Time to take a stand!
It’s time to VOTE- Time to take a stand!
“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win…” [JFK 9/1/1962]
This week I will take my absentee ballot to City Hall and cast my vote for the Democratic nominee for president. I was on the fence for months, leaning Warren with Bernie as my second choice. But a re-thinking of the approach has flipped my options and my ballot is now marked for Sanders.
Health care is one major issue. Income inequality, corporate ownership of our government. All of these are addressed by both Sanders and Warren. But I believe we live now in new and fraught times. Times of stark dichotomy, easy sound-bytes, clear differences.
The Presidency is indeed a bully pulpit as Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed. Trump has mastered this to great (and negative) effect. Assuming the next president is a Democrat, very likely the Senate will remain in Republican hands even if by a slim margin. We need to look ahead at two different factors:
First, the several anti-gerrymandering efforts around the nation will begin to bear fruit in places like Michigan. This re-drawing will most noticeably affect the US House first of course but the electoral dynamics are often more widely felt with regards to turnout and voter participation. Which means some Republican senators around the nation may be replaced by Democrats due to surge in voter’s participation.
Second, there’s that bully pulpit. Our entire electoral and media process are skewed to the most blatant of positions. Nuance is great, and necessary in policy. But in messaging, we need clarity. Warren is a great thinking and in-the-weeds policy wonk and she does deliver a decent message. But we need to have Republicans clearly called out! For every obstruction, for every tax policy proposal to the 1% & corporations, for every environmental rollback endangering citizen health.. we need someone to stand up on the bully pulpit and call it for what it is- in stark searing clear terms. No niceties, no hedging terminology.
Shaming! Yes that is what I want to see happen. We need to have a candidate as president that will SHAME Republicans- that will clearly call out their policies as the egregious policies they are and NOT compromise.
I am okay with a no compromise position for the near term. As I indicated, Republicans will likely own the Senate until the 2022 election at least anyway and we KNOW McConnell. He’s Mr Obstruction. So, time for a dose of his own medicine
“We choose to enact universal health care and other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…”
