After a loss like this in the presidential election there's obviously going to be a lot of soul searching and blaming that goes around. It's only natural.
But what we can't do is get all wobbly on what it is that we stand for.
The American people didn't reject progressivism or its values.
This election was not about any policy idea, whether it be economic, social, foreign or otherwise.
If it was then some of these white working class voters would never have voted for a man bereft of knowledge, ideas, the willingness to learn or how to even form basic sentences.
Progressives do not need any soul searching on how "we" need to be nice to alt right voters and reach out to them so that we attract them into our tent.
That's a fool's errand.
We don't have to find a new way to reach racist, sexist, xenophobic people that reject any form of intellectual honesty.
It's impossible.
Refuting endless war, raising the minimum wage, equal economic distribution to all of Americans, strengthening our social safety nets and rejecting any form of privatization of those forementioned are sound ideals.
It's like the media deciding to play both-siderism because they didn't want to be criticized for being biased.
No matter how the media covered this election, they would always be attacked for being liberal partisans, out to get conservatives.
Backlash politics is what they live and breathe.
Why bother?
The media should be focused on doing their jobs as best as they can and leave the rest to others.
We care about all of us as much as we care about the least of us, regardless of race, color or creed.
We care about equal opportunity.
We care about the poor having health insurance, as much as we care that all Americans should have affordable