Tag Archives: Democratic Party

Coming Back to America

I originally thought of this as a quick post to social media, but then rethought that as it goes deeper than a post to Facebook and certainly much longer than Twitter can handle. This post concerns observations and thoughts that I had as I faced returning to the U.S. from having lived in Canada for almost 5 years.

We moved to a city in the Province of Ontario from Florida back in 2013 because of a job opportunity with the organization for whom my wife works. When we left, I was well aware of the racism and prejudices present in this country both from having children of a different race as well as having taught at the middle school and high school levels and having to attempt to teach students not only English, but also Holocaust/Tolerance education. I also saw it as the conservative media and politicians continued to attack President Obama’s every action. Yet, seeing it from the outside gave me a much darker look at what was going on in the U.S.

One way that I saw the dark clouds of paranoia and xenophobia was when I’d have to make trips back into this country for medical or other purposes. As the election of 2016 came closer, the officials at the U.S. border became increasingly more visibly armed and their questioning more increasingly and ominously paranoid. Whenever I would enter the U.S., the guard would ask questions that seemed odd. It started with asking me my license plate number (not something I’d memorized as I doubt many folks do). Then, it morphed into requests for me to remove my cap and glasses. Then, questions regarding my political views about the incoming administration and how I viewed living in Canada, if I liked it better than living in the States. I became thankful for my ability to hide my true feelings and even flat out lie after a few times of this. My tension would not cease until I returned to the safety of Canada and their border patrol’s benign questions concerning if I had any alcohol, tobacco, or firearms and where I lived in Canada and why which I deemed valid as it was their country and I was a guest in it.

The night of the election and for weeks afterward, I couldn’t sleep. I began to also overeat and simply not care about whatever happened to me because I knew that I’d be returning to a nation very much unlike the one I’d left. I cried a great deal. I tried to step up my efforts to find a way that we could remain in Canada. My wife tried to convince me that things would not be as bad as I thought they would be. But she didn’t watch the news nor pay attention to the rantings of the incoming administration. She felt that his party would hold him in check and that it would not be as bad as it appeared.

Once the current administration came into power, the guards at the border got worse, their open carrying of M-16s more apparent as did their now body armored uniforms. They became bolder in their questioning. Now, they would focus on my having a beard as they asked and re-asked the same questions to try to somehow catch me in a lie. At one border crossing, it became apparent that it was too isolated to be safe to cross back into the U.S. due to the behavior of the guards; so, I went out of my way to cross at a more populated one so there would be more witnesses to anything that could happen. Yes, I became fearful of returning to the country of my birth and citizenship, not because of doing anything wrong, but due to my fear of being seen as a threat because I did not agree with the policies of the new administration.

The news, as we watched both news from Canada and the U.S., seemed not to match. While we heard just the facts from the Canadian networks, the U.S. seemed more slanted. Some items occurring in the U.S. not mentioned in U.S. news broadcasts were mentioned in Canadian ones. Tougher border crossings for both U.S. citizens as well as Canadian citizens arose. It was like the U.S. intentionally did not want people coming in.

Once we moved back, it seemed like a cloud was descending over the States. More and more accounts of racism and prejudice. The rise of a more virulent and violent white supremacy. And the response from the current administration was everything from silence to stating there were “good people on both sides.” Under any other U.S. administration in my lifetime, Democrat or Republican, the actions of white supremacists would have been condemned. That was no longer the case. I’d lived in Florida when Trayvon Martin was murdered by a white man simply for walking down the street. Yet now, there were Black men and boys, such as Eric Gardner and Tamir Rice, being killed by police and getting away with it. There were people trying to escape violence and poverty now having their children placed in cages at the U.S.-Mexico border. There were people who were brought to this country by their parents years ago who were being threatened with deportation to countries they knew nothing about. The U.S. border officials started showing up at bus stations where I moved to try to deport people. Migrant farmers were being picked up and whisked away in an increasing manner. All of this and the administration not only condoning it, but ordering it and for no reason aside from prejudice and hate.

As I write this, a few days ago Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden named Senator Kamala Harris to be his running mate in the upcoming election. Almost immediately, the supporters of the current administration began to attack her based on the color of her skin and gender. They are putting out a conspiracy theory that she is not a U.S. citizen simply because her parents were immigrants. She was born in Oakland, California, and is a U.S. citizen regardless of whether her parents were or not. (They were, by the way). It’s the same tactic they tried to do to President Obama because his father was Black and his name was not a Western one.

There is no cause for this aside from hate and prejudice. In the coming months as we head toward the election, I know it will only get worse. It is my hope that the country can ignore the hatred and prejudice and come together in supporting the positive change that exists in the Biden/Harris ticket as well as in all the progressives that are running for office in this country. They need to be, indeed must be, elected in order for this nation to make it through this darkness and survive.

As President Lincoln once stated, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” This country is divided under this current administration. It will not stand if this continues. No, I am no naive enough to believe it will not take work to bring about change once the administration changes. Yet, I know that it is only with a massive change in the governing of this country that any movement forward can occur.

Dammit Democrats!

