We Are Americathe Tea Party Is Not Winning the 2012 Armageddon of Americas Conflict of Values Imagine it is the morning

afterNovember 7th 2012and Mitt Romney has been declared the winner. How does that feel? Can you live with what that means for the next four years and beyond? Or is it too awful to even think about? Not only that, but the GOP still control the House and have gained more seats in the Senate. I ask you to think about this because, right now, that is what is very likely going to happenunless weprogressive citizensdo something very different from what we have done in past election years. The first thing we must do is be much more realistic about the four main dimensions of our political situation, which are: the attitudes and likely behavior of the three major groups of American votersRepublicans, Democrats and independents plus, fourthly, the likely behavior of the President himself. All the evidence is that a large majority of Republican voters have moved far to the right and are very unconcerned about the truth or relevance of the things said by either candidate. No amount of speeches, debates or political ads will deter these voters from voting against Obama and for Romney. Likewise, all the evidence suggests that President Obama is less popular among Democratic voters than he was in 2008. This evidence involves a wide array of issues and events. But, overall, this decline in enthusiasm is beyond dispute. Thirdly, independent voters, while are more closely aligned with Democrats rather than with conservatives on most social issues, they also are, like most voters in both parties, extremely concerned about the economy and are dissatisfied with both candidates. These factors all spell the same outcome: low turnout. Low turn out is virtually always bad news for Democratic candidates. Elections with high turnouts, elections that put more Democrats in office, happen for two reasonsvoters are either fed up with GOP incumbents or they are fired up. In 2008 the very idea of the first African-American President fired up, not only millions of African-American voters, but millions of young American voters of every color. But where do we find the fire this time? The President, himself, is part of the problem.

In the fall of 2008, with Americas economy imploding, Obamas identity, his youth, his words and his character all made him The Man, the man of the hour, the man to lead the nation and to lead the Democrats to victory. In 2012 things are both different and the same. Obama has not changed but the relation of Obama to almost every other political thing has changed. For better and for worse, President Obama has been, from the moment he took the oath of office, quintessentially Presidential. He has been almost a Lincoln the Lincoln of both before and after the attack on Fort Sumterfirst hoping against all hope that the divided nation could somehow be held together under his leadership and then determined to use every power the Constitution allows him to carry on his Chief Executive dutiesespecially those of Commander-in-Chiefdespite popular opposition, chaos and confusion. No oneother than the Republican hit squads, of coursecan accuse the President of being a demagogue. He has declined the bully pulpit at every turn, declined to rally the masses to support his causes or to support anyones. Far from being the radical socialist that Tea Partiers accuse him of being, he has not even been the Roosevelt Democrat we liberals hoped he might be. When he took office in January 2009, with the economy still in tatters, he could have embarked upon a radical 21st Century New Deal. He chose, instead, to place all his political chips on his modest goal of enacting historic (and compassionate) (and, he imagined, bipartisan) healthcare reform. His eventual victory on this front may indeed have been historic, but it was also Pyrrhic, costing him and his party as much or more than they gained by it politically. Moreover, it hasnt help that, when political goons from the far Right have heaped insults and disrespect upon his person and his Office, he has chosen not to dignify them with a responsea fine approach if you are planning to rise from the grave under your own power. But, when your re-election depends upon energizing your base, the soundness of this approach is doubtful, at best. All of this is not to say that the President is damaged goodsnot at all. But his potential to be a bright, shining icon, a beacon drawing the masses to the polls has been substantially reducedthats just a fact, beyond any doubt. Granted, the President is still a candidate and a campaigner who far outshines his opponent. But this is not 1960 and Jack Kennedy, nor even 1996 and Bill Clinton, the Comeback Kid. Neither charisma nor the lack of it will decide this election.

There are many indicators of why this is so. But perhaps the most crucial is the fact that thirty-plus percent of voters, those who make up the hard-core right, have made up their minds to believeand believe fiercelyin a myth of an America founded upon human inequality. For these citizens it is a matter of faith that the genius of America is that it is a Promised Land, where the good, the able and the chosen rise above the bad, the inept and those cursed by God (people of color and the Godless unbelievers, communists, humanists, intellectuals, scientists, you name it, etc. and, of course, Yankees of every sort.) Obama represents an America grounded in equality and diversity. Romney represents an America grounded in inequality and traditional white male dominance over the rest. If the corpse of Richard Nixon headed the 2012 GOP ticket, the right-wingers would still turn out and vote to keep Barrack Obama from having a second term. Real politics require real gut-checksespecially at election time. Here is my list of election gut-check indicators. (It is not the only possible list, of course. But hopefully it is convincing enough on most points that it effectively indicates the size and the nature of the challenge we face.) 10) 9) 8) 7) 6) 5) 4) 3) 2) 1) This election will not be about facts. This election will not be about personalities. This election will not even be about two opposing stories. This election will not be about Wall St. This election will not be about the 1%. This election will be about the 50+% (or some media image of the 50+%). This election will be about Main St. (and to which side Main St. belongs). This election will be about the size and number of red states vs. blue states. This election will be about whether red or blue voters seem more American to the margin of swing voters, who will tip the balance one way or the other. This election will be about who votes and who stays home.

So if we cannot look to our President, the leader of our Party, to light the fire for victory this time, where can we look?

How about looking to ourselveswe, the peopleespecially the progressives among uswe who are, or ought to be, the salt of our democracy? What can we do? That is, what can we do that we are not already doing? Imagine a day when literally a million liberals are marching in the streets all across America. The sides in this election are clearer than in any election since 1932, if not since 1860. Understandably, most American voters have yet to come to terms with this harsh reality. Rather than confront the distressing implications of this Great Divide, they embrace the myth that it is just the politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, who are the source of this deepening division. As comforting a dodge as this myth may be, there is a plethora of evidence to suggest this myth is simply not true. In 2008 Obama skillfully relied upon this myth and upon the hope (in the hearts of huge numbers of voters) that he could make the Congress walk a better and more bi-partisan path. This hope for renewed bi-partisanship played a major role (along with the Wall St. collapse) in his winning the Presidency. But it cant keep him there past November. The GOP counter-attack strategy has worked well enough to ensure that there is no way to re-sell independents on change and hope a second time. So lets imagine a day (in August, September or October) when literally a million liberals are marching in the streets all across America. Imagine we are chanting and carrying signs and waving flags and imagine that we doing this, not to protest our government, but to take a stand for four basic American values: Equality, Diversity Sustainability Openness to Change. These are values that distinguish the Left from the Right in America. And they are under brutal attack from both social conservatives and corporate interests. But this is what democracy could look likeif we liberals actually have the audacity to make it happen. Massive demonstrations dont just happen of course. People demonstrate when they are fed up and when they are fired up.

In September of last year a very modest number of liberals made the national news, made history and inspired millions of the rest of us by camping out on Wall St. The Occupy Wall St. movement was a movement without leadersa media phenomenon without celebrities. Its tactics and its message were moderately radical. Yet despite its lack of organization, its lack of funds, and its somewhat radical tactics, its numbers grew rapidly and citizens in a hundred cities across the nation emulated their actions and occupied public spaces siting similar agendas. Occupy Wall St. took to the streets and fired up liberals across the nation. It also put conservatives and conservative media on the defensive. And most importantly, it changed the subject of the nations political discussions. The faux subject of the federal deficit was replace by the real subject of massive income inequality in America. What we need now is a rather moderate movement that is also a very large movement and is in support of the basic values which distinguish liberal America from reactionary America: Equality, Diversity, Sustainability and Openness to Change. The agenda of the Republican Party has evolved into something far more radical than any agenda articulated by the Occupy movement. To stand up effectively against that agenda requires only that we show up together en masse and be diverse, committed, patriotic and enthusiastic. One million of us in the streetswhat does it take to do that? It only takes about 2% of us to show up, just one out of fifty of those who voted for Obama in 2008. Granted it takes more time and effort to get out in the streets to a march and a rally than it takes to get to the polls or to mail an absentee ballot. But if just one of us out every fifty were willing to commit this extra effort, it would be more than enough to inspire an additional five of us to get out to vote (who otherwise would stay home) and thats enough to change the outcome on election day. Just showing up at the polls in November could be too little too late. We need to fire up voters as much or more than voters were fired up in 2008, fire up the kind of voters who put Barrack Obama in the White House. There are more voters of color and more young voters and more women eligible to vote now than there were then. But how many actually will vote will depend on how these voters feel come November 6th. We cannot rely on anyone but ourselves to make sure these voters feel inspired to vote. And we cannot accomplish this except by going out into the streets. The stakes are actually even greater than whether Barrack Obama gets a second term or not. Even with Obama in the White House and even with a Democratic majority in both houses of the Congress, it will remain nearly impossible to move

the nation forward without CHANGE in the framing of the political discourse among the majority of the nations citizensas, indeed, it was in 2008-2010. With a very minimal numbers of demonstrators in the streets in 2009 and 2010, the Tea Party re-framed the issues and the tenor of national debate about government. Then, in 2011, the Occupy Wall St. folks radically reversed the issues and the tenor of the national debate. If the progressives of the nation are not able and willing to do as much or more for our vision of America, then we should concede the soul of our nation to those will to fight harder for it. So which is it? Lets get going and organize a MASSIVE march.