Southern Beale referenced this earlier, but it’s become clear in recent days that the DNC has decided to cut Wisconsin loose, probably because hey, it’s just a state full of union workers and teachers and cops and farmers and steelworkers and so, really, fuck it, we can afford to let it rot.
And rotting is what it’s doing. Make no mistake, we only think we’ve seen what Walker and his Fitzgerald cronies are like. There’s a whole other world of bullying, punishing, vindictive, scorched-earth plans under their skins, and if we think they’re arrogant now, if we think they’re bold now, wait until they survive a recall. Wait until they win that fight. Imagine them then.
This isn’t about $500,000. $500,000 is nothing. $500,000 is lunch money for the DNC. $500,000 is lunch money to anybody who, in the general election, is going to have to face Mitt Fucking Romney and his current group of clowns. $500,000 could be raised in an afternoon, if you put Barack Obama on the phone. This isn’t about the money. It’s about the risk inherent in fighting a fight you don’t know for sure you can win.The polls aren’t perfect. The process wasn’t easy. I know how fractured and frustrating fights like this can be, but none of that matters. None of that matters in the face of this:
They came by the hundreds of thousands. In the snow, in the rain, past the jeering Tea Partiers, through the locked doors, they came and they stood up for something we haven’t seen people stand up for in many, many years: The right to organize, the right to unionize, the right to work with dignity and security and hope. Many, many people, including me, didn’t believe anything like that could even exist anymore. We didn’t believe people had it in them, not to come and certainly not to stay. And still they came.
That’s what the DNC is risking. That’s what they’re abandoning. That’s what they’ll throw away. Look at those people. Give them a place to put their shoulders and they’ll roll back the mountains. Look at their faces. I was in the crowd that day and I’ve never seen anything like that, never ever. I didn’t believe we were still like that, people. Americans. I didn’t believe the fight could still be fought.
So this isn’t a fight Democrats think they can win? Wait until they see what it’s like to lose.
Maybe I’m driven too much by fear. Fear of having to go home and hand in a bad report card, fear of having to tell someone I’m not going to live up to the promise I made him. Fear of having to go out every day and walk past people who will be laughing their asses off if I slip, stumble, fall on my face. Fear of having to listen to those Americans for Prosperity dicks gloat all the way around the Capitol if Walker pulls this off somehow. But here’s my question: Why isn’t the DNC afraid? Why aren’t they afraid of losing? If they’re not afraid of losing their jobs as teachers and bus drivers, why aren’t they afraid of losing face at least? Why are they willing to forfeit a game they should play until the last second they can wring from the clock?
This is the kind of crap that has driven me insane about the party since 2001. Since the Clinton impeachment, really, since the trend of bashing one’s own party to get attention became a thing, since liberals started paring down the number of things they publicly gave a shit about in order not to upset anybody. Since the Bush years of not being able to be against the war because somebody would call you a pussy, since protesting the unprecedented expansion of executive power made you a traitor.
This is the kind of crap that drives me insane about people generally, about the metrics we use to decide how to ration out just what fights we should fight, as if courage is a bowl of sugar, and there’s only so much of it and no more. The odds are tough, sure. They were during the protests, too. They were during the recall petition drives. They’re always tough. Name me one time things have been easy and I’ll call you a liar. You either accept that all unlikely victories in the face of impossible odds are unlikely and impossible and fight every fight out anyway, fight every battle that’s worth fighting everywhere, or you admit that you don’t really want to win, and at least the rest of us will know where we stand.
A.