What Would It Take...For Jim to Support a Democratic Candidate
Getting back to grass roots and moving towards measures that provide a path to success would bring me around to supporting a Democratic candidate again.
When I turned 18, I registered as a Republican. I did so at the time because everyone I knew was a Republican. I thought Ronald Reagan was the best president that ever lived. I was pro-life. And I identified the Democratic Party with “raising taxes”. I don’t remember if I voted Democrat before I voted for Barack Obama in 2008. I think I may have voted for Bill Clinton in his second term. But for the most part, I pulled a Republican lever in the voting box until George W Bush’s second term. By that time I had become pro-choice, pro gay marriage, and I started questioning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. My eyes were opened to the establishment and the military industrial complex. And I saw the Democratic Party as a group fighting for people’s rights and against those who engaged in corporate greed and proxy wars. This led me to becoming a Barack Obama supporter.
Towards the middle of Barack Obama’s second term, I noticed his promise to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not kept. He failed to take on the Wall Street moguls who were part of the establishment who were responsible for the financial crisis in 2008. By the end of his term I had been laid off from my job. Many family members and friends were given a reduction in salary, hours or were laid off. Political pundits and the media kept saying the economy was setting records under Obama, but I wasn’t seeing it on my end. All of this led me to Donald Trump in 2016. I saw him as an outsider who was anti establishment, whose focus was on improving the economy. And the fact that his opponent was Hillary Clinton, who as a Senator voted for the Patriot Act and the Iraq War, which were supported by the establishment in both the Democratic and Republican Party, certainly went in his favor for me.
Until Covid-19 hit in March of 2020, I had seen improvements in my financial situation. The company that previously laid me off hired me back, and many of my friends and family I mentioned previously were back working full time hours. I was receiving yearly bonuses that I had never received in prior years.
When I voted for Trump in 2016, I saw him as a short term solution. I thought by 2020, the Democrats would regroup and offer a candidate with a fresh perspective who exemplified what I thought Obama represented going into the 2008 election. But they took an unexpected turn. Instead of rededicating themselves to live up to what they promised in 2008, they leaned heavily into becoming “Anti-Trump”. To be transparent, I don’t think Trump is a likeable or sympathetic figure. But I do think “Trump Derangement Syndrome” has pushed people too far. The calm and reasonable demeanor I associated with the left has been replaced with anger and irrationality. He posed a threat to the establishment, and they have reacted accordingly And for the 2020 election they turned to Joe Biden, who is another establishment shill like Hillary. They used his name recognition and unprecedented measures for the sole purpose of removing Trump from office. I’m not convinced the end justified the means.
Which brings us to today. I do not foresee myself at any point becoming a member of a political party. I also have no plans to participate in federal elections. This country has been taken over by corporate oligarchs who wield money, power and influence over duly elected officials to protect their interests as opposed to regular people like us. We are not voting our way out of this. However, if Democrats truly wanted to shift power to the people, where it belongs, here are a few suggestions I’ve come up with to move us towards that.
Bring Liberalism Back to the Left
The modern left has morphed into what the religious right represented under G.W. Bush in the mid 2000’s. They both follow strict doctrines that supposedly determines a person’s morals to either be acceptable or not. Each ideology promises salvation from either eternal damnation or being publicly shunned. And it’s a package deal. You either follow each commandment to the letter or you will not be saved. And while some religions provide an opportunity to confess and receive forgiveness, public apologies or bending the knee does not seem to curry favor for many of the followers of the left.
Around the mid 2000’s a trend started on college campuses to drown out opposing views, mostly directed at conservative speakers. Protesting is a perfectly acceptable way of voicing one’s displeasure of a particular stance. But as time went on, it went from protests, to disruption, to many colleges prohibiting conservative speakers a platform at their campuses. As these students have moved on from academia to the real world, we are now seeing this trend of de-platforming opposing opinions filtering into everyday life. In 2020, the New York Times allowed Republican Senator Tom Cotton to submit an opinion piece about the riots stemming from the death of George Floyd. In the piece, he advocated for military support to help local police departments disperse these groups. In response to the piece, the Times placed an “Editor’s Note” on the article online after backlash from it’s newsroom. This resulted in the resignation of the Editorial Page Editor James Bennet, which seemed coerced considering the changes they proposed regarding their editorial process in the note.
This is in stark contrast to what the ACLU has defended in the past.
“If we do not come to the defense of the free speech rights of the most unpopular among us, even if their views are antithetical to the very freedom the First Amendment stands for, then no one’s liberty will be secure. In that sense, all First Amendment rights are “indivisible.”
The left has failed to protect the notion of a free exchange of ideas. Everyone is now entrenched in their own echo chambers, with their fingers in their ears drowning out anything that challenges their world views. And because of this, we’ve allowed this divide to widen while our elected representatives sell us out to the highest bidder. We need old school liberals to bring the left back to opposing conformity and embracing public debate. They’ve allowed these things to become conservative talking points.
Time to Start Empowering
The left has a penchant for promoting victimhood. To be clear, I do believe there are victims of bad policy and historical discrimination in this county. However, it’s rare they will highlight minorities or women that have navigated around obstacles to find viable opportunities, resulting in certain subsets of these groups not having a voice. For example, when addressing racial inequality, politicians, actors and sports figures will almost always talk about the impoverished. But what about the black middle class? I’d challenge you to find anyone who is speaking on their behalf. It’s counter productive and ignorant to assume every black person in this country shares the same experiences or mindset. They want safe neighborhoods, a working economy, and a good education for their children just like everyone else. It’s past time to acknowledge it.
Support Government Programs That Provide a Path to Success
I’m in favor of limited government, so that will always be a point of contention between me and the Democratic party. However, I would like to see government programs that do more then make “living” in an underserved community more palatable. They should start supporting measures that provide either a way out of these neighborhoods, or economic growth and educational improvements that actually address issues that plague families in these communities. Expanding welfare programs has not significantly decreased poverty levels in the last 55 years. It’s time to pivot.
Conclusion
In 2008 I thought I was joining a political party that highlighted liberal values like free speech and equality. The modern left is the antithesis of these values. It’s time to stop allowing a small group of people on the fringe of the left to control what is tolerable and what isn’t. They need to welcome respectful discourse, not run away from it. And they need to support programs that work for everyone, while continuing to move closer to a just society that promotes equality. If a candidate materializes in this party that stands for these principles, they certainly will have earned my support.