The Democratic Party seems to have been more to the right of center for the last ten years.  Clinton was a centrist.  This only seems to have pushed the republicans so far to the right that now we have the current scary situation going on with the administration now.  I must say that I would like to have a party that represents me and other progressives as much as the Republican Party represents the Christian fundamentalists.  How fair is that, a party for the right wing ideologues and no party for the progressives?  I don't want to be more like them....(They make me mad!)  I don't like to see people discriminated against,  I don't like to see the Truth  being accused of a lack of patriotism.

Those issues that we lost on are issues that need to be reworded.  These are issues of civil rights and justice.  I don't want someone else's morals and values being shoved down my throat.  If two people want to join together and form a union and under the law be treated as married so what?  It's not going to affect my life.  No one else will be affected by it except those people who are presently living together anyway.  If it is so important then perhaps all TV shows depicting gay people should be removed from the media.  After all, that is in your living room.

If my daughter were raped (a not too uncommon occurrence among young girls today) and she became pregnant, she damn well better be able to end her pregnancy safely, if that is her wish.  I don't want to have to take her to a back alley to do so, nor do I want her young body to have to be wreaked by pregnancy for an adoption.  This is not something that I am going to put aside and let go.  My guess is that not many women would.  

I often felt like this issue was a big one in Clinton 's first campaign and it helped him win.  Where have all of these women gone?  Well, I'll bet they were lulled into a false sense of security, believing that Roe vs. Wade couldn't be overturned.  The Republicans didn't pound it into the ground.  Why? Because if they made a huge stink about it, like they did same-sex marriage, women (we are over 50% of the voting population) would have come out of the woodwork like they did in 1992.  Now I am not saying that this was the only issue, but it was a big one.  It was also a KISS (keep it simple stupid) issue.

I have to say that these issues on which we we "lost" the vote were so insignificant in the grand scope of subjects that were at play, that I believe Republican voters were driven to vote as they did by their priests and pastors by some ridiculous belief that ending an unwanted pregnancy is worse that killing 100,000 civilians and destroying a country.  The only thing I can think is that, as a whole, the American people are either apathetic or sorely misinformed.  They are not thinking for themselves and do not have easy access to what is going on.  I can't believe that so many people could be so duped, but perhaps that is what has happened.  The Republicans have definitely read Machiavelli's writings and have no qualms doing whatever it takes to further their agenda.

I don't know what we can do other than become a little more like them as far as fighting dirty.  Perhaps we could begin referring to the Republicans using words that we have used to describe negatively the religious zealots of the Muslim world — fanatics, fundamentalists, unenlightened, etc.  If you say it enough times the American public seems to believe it, weather it is true or not.  At least half of us at least make an attempt to understand.  The gloves are off folks, if we want to get this back, we are going to have to play with the same equipment without giving up on those things that make us who we are.

"With silent lips. Give me your tired, 
Your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to
breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your
teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost
to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

-Emma Lazarus

 

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