Dear Democratic Leadership:
There are a few things I’d like to make clear to
you because it is apparent that for the last 3 years you’ve been living in your
own fantasy world. I know you will not listen. In the 35 years I’ve been
voting, you’ve made it abundantly clear that you have not been listening. For a
while you pretended to, but even that gesture has been abandoned. Where once
you made promises in an attempt to win our votes, you now make threats.
While I know you will not listen, I feel morally
obligated to share my thoughts nonetheless. And while I know you are unfamiliar
with the idea of moral obligation, there are some who may read this who are. I
want to show to them, to posterity, and to myself, that I have certain
principles and am willing to put those principles in writing so that others may
judge me according to how well I stand by them. Again, I don’t expect you to
understand.
The Democratic Party has no set of principles by
which it exists. Where once I considered myself a Democrat because I believed
they were the anti-war party, they have moved to the right of Donald Trump when it comes to war,
goading him to bomb other nations and screaming at any promise he makes to withdraw
troops from places in the world where we kill people illegally.
You set yourselves up as the opposition to President
Trump and all he represents. Yes, I know Trump is an immoral buffoon, a
semi-literate clown who embarrasses our country in front of the world. Yes, the
Republicans have sunk lower than I could ever have imagined by electing him to
be president. But let me remind you that you lost to him. Your presidential
candidate could not even rise to the level of “more appealing than Trump” in
the eyes of the American people. And not only did your presidential candidate
lose, the ripple effect across congressional and governor races was catastrophic.
If I could set aside your moral failings, the facts still remain that even with
your moral compromises, you are still incapable of the very victories you claim
you must compromise values in order to attain. Even purists can lose.
And while you claim the position of the only legitimate opposition to Donald Trump, you never defend any of the positions I care about.
You only attack Trump—and then quite rabidly, it must be admitted—in defense of
your own interests. Trump can engage in attempts at regime change in other
countries, and you are in lockstep with him. Trump can go after journalists and
you eagerly cheer him on so long as they are not servants of the same masters
you serve like Jim Acosta. Trump can gut environmental regulations and the only
resistance you put up is a symbolic one.
No, the only time you truly resist Trump is when
he is going after one of your own. To that end you have pushed the farcical
Russiagate narrative in order to clear yourselves of any responsibility for
your loss to Trump. On that nonsensical position you have hammered away at Trump
for 3 years, an attack that has only strengthened him. And only when he went
after Joe Biden’s son and the undeniable evidence of nepotism did you find it
fit to begin impeachment proceedings.
The environment, peace, clean water for Flint
Michigan, on none of these issues are you willing to fight. The proof lies in
your inaction on these issues when you held the power to do something. It is only when Trump might
harm your interests, or the interests of the unelected intelligence agencies
that you dare not question, that you come to life. You fight tooth and claw over
power in the same way the decadent and detached European royalty once did while
ignoring the interests of the average citizens. And yet you not only ask for
but demand our fealty. It is like being asked to take a side between Pablo
Escobar and the Cali Cartel.
You sell yourself as an inclusionary party,
welcoming people of all races, religions, gender, and sexual orientation, but
you only celebrate women, gays, and people of color so long as they are corporatists
and warmongers. Have them speak out against people of color being bombed or young
women working overseas in sweatshops to make our clothing, and they are cast
out from the homogenous herd. People like Caitlin Johnstone, Vanessa Beeley, Eva
Bartlett, Glenn Greenwald, Cynthia McKinney, and countless people of integrity
are ignored and even actively attacked by the Democratic establishment because
they take seriously principles the Democratic Party once stood for.
The 2016 election and its aftermath has wiped the
last of my illusions from my eyes. I was naïve enough to think that if the
Democrats lost to Donald McDonald that you would be forced to take a long hard
look at what you had become. I had no way of knowing how far your disease had
progressed, how beyond redemption the Democratic machinery had gone. The
inability to beat the worst presidential candidate in U.S. history was
shocking, but it was nothing compared to what followed: 3 years of insane gibbering
about Russian bots and buff Bernie pictures. And from all the maniacal Red
Scare tactics you have engaged in, the only results you have to show for it is
the silencing of dissent from progressives and ordinary citizens by billionaire
social media owners and unaccountable intelligence agencies.
It is apparent
to me now more than ever before that your primary goal is not to push
progressive issues but to marginalize and defeat the progressive movement. That
is what you stand for, that is your raison d’etre. Whatever illusions I once had
that we shared common goals has been irreparably shattered by your actions.
I have abandoned
the last of my illusions regarding the Democratic Party. It is time for the
Democratic Party to do the same. Do not, in your wildest flights of fancy,
believe that those of us on the left with a degree of integrity and honesty and clarity
are in your camp or can be wooed into it. We know now that you are not an ally.
However insistent your words, your actions have shown incontrovertibly that you
are in league with our enemies. From henceforth, we are at war.
Sincerely,
A Pro-peace,
Pro-democracy, Progressive
exact a tack a lee
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