A Letter From A Progressive To Democrats

 Dear Democrats:

 This conversation is long overdue. I’ve been trying to engage over the last four years but you had no time for it. But now you’re panicking because it’s getting near to the election and you expect everyone must conform to the worldview you have built up in your minds since the last election. And while I’ve long known this day would come and have prepared for it, that doesn’t make it any easier for me.

 I and many others like me are not voting for Joe Biden. To anyone who has been listening for the last four years, this should be abundantly clear. Sadly, Democrats have not been listening to progressives  for the last four years. For four years, mainstream Democrats have managed to ignore those who are to the left of them. They’ve ignored them, berated them, blamed them, bullied them, and called them Russian bots and Putin puppets. But not once have they listened to them.

 Instead of listening to us, they have been listening to unnamed sources within intelligence agencies. They have believed them uncritically, never once requiring a scrap of evidence before giving them their unthinking credence.

 Instead of listening to us, they have been making homophobic and body shaming memes of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

 Instead of listening to us, they have been busy telling the Democratic establishment they were fully willing to vote for a flaming bag of dogshit if it meant getting rid of Donald Trump.

 And now they’re stuck with a flaming bag of dog shit. With dementia. And now they’re trying to sell it to us, the people who warned them four years ago that we were sick of Democratic rigging of primaries, sick of corporate politicians, sick of voting for the evil of two lessers. WE TOLD YOU we had standards. If we could not get a commitment to genuine change, we were going to walk. In fact, most of us had already decided the Democratic Party was beyond redemption.

 Boy, did we call that right.

 And now you come and knock on our front door, place your flaming bag of dog shit on it, and demand fealty to the flaming bag. You insist all that matters is we replace the flaming bag that now resides in the White House with your demented flaming bag. And you have no idea how you look to us.

 So perhaps you will allow me to ask a question: What has the Democratic Party done in the last four years to earn my vote?

 Perhaps you might have an answer I have overlooked. But I assure if you do come up with one, I will give you four or five examples of how the Democratic Party has become a greater enemy of all I hold dear in the last four years than I could have imagined.

 Let me ask you another question: What have you done personally to hold the Democratic Party to any kind of standards? I will answer for you: nothing. You have groveled at the party’s feet, never once insisting they reflect upon their unthinkable defeat to a 5^th grade bully. Your one standard, if it can be called such, is that you will vote for anybody who is not Donald Trump. That is a standard even many Republicans can hold to, and I am not a Republican.

 I demand better. I get it that you do not. Your depth of allegiance to the Democratic Party is bottomless. It’s your choice and it’s not my place to criticize, But if you were really serious about beating Trump in 2020, you should have got your head in the game four years ago and started devising a realistic strategy on how to accomplish that. It’s really not hard. He’s the most beatable candidate in U.S. history. Except for Hillary Clinton. And, likely, Joe Biden.

 You’ve failed at strategizing and failed hard. You have been completely deranged for the last four years, demanding that the entire world share in your derangement. Perhaps in your deranged fantasies you truly believed the entire world did share your ideas.

 You were wrong.

 Now I know your immediate reaction is to yell at me and tell me that I’m stupid for taking a principled stand. But you might want to try a different approach. Because in the last four years that hasn’t worked on me or anyone working from reason rather than emotion. I really don’t know where we go for here, but hell if I’m going to take the blame for the situation we find ourselves in.

There. I've had my say. Let's keep the lines of communication open and perhaps we can yet work something out. But please, be respectful. And next time, let's not wait so long.

P.S. Here is a meme I made a couple of years back, just to show you I've been trying to have this conversation for a while, now.