Keeping It Lit

I won’t go into too much detail about the likelihood that the Dems will lose at least the House in this election cycle. Knowing how much money that Newt, Karl and their cronies are planning to drop on media advertising between today and Election Day, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit. And we can grouse about how un-progressive many of the Dem lawmakers are until we’re blue in the face - it’s their lack of progressiveness that will be their likely undoing, though I wouldn’t expect them to gather that as the lesson here, knowing how money flows in DC.

I predict that the next step, after Tan Man Boner takes the Speaker’s gavel, is several months of left-bashing by the Democratic leadership. This will not be the usual hippie-punching, either - expect an MMA-caliber pummeling, and a further marginalization of the Left.

Then the promised investigative witch hunts and subpoenas, with more gates opening up than in a horse race, and Uncle Rupert’s media empire only too willing to do the Boner’s bidding, along with the blogosphere.

It doesn’t look good. It’s easy to get discouraged, and tempted to stay within the comfortable confines of the couch, especially when the flat screen at the other end of the room is displaying and conveying gloom and doom for the Dems. And let’s face it - this is what happens when the progressives in this country put so much of their hope in who is essentially a centrist - we were bound to be disappointed, and I remember having this impression on Election Night 2008. Our expectations were perhaps higher than they should have been.

That being said, all I ask is - on Election Day, get out and vote. If it works better for you, vote absentee, and get the ballot in the mail in time for Election Day.

Mike Malloy’s closing tag line speaks to one of the reasons for the existence of this blog. Regardless of what happens this Election Day, how the Dems handle it afterward if what is predicted comes to pass, or whatever else, progressive voices and the progressive world view need to be cultivated and kept alive, like a lighthouse in the fog. We’re not nearly as well-funded, and we don’t have the same access to the media machine that the right-wing and pro-corporate types do. For most of us, it’s a task with negligible reward - trudging up the steps of the lighthouse in the dark and the fog, cleaning the windows and maintaining the lamp. But I’ll gladly do my small part of it - it’s what I believe in.