The Democrats Deserved to Lose

The Democrats deserved to lose. I’m sad they did, but the reason people vote Democrat to begin with is because it’s the party that stands tough for average working people, fights big corporate money and protects our education system and other public services from right-wing attack.

But this week not enough such voters turned up and the Democrats lost big time. And why didn’t they turn up? I believe it’s because many millions of them no longer see the Democrats as real Democrats. What they see instead is “Republican Lite”.

The president himself is more to blame than anyone for this loss. He was elected to re-regulate Wall Street, to hold the crooks in high banking accountable, and to reverse the erosion of civil liberties that had occurred under Bush, Jr. He was elected to stand up for the shrinking middle class and others even worse off who were being systematically deprived of their voice in government. But the president did none of these things. His health care reform, while significant, was not enough to disguise the fact that in nearly every other area of policy he was what? Republican Lite.

Soon after taking office, in the midst of the financial meltdown, Obama was reported to have said to the big boys on Wall Street: “I’m all that stands between you and the pitchforks.” At that time we Democrats believed this was a statement of fact, a threat leveled for strategic reasons, that it meant that the big banks would have to allow for the serious reforms Obama was soon going to force on them.

Nothing doing. Now we see what his statement really meant: “Rest assured. I’m going to keep any hint of pitchfork from getting anywhere near you.”

The American people is smart enough to see that this president has basically allowed the same system to keep running as nearly destroyed us under his predecessor. The 1% have done even better during his tenure than under Bush, Jr. Meanwhile the rest, the middle class, remain with no voice in government.

The momentum was behind our president, the opportunity was given him to act against such obvious corruption--and what did we get? A compromiser always trying to make some grand bargain with a Republican Party that couldn’t get his race out of their heads. It is all too ridiculous.

Millions upon millions of Democratic voters didn’t in fact go out and vote in this midterm. Rather, seeing they had no party that fought for things they believed in, they just stayed home. And that is why the Republicans took the Senate.

Eric Mader