From the news I consume I've been picking up lately that as 2013 ends liberals are feeling emboldened and empowered. I was thinking of writing about the questions I had when the Dante Atkins piece was posted on Sunday Kos. I count myself as a liberal and support the agenda advocated in the piece. However, at the end of 2013, with our do nothing, dysfunctional government we are left with a lot of mixed results and unfinished business and unfortunately for me, the optimism just isn't coming as naturally as it seems to be for others.
For starters, we still live with the Roberts court. They have refused to rest on their Citizens United laurels. They affirmed the ACA but in such a way to keep millions from getting coverage in partnership with GOP wingnut governors. Then they took it upon themselves to roll back the Voting Rights Act. The issue of GOP voter suppression is still very unsettled but is hugely important since it may be the one, and possibly only one, Republican answer to demographics. Given the political nature of the judicial branch I guess I feel the need for something other than just being right in order to prevail.
Moreover, 2013 began with a national push for gun safety laws that only amassed a mere ninety percent approval rating and to this day haven't happened. At the end of the year I'm still confused about how empowered liberals choose to fight. A majority of Democrats approved a deal that cut unemployment insurance. Out of curiosity, what did they think Republicans were going to do if they didn't agree to it? It's not like they would shut down the government over it. Right now there may be a brief window where the crazies are in check enough to not be so extreme and either way it's a political winner for Democrats which seems to be the important thing anyway. With this Congress a watered down immigration reform looks fifty-fifty at best and food stamps are being cut it just hasn't happened yet because they're arguing between five and forty billion. This was also the year we elected Terry Mcauliffe and Corey Booker and we were (mostly) glad to do it.
This is definitely a progressive, New Deal nation and as such, strengthening the social safety net and progressive structural reform are both majority views; they have been for decades. But we are starting our fourth decade where as a nation we have not been operating that way. This is not the part where I dispense the insightful solution, that's why I lack optimism I guess and by the way the specter of the Trans Pacific Partnership looms over all this. I have two things to offer that are more in the way of tactics concerning immigration and the social safety net. John Boehner could be made the pressure point on immigration in a very personal, specific way. He claims he doesn't have the votes to bring it to the floor and he is lying. Perhaps one way to go would be to make the pro reform campaign about him and demonstrating to him the votes are there. There is also stirring to strengthen, in a not euphemistic way, Social Security. I would like to see this put out there in such a way that national candidates had to discuss it as an issue. Just as Republicans had to go on record about the Ryan budget and good luck if you opposed it, Democrats could be put on record about this.