Dammit Democrats, you screwed up what should have been a landslide victory once again! What in the hell is wrong with you? Never mind, you don’t know what’s wrong unless you establish a committee to create a think tank to determine what’s wrong.

I figure after almost 49 years on this planet and having been registered and voting Democrat for the past 30 years, I’ll give you my insights as an outsider. Do I expect you to listen? No, but it’d be nice if you did.

First, you have got to stop being so damned nice all the time. I recall the first time I noticed that, as a whole, the party is too damned polite. It was during the election between Michael Dukakis and George Bush, Sr. While the GOP was throwing every bit of muck and garbage they could at our candidate, the party kept playing nice. Taking the high road when you should have gone after any weak spots you could find, and there were plenty. Then, when Gore ran and, once again, the party went flat. Same with Kerry. Yes, there is the hacking scandal to blame in part for the current mess, but there’s more to it than that. Which brings me to my next point.

Second, the Democratic Party used to be the party of the poor and middle class. We’re the party of FDR and JFK! Have we lost sight of being able to not only fight for the rights and welfare of the poor and middle class, but to also communicate with them? The folksy manner of George W. Bush and the populist rhetoric of the current president-elect should remind the party leadership that great ideas don’t mean a thing if you cannot communicate them to folks that may only have a high school education or less. FDR, while being a wealthy man, was able to do this through his demeanor and weekly fireside chats. He used larger words with caution and relatively sparingly. Yet, words are just a part of the issue.

The GOP has campaign offices set up all over the United States all year long and even in non-campaign years. They are visible in almost every small town from coast to coast. Our party shows up around campaign time, then goes away after the election. When the average person can walk past a GOP headquarters 24/7, 365 days a year, but only see a Democratic office during a campaign cycle, what message does that send? It send the message that we are around for you to elect, but no other time. That’s egregious! Set up offices like the GOP does. Be active in communities. Support and raise up candidates who are viable and active members of their communities and not just names. I know when I tried to run for a state legislative seat where I lived in Florida, the local Democratic party seemed resigned to defeat because the incumbent was one who held the office for quite a few years. They wanted people to go door-to-door with petitions for other offices, but didn’t see how a high school English teacher could be a viable candidate. I wasn’t a name. I wasn’t wealthy, so why help? How many other contenders are there who are staunch Democrats who are working class people who don’t receive support from the party that he or she should to even have a chance at contesting a seat? I think there are more than the party leadership thinks.

Third, and this goes along with the second, get out there and talk to people. I think pollsters are relied on far too much and the people far too little. If we are the party of the people, then we need to know what the people think. What affects their lives. What will help them live a good life, send their kids off to higher education or a good job? The things that truly matter to most rank and file voters.

Fourth, celebrate our diversity as a party. We are not a party of one race or one socioeconomic class. We need to communicate that better. We’ve had the greatest opportunity these last 8 years with President Obama in office to show off our diversity. He did many things to help, from the Affordable Care Act to seeing that marriage equality became the law of the land. We didn’t capitalize on that enough, plus we didn’t combat the negative rhetoric about those items enough. We allowed the GOP to incite fear over both of those items far too much. We could have shown how both would help all Americans, again by going to the local level where there were people who saw these things as either government intrusion or as being somehow against our values as a nation.

Fifth, we need to go back and find our roots as a party of the people. There are new generations who don’t recall the victories of our party that helped all Americans. They don’t realize that fair wages, good working hours, vacation/sick time, and other social net programs were due to the efforts of our party in particular. We witnessed a resurgence in our values and roots in the campaign of Bernie Sanders. He, while historically an independent who sided with Democrats on most issues, excited the younger voters. He didn’t do this through his name or by being the preferred candidate of the party, but through listening to what was needed in our country. He reached out at the grassroots level, much like President Obama did, to listen and act for the people as a whole. Hillary had the experience, but Bernie had both the experience and the passion. What’s more, he excited the passion in the largest voting block in our country. (For the record, I supported both candidates in the primaries and supported Hillary once the primaries were over). Hillary tried to excite the voters, but that’s not her style. There’s nothing wrong with her style, but given the opponent was well-known for his loudmouth and willingness to do whatever it took to be elected, her strengths became weaknesses in the eyes of some voters. Besides, the GOP had enough alleged muck on her to sabotage her efforts. We played into their hands, in effect. (This goes back to my first two points).

Finally, the Democratic Party needs to stop being so damned centrist on every issue. We need to embrace our progressive side on some things and our more conservative on others. Instead, we sit on the fence too damned much. There’s nothing wrong with being able to take a conservative position on one issue while taking a progressive tack on another. We can be fiscally responsible, but still find ways to pay for social programs, for instance. We can fix our infrastructure by putting people to work, for instance, though work-fare programs where people who are able to work are trained to do so and given a job to receive their check. Yet, we can also care for those who truly cannot work as well.

We have a lot of work to do to win back both the Congress and the White House, assuming the incoming administration doesn’t sell us out to the Kremlin and set our country back hundreds of years or creates a Fourth Reich out of our country.