Election 2014: 6,048 legislative seats and 2,161 school board seats. But who cares, right? Those numbers doesn't include the thousands of city and county commission/council elections that happened across the country today. We have a 1% problem and it's in POLITICS. It's time to RETHINK everything.
Have you just about had enough of this shit yet?
There are only 535 seats in DC. And the fucking president. There are only 50 governors. While we are busy shoveling the equivalent of the GDP of Spain to a few hundred of these campaigns, I got to hear calls from GOOD HONEST DECENT DEMOCRATS who didn't have $150 for call banking. Couldn't afford to pay THEIR OWN PARTY (!!) for voter lists. Who had no website two weeks to an election. No social media presence. No GOTV strategy. No on-the-ground help. NOTHING.
I'm fucking sick of it. We've got it backwards. We are fucking this up. We are losing ground. We are losing our Democracy. We are losing our country.
While we're busy focusing like a laser on the few hundred seats in DC or in governor's mansions, 50% of people sitting in state legislatures will have taken their seats without facing any opposition. And 80% of incumbents will have never faced a primary. I won't even address how much worse it is at the municipal level. Hell, we're not even getting "coattail" bang for the buck because GOD FORBID the Democratic Party actively promote whole ticket voting. Or GOD FORBID a high profile campaign give a shit about a school board candidate in some dusty-ass, bumbfuck town 400 miles from the state Capitol. Does this look familiar to you?
I'm fucking sick of it.
While we're busy making calls for campaigns with literally thousands of volunteers from all across the country, the GOP's City/County version of ALEC (ACCE) is active and successful as our side's local campaigns struggle from their kitchen tables with the 6 or 7 family or church members who have time to help them.
How much longer are we going to do this?
How many liberals are going to scream bloody murder about the next reprehensible school board decision to REMAKE A.P. HISTORY and strip it of, you know, HISTORY? How many liberals will "take it to the proverbial streets" when the next state legislature decides it's perfectly OK to require birth control to be separate from an employers health coverage because religious freedom!11!!!!11! You name the issue, the decisions are NOT happening in DC. Climate change? Ask North Carolina GOP about their "plans". Healthcare? We still have almost half the states where citizens are literally DYING unnecessarily. When are we going to get a fucking clue?
Are we just going to be persistently outraged for the next two years while we speculate and prognosticate about who will run for president? And then do the old "Democratic Primary Pie Fight Extravaganza" and eventually focus all our attention on whoever happens to win it and be running for the all powerful position of the presidency?
Do you see what's going on here? Do you see the concentration of wealth and the resultant LOSS of the VOICE of the People? Not in economics, but in politics. Do you not see it?
Goddamned I'm tired of this shit. We LITERALLY have a majority of people in this country who agree with our the progressive/liberal position on things and HOW ARE WE CAPITALIZING ON IT? It's not reflected electorally ANYWHERE. We have squandered the opportunities of last 6 years to seize upon a natural leftward zeitgeist. Any gains we have made as liberals have been a result the self-destructive and overt racism and sexism that the GOP is unable to contain ever since the Black Guy (TM) got elected.
I'm sick of it. And I'm asking you if you're ready to really do something about it. For all the pixels and spittle; all the facebook memes and twitter hashtags and all the liberal "digital" dominance, it's NOT TRANSLATING INTO ELECTORAL POWER. And at the end of the day, that's all that matters if we care about advancing our agenda.
When I see the amounts of money being spent and CONCENTRATED into high profile races, I recognize that all it is, is a MICROCOSM of our entire existence in America. The Top 1% get all the benefits and the rest - well fuck it. Figure it out. Make due. It's how it is in American life and it's how it is in politics. The Top 1% get the concentration of wealth and support while they make up less than 1% of the total elected offices in the country - and arguably perhaps not even the most important seats.
We cannot advance this country while supporting only 1% of elected officials, for fuck's sake. What is so goddamned difficult to understand about that?
I'm trying desperately to get
a new, people-powered solution out into the world. Rebuilding through a collective pooling of resources that offset the cost of high-level support for low-level campaigns. Rebuilding from the ground up. The party is NOT going to change their focus any time soon. So waiting for that to happen is a mistake. We are being ruled by a super super minority. If this is going to work, if we're going to fix this and return Democracy to the American people, it's going to be up to us regular people to get it done.
Folks, this so serious. Be a part of the solution. I I have an Actual Fucking Plan. Ask me anything about it.
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