The democrats got their butts handed to them in the 2014 mid-term elections. That is a fair statement. I’d also add that they deserved to lose.
For any other sitting president, this mid-term election would have been a dream: record stock market earnings, falling unemployment rates, gas prices way down…the economy actually spurring along fairly nicely. Even the dreaded Affordable Care Act which the House republicans have voted to repeal dozens of times is fairing better than many predicted.
Yet, in almost every competitive congressional race, the democrats did everything they could to distance themselves from the Obama administration and the policies that have actually helped get this country back on track.
So why did the masses vote republican? It is likely because the democratic candidates didn’t give them a choice. The democrats ran away from progressive values and really didn’t run on anything of substance. You know that old adage “if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”… well, the democrats fell for the idea that they could run as Republican “lites” and actually beat the authentic republicans. Spssst, democrats, when they have the choice between a knockoff and the real thing, people will always choose the real thing. Democrats’ biggest mistake was that they didn’t give voters a reason to support them. They didn’t win over any republican voters and what’s worse they failed to mobilize democrats to vote.
On the other hand, progressive ideas placed on the ballot did very well: Alaska, Washington DC and Oregon legalized recreational marijuana; in Colorado and North Dakota, voters rejected measures that would impede abortion rights; Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota voters approved minimum wage increases; in Washington, voters approved a stricter gun measure that would expand background checks; and in Massachusetts, voters approved a measure that would guarantee paid sick time for workers.
In fact, exit polls indicate voters favor progressive ideas like keeping abortion legal, taking climate change seriously and passing some sort of reform for illegal immigrants. They also believe that our economic system benefits the wealthy.
I had hoped that the democrats would have learned their lesson from the 2010 mid-term elections when they ran away from healthcare reform and allowed the republicans to control the message. Spoiler alert…they didn’t learn their lesson and I am not convinced they’ll learn the lesson from this recent election.
Even locally we’re fed up with democratic candidates running as quasi republicans or in some cases as just plain republicans.
I for one believe in progressive values that support the working class, protect our environment, assist and empower individuals to pursue happiness. It is no exaggeration that this country has been pulled to the right ideologically in the last several decades; but it can not just be blamed on the right…because the left has allowed itself to be pulled right along.
It’s bad enough we are confined to a two-party system…let’s not reduce it to a one-party system.