Dear Mr. President.
They will never let you win, you know. They will never compromise. They will continue to move the line of scrimmage to the right.
This isn’t about what’s best for us, you know. The Republicans care about one thing: winning.
Okay, that’s not totally fair and I don’t think it’s completely true. In fact, I think they care about something else entirely and, in order to understand it you have to change your approach.
Permit me a little analogy: If you are a woman whose been screwed over by a guy, you don’t ask other women for advice. You find a guy and try to suss out they way of thinking through him. Why? Because men just don’t think the same way. You know? Venus and Mars? Penis and Vagina? Innies and outies? It’s in our nature. It’s who we are. Like the GOP and the left.
You and me, Barry, we are wired to think about a broader picture. An intricate world of trickle up economics. A world where, if I am doing well, I can help my brother up. We understand the concept of the weakest link in the chain and the squeaky wheel and helping our fellow man.
This year a guy named Rand was elected to the Senate. This isn’t by chance. It’s the destiny manifest of the right wing. They don’t think like you or I or much of the populace. They live and die by the writings of Ayn Rand. They believe in pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, leave the weak to die, only when I am successful can I be of value.
The trouble is, as you know, this philosophy was written by a childless person who could scarce conceive of a worldview that include helping each other. She’s a nutbag. (And let’s not forget the other loony icon of the right: Milton “The free market will never explode until it does and we’re all fucked” Friedman)
So, the thing is, they really don’t think the same way that you or I do. So, we can only hope to succeed by playing the same game that they do. Go for the jugular, Barry. Call out McConnell’s “cut and run” hypocrisy with firy rhetoric. Make them filibuster, loudly, for the ridiculousness that they espouse, like tax breaks for those that they worship. For they worship them because the rich have attained what Randians so wish for: Self-made independence and boot strappering lift upedness.
Don’t be saddened that your message didn’t get out this past year. It couldn’t. You and the Dems were doing actual work and getting things done for the people that elected you and all that. Meanwhile they stopped at nothing to demonize everything that you did. It doesn’t matter what it is. And you know this. But you all act so incredulous.
Health care ended up being the Dole plan. But it doesn’t matter that they supported it once because YOU proposed it. As soon as you approve of something they do, they run from it. Why? Because they do not care one whit about helping people. What they care about is being a Randian. Every man for himself in service to the state.
So, you must, you MUST fight back. Encourage the rhetoric and then call them out on it. Ram through every initiative that you know is best for us. Make them fight amongst themselves. See, Aaron Sorkin once wrote: the problem with the American dream is everyone is preparing for the day they become rich.” This is the philosophy of the right. The Randian. One day they will be Big Brother. Or they will have helped elect him and that makes them feel like they are entitled to be in his company. They have no idea that they are looked at as just the proletariat in the Orwellian world they are creating.
So, let them be that way. You govern. We need a little more TR. FDR. JFK. LBJ. Harry S. from you and a LOT less Henry Clay. More Lincoln and less spineless Oliver Twist begging the minority for a little more gruel.
Please?
Thanks.
