Is the party over?

Today I heard that progressive talk radio station AM 760 out of Boulder, Colorado, is sponsoring a discussion with two of my favorite hosts, David Sirota and Thom Hartmann, entitled "Is It Time to Abandon the Democratic Party?"  

Being completely honest, this is a question that I have been personally kicking around even before Scott Brown nabbed Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.  The results of that special election really pushed over the edge.  To illustrate, I give you two unedited emails I sent to friends on January 20, 2010.

I've been thinking for a while - LONG before this election clusterf*ck in mass. - what the heck is any different than it was in January of 2007?  I'm not sure.  Sure maybe the goals are different, the ultimate aims.  Take a look at the health care bill.  The insurance mandate with no public option or no additional opportunities to get Medicare just means more $$ straight to the insurance companies.  Its the same corporatist bullcrap that the dems campaigned against.  I mean, you can only campaign on hope and change for so long before voters figure out that nothing's actually going to change.  which is really really disappointing for an administration who won people over with a promise to change the tone and the culture and DC. 

They had a chance to do basically whatever they wanted, and couldn't get their own shit together enough to do it.  that's really disappointing.  find a message that you really believe in that you'll stand up for.  until, I'm done calling myself my democrat.  i'll stay registered so I can vote in the primaries because I do generally think the better INDIVIDUAL candidates come from the left of center.  but, ideologically, I feel pretty abandoned after this past year.

Then I analogized my relationship with the Democratic Party to two lovers that have fallen out of favor:

I really can't get over the hurt, now that I'm giving it some thought. I feel like I've been cheated on. This term was supposed to produce results for people. But the biggest populist, liberal reform - if it survives - will feed the PIG just as much as any cheney defense contract or bush oil bill.

So that, washington democracts, is why we need a break. I'm not ready to say its over. I probably won't see anyone else. But while I'm gone, you need to prove to me you're actually still committed to the ideals that brought us together so many years ago.

And those words pretty accurately reflect where I stand today, over a month later.  I would qualify that statement, though, with the fact that my frustration is not obviously directed just at Democrats.  It is equally spread over both parties in DC.  I suppose I allowed ideological agreement to quell my growing frustration with the Left.  But my frustrations grows from attributes that are not exclusive to one party - corporate favoritism, intra-party bickering and vacillation, and career-minded selfishness.  Granted, that does not describe every politician in Washington.  But it describes enough  of them to generate a public stereotype.  And those who exhibit such characteristics are the obstacles to improving life in the United States.  To those persons I would say: Move one way or the other, but whatever you do, get the hell out of the way.

 

The Democrats ran the 2008 campaigns on populist rhetoric, with promises to restore Main Street over Wall Street and to institute reform in the name of the people.  I have yet to see those promises materialize in any appreciable way.  And until I see otherwise, I will continue to believe to the few persons who are accurately described by the despicable characteristics I listed above are truly obstructing the well being of folks like and I.