No More Half Measures
In Breaking Bad, there is a great scene between Walter White and Mike, the former police officer turned drug kingpin enforcer.
Mike tells Walter White about an incident from his time as a beat cop, when he showed mercy by allowing a habitually abusive husband to live only to have the man beat his wife to death shortly after. The moral of Mike’s story is "I chose a half measure when I should’ve gone all the way. I’ll never make that mistake again."
This scene also contains one of the most memorably and profound lines in television. When Mike tells Walt that the husband smashed in his wife’s skull, Mike describes the scene thusly; “there was so much blood you could taste the metal”.
Now is the time for Dems to start the hard work and make sure we take NO MORE HALF MEASURES.
We need volunteers and DNC resources swarming all 50 states. If voter suppression laws are passed, we need to coordinate efforts to get people registered with all the wickets needed…and we need to stay engaged every single day. Our goal should be to generate a massive wave in 2018. A wave so big that all the gerrymandering, dirty-tricks, disenfranchisement and intimidation the “Reich” can muster won’t stop it.
Our ideas are winning ideas, and our policies are winning policies. When more people vote, they vote for Democrats, liberals and progressives.
But, once we get back the power to govern, there needs to be NO MORE HALF MEASURES.
I love President Obama, and I believe that he will go down in history as one of the greatest Presidents we have ever known. But like Maxine Waters said; “we tend to be too nice”.
In 2008, President Obama came into office with strong Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. He had just won election by a damn near Electoral and Popular Vote Landslide. He and the Democrats took bold action, rescuing the auto industry, stimulating the economy and passing Health Care Reform (something that Presidents have tried to get done for over 100 years).
The risk was great and the Democrats have paid a price, but they acted in the best interest of the country and their constituents. Flawed as the ACA may be it has resulted in the lowest rate of uninsured in America’s history, provided life-saving care to desperate people, stopped the tsunami of family bankruptcies due to medical costs, and actually has begun to slow the rising cost of insurance and health care.
We should be proud that we put people and country above power and political seats.
But now, we face an existential threat to our Democracy and our way of life.
The next time we are in power…NO MORE HALF MEASURES!!
Despite back to back Electoral Landslides, what did President Obama do?
Well, in a “spirit of bipartisanship”, he selected a prominent Republican to run the FBI. How did that turn out?
In a “spirit of reaching across the aisle”, he selected a prominent Republican to serve as Secretary of Defense. I admire Chuck Hagle as the first former enlisted man to serve as SECDEF, but he was probably the wrong choice to draw down troops and work to close GITMO. Still, President Obama made the effort to "reach across the aisle".
Contrast that to the orange shitgibbon who lost the popular vote by almost 3 million, and is only president-elect due to 60 thousand votes in 3 states that President Obama had won.
Where are the liberals, progressives or Democrats being selected for prominent positions in shitgibbon’s cabinet?
Where are the calls from the “media” for “reaching across the aisle” by the shitgibbon?
Democrats: You better watch how these pricks govern and learn the lesson.
Despite losing the popular vote by 3 Million, and barely squeaking out a razor thin Electoral win, these fuckers are going to pretend that they won 92-8%!
They are going to put extremist right wing demagogues in cabinet positions, in charge of agencies and on the Federal Courts. They’ll pass their massive tax-cuts for the top 1% without even fucking blinking, and they’ll come after Social Security, Medicare and any good and decent progressive program of the last century and a half.
And when the shit hits the fan, they’ll use their media blowhards to blame the fucking hippies, liberals, gays and minorities.
They are going to do something that we would never dream of. They are going to deliberately, and with malice and forethought, exact retribution against their enemies (us), wherever and whenever they can.
They believe in bipartisanship. They will reach across the Atlantic Ocean to grasp the hand of Vladimir Putin to defeat and harm their true enemy (us). Just don’t expect them to “reach across” the aisles of Congress.
Please Dems, for the love of God, remember this the next time we are in power.
NO MORE HALF MEASURES!!!
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