It’s happening again.
Just like it always does.
If we Democrats have a fatal flaw, it’s this: Once we fixate on “The One”, we focus on that person, almost to the exclusion of all else.
Remember 2008?
When Obama was elected, we thought HE was going to bring about all this change and stuff. When his organization was disbanded and reformed into OFA we wandered in the wilderness.
Then 2010 happened. And nationally Democrats did basically nothing. In many places there weren’t even candidates running.
And so it goes.
The “Green Lantern” theory states that the President has this mystical power to impose his will on Congress to get his agenda enacted, and that any intransigence on the part of Congress is the President’s fault for being insufficiently powerful enough.
Of course, much of it ties to the promises made by candidates—“We will get this done, we will pass that”, and so forth. Using this as a metric, it is easy to see that Donald Trump is the quintessential Green Lantern candidate.
But my purpose is not to talk about the candidates. It’s to talk about us and how we treat them.
Take a look at the rec list and the recent list. What do you see? Pie as far as the eye can see. “My candidate is great and yours is a poopy head!” non stop.
What’s being done about flipping the Senate? Surely the candidates would like to have a Senate that’s Democratic if only for judicial nominees.
What about flipping the House? Or has everyone written it off as a lost cause and ignored it?
What about state and local elections? We need to have statehouses in Democratic hands in 2020, and only thinking about it in 2020 isn’t going to help.
What about voting? What about getting all these new voters to not only register, but to ensure they have the ID and means to vote?
I hardly see any of these diaries at all. There are a few, especially a good series on party building, and a series on political mailings, but not much else.
And while we’re all fixated on our own personal Green Lantern, remember this:
There were times when the whole Green Lantern Corps had to act together to save the universe.
So, here’s a proposal: Clinton or Sanders, let’s stop writing the rox/sux diaries and let’s get to electing downballot candidates. Clinton and Sanders are going to do what they will do without us diarying about them. Our minds are made up and incessant diaries won’t change them. Neither will all the name calling.
Let’s change the party from the bottom up. Because the Green Lantern can’t.