Searching the alt news sites today, I feel compelled to offer a little grab-bag of nuggets. The first thing to catch my eye was Alternet’s call to progressives to keep their heads high and looking forward, titled It’s Not the End of the World — 7 Things Progressives Need to Keep in Mind About Last Night’s GOP ‘Wave’. No one is saying we don’t have our work cut out for us, but the trends and statistics the author cites at least provide a starting place to regroup and a long view to bear in mind.
Next up, I found myself on Democracy Now! reading Amy Goodman’s interview with Michael Moore from last night. Amidst his thoughts about what Obama would likely say today — versus what he needs to say and do to keep progressives with him — and the possibility of a rare four-candidate race for President in 2012 (Lincoln won the first of those, with 39% of the vote), he discussed Christine O’Donnell’s concession speech:
It was interesting watching Christine O’Donnell’s sort of concession speech tonight. I don’t know if you saw it while you guys were in here, but it will be on YouTube on—more on the comedy channel than anything, but it’ll—you have to watch it, because it was interesting. And she got 40 percent of the vote. “I’m not a witch” got 40 percent. That’s where we live. But she was criticizing the Democrats, and she sort of made a kind of a veiled threat to the person who beat her, like he better do this and he better do that. But it wasn’t ’til she attacked the Republican, she got—that’s where she got the loudest applause in the room. It was the attack on the Republicans.
If people think that they’re going to be spending a lot of time going after us and our issues, they’re going to be very occupied with each other, because they’re involved in their own civil war.
Of course, after reading that, I had to hear O’Donnell’s speech for myself — especially given the attention her ideas about sex, masturbation and being a witch have gotten on the pages of Planet Waves.
It was there in the comments section of YouTube that I saw the thread tying all of these bits together. A commenter named ‘consdel2000’ wrote, “Americans are too stupid to realize we’re wearing the same colors. Plus as argumentative as we are, we’ll prolly argue different shades of the same color.”
To which another going by ‘darbone’ replied, “The Roman senate once proposed having all the slaves wear the same color of tunics to identify them as slaves. Then one senator pointed out that if they all wore the same color they would realize how they outnumbered the Romans 7 to 1. I hope the 98% of Americans have noticed that we are all wearing the same color tunic.”
This imbalance is something noted in the Alternet article I began with. The article mentions the prevalence of progressive sentiments among voters despite who actually turns out to vote in midterm elections, by way of reminding the left that we are not, in fact, outnumbered — however beaten down we may feel. To my mind that points to a process of mobilization and progress: realizing how many we are, then acting, then persevering through the ebb and flow of long-term change instead of freaking out about short-term setbacks. Shifting of worldview is required.
As ‘darbone’ pointed out, we have to realize we’re all wearing the same color tunic. Yes, they come in different shades. Yes, they cloak differing individual bodies. Yes, some of us are in for a more dramatic worldview shake-up than others if we want to prosper humanely. And then maybe, in the really long view, we can not only realize our collective strength but realize our unity.
Yes indeed, thanks Amanda! Your summary parallels my thinking, that this is but a blip in the grand scale of American politics.
The Toilet Paper Party and their ilk (my new meaning for TP) now has to deliver, and they won’t be able to. No one wants to start any sort of Constitutional change, and if the health care bill is to be revised or dismantled, all we have to do is tell everyone to expect their medical bills to increase greatly, their private insurance costs to skyrocket, and care get even worse, thanks to that action.
John Boehner has his work cut out for him: now he has to try to deliver his idea of progress, and here he’s been giving lessons for several years in how not to to the Dems. He may regret his hubris and ill mannered actions, since he is most likely going to sow what he reaped.
The progressive trend is only down, not out. We will survive to win again.
Amanda,
Thank you! Wonderfully wrought summary. Just as well you left out the crackpot with the baseball bat. The non-witch was not so far from his response. Wonder how the both of them plan to make a living now. That would be a story too.