I came into this year with high hopes. Many of those hopes - being able to marry my partner in my home state of Maine, not having to constantly worry about losing my health care insurance because my employer can't afford to continue it, an erosion of the many anti-gay bills (DOMA, DADT) at the federal level - have been dashed against the rocks.
I do think its important, before we talk about being betrayed by Barack Obama, to remember why the American people elected him.
We elected him because we were desperate to have a grown-up back in charge or our country. After 8 years of neo-conservative thinking driving us, we were a nation on the brink of complete collapse. We, as a people, chose Obama because he seemed to have the most level headed approach to running the country.
We elected him because he offered a positive vision of a united nation. He campaigned on the meme of "We are all Americans" and of equal value.
We elected him to stop the bleeding. The economy was in complete collapse, we were in the midst of two wars seemingly without end, and the right was squawking about a third in Iran. He was our best hope to get off that destructive path.
While I for one am bitterly disappointed about the lack of progress, especially on LGBT issues, and dismayed to have a President that seemingly has no backbone or real domestic vision, I am realistic about why he was elected in the first place.
We had high hopes of progress. Maybe our hopes were misguided, but that doesn't make the disappointment any easier to swallow.
And while I am hurt and disappointed in him in his first year, I am cognizant of the fact that, in reality, he's doing the minimum that he was asked to do when we elected him.
So I will continue to work for progressive candidates for Congress. And not to be fooled again, I will stop putting false hope into a DC system that is beyond saving. Sorry DNC, DSCC, et al, but you've failed us, and I will give directly to the source from now on.
But I'm not crying betrayal when it comes to President Obama. Disappointment, yes. But not betrayal.