F is for fraud. Voting fraud. My in box has been indundated with calls to sign petitions to urge Congress to do an in-depth investigation into the inaccuracy of the vote counts in Ohio and Florida.
F is also for fear. Lots of us are afraid of the way this nation is being led away from the fundament tenets of a constitutional democracy.
F is also for farblondzhet — an expressive Yiddish word meaning all mixed up. Because that’s what the Democratic Party is these days.
In response to a couple of feature pieces in the Portland Mercury, b!X pretty much lays it out there for us “Blues,” saying that the second piece, by Sean Nelson…
…argues for a loud and vocal reclamation of what it means to be liberal, which, he says, literally means “free from bigotry… favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.” He rattles of a string of (yes) values which are common amongst residents of our urban archipelago, including education and true literacy, science, reason, history, and the social contract (and the taxes it requires).
[snip]
…….. To move forward, the Democratic Party above and before all else, must reassert its claim upon the values represented by this urban archipelago — which first requires that it stop pretending that these values are somehow things to be ashamed of, or only spoken of in private amongst other Democrats.
They are also both entirely correct that the America described by these urban values indeed simply is a better America than the one desired by the base of the Republican Party out there in its vast Red Sea. It is, in fact, simply a more American America.
Yes, there is a not insignificant portion of the country that for some reasons insists upon and persists in pretending to be stuck somewhere in the middle, between these two value systems, and they repeatedly demand attention, routinely compel the parties and their candidates to cater and pander to them.
But just as the Democratic Party needs to stop trying to reach out to the hardest of the hardcore Reds who will never share the small-d democratic values of the urban archipelago, it should also resist the temptation to reward those who, at this point, seem willfully and selfishly to pretend to be in conflict when it comes to these two competing value systems. It’s time for the Democratic Party to stand firm as the party of tolerance, reason, and the social contract, and tell the whining middle to make up their minds which version of society they want America to resemble.
In our heart of hearts, we of the urban archipelago, those strongholds of the true Democratic Party, know what we believe, and know those values for which we stand. And we know they are quintessentially American values.
We also know the the rightest of the right-wing Reds will never agree, simply are beyond the reach of reason, and perhaps will only ever come around — if they do at all — when they see by our example that our way of life is a better one.
And we know that the whining middle needs to grow up and decide for themselves. No more pandering to their insistence that we reach out to them. They are supposed to be adults and citizens of a democratic republic. They’ve been given more than ample opportunity to see each version of America, and it’s time for them to pick a side.
So, maybe F is also for the “future.” Maybe we need to let the present administration stumble along for the next four years, fertilizing the political ground with its constant crap. And we liberals and Democrats need to take those four years to prove that we are better Americans — more truthful, more tolerant, more reasonable, and more invested in honoring our American social contract.
Just as I believe that, if we want other countries to desire democracy for their own people, we Americans must convince them to pursue that goal by example and not by force, so must I believe that the Democratic Party needs to set the example for how an ethical, moral, truthful American political system functions. We liberals need to show that our way of life is better than the constrained and strained movements of the Reds.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to continue my dissenting tendencies when appropriate and necessary. After all, that’s also the true Blue American way.