Spoiler alert—they didn't.
Let's define Democrats.
Are they the people who sent a steady stream of texts for the past six months asking for contributions, some for state candidates I never heard of? Yes.
Are they the candidates themselves, crisscrossing the country or the district, drumming up support for the programs they consider important? Yes, they're Democrats, too.
Are they the registered Democratic voters whose only real function is vital—to cast a ballot for the better candidate once every few years? Yes, they are too.
It seems to me that the first two groups acquitted themselves quite well this past Tuesday, but the third group failed everybody—their friends, their neighbors, their children, their country, and themselves.
It brings to mind the oft-quoted from the William Butler Yeats poem, "The Second Coming":
The best lack all conviction, while the worst.
Are full of passionate intensity.
Millions more of the "worst" got to the voting booths, and the best, with their lack of conviction, didn't quite make it.
So before we start blaming Joe Biden for not dropping out early enough, or the party for not catering to the workingmen and -women, let's lay some of the blame where it belongs. Some of my Democratic friends may not like hearing this, but this disaster lies at the feet of the non-voters. Kamala Harris didn't fail them; they failed her. She presented herself as prepared and knowledgeable, tough and humane, decent and committed. She opposed a dolt who relied on vulgarity, bigotry, and ignorance. The dolt won because the other dolts stayed home and practiced their excuses—she wasn't the best candidate; there was no primary for her; I would have preferred (fill in the Dem of your choice), etc
Tens of millions of registered Democrats did not vote, and though it pains me to say this, that failure crosses all genders. Many men who are quick to say they favor a woman president just plain don't. Their misogyny outweighs their lip service, and many of them "like" women the same way Donald Trump does, undressed at a beauty pageant. That disrespect that even the most immature adolescents grow out of remains firmly entrenched among many men of different intellectual and socio-economic levels. Educated and uneducated. If that weren't true, Trump would be out of our lives instead of choosing a cabinet.
And women do not escape the scrutiny. They voted against their own best interest in a choice that can only be explained by a covert envy for the accomplishments of someone like Kamala Harris...or Hillary Clinton...or maybe even Nancy Pelosi. These are women of achievement, strong-willed and intelligent, good enough to lead any country, yet untoldmillions of woman voters reserved that honor for a convicted felon and serial sex offender.
Oh, well done!
We will see plenty of articles being churned out by Trump apologists that ask, in essence, that we not blame white women for electing Trump, that Kamala Harris was a bad candidate. It's drivel, but if it helps Trump voters believe they were motivated by political acumen and not jealousy, well, we all need stories to tell ourselves. The bottom line is still the same: Democratic dereliction of duty and Republican moral vacuity equal four more years of...well...I guess whatAmerica wants.
So what, then, is wrong with the Democratic party? Too many of us "members" are lazy, ill-informed, and as misogynistic and envious as our Republican counterparts. To the ones who stayed home, voted for Jill Stein as a protest (seriously?), or wrote in for (the increasingly tiresome) Bernie Sanders, who is out there whining again about Democrats letting down the American worker, do yourselves a favor and change your party affiliation. You're a MAGA Republican in your soul. Wear that red hat. Own it. Rather that, than have "your" party count on you next time and have you disappoint us again.
And there's an upside to your switching. There are enough traditional Republicans out there who stayed home, who couldn't stomach Trump, that if they combined with their stay-at-home Democrats, they might change that party from its current lizard-brained composition to a group that appreciates freedom and democracy. They could call themselves—uh—Democrats?
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