeat Trump’s henchmen in the midterms. If we have any opportunity to demand something better, we need to come together tonight. We need to be someone to lean on for those of us who are going to be oppressed, hurt, stripped of rights, have their lives destroyed. We need to come together, put all our combined history together for the first time for real, and unite under one banner and say no to Donald Trump.
Let the world see us do that. Let America see whites and blacks together as brothers and sisters while the KKK-endorsed president drops the hammer. Let Jews and Muslims stand together when he attempts to deport those Americans of Muslim faith. Let Donald Trump attempt to build a wall when all of us stand with Hispanics and destroy every brick he attempts to place.
Then, together as one, we pick our champion, a person deserving of our collected beliefs to run against Trump and overwhelming boot him out of the White House and take our country back.
So, I am asking you to not remain quiet. It is sit or stand time.
I am choosing to stand. Are you with me?
#UniteTheStates
#StandorSit
The Broken Road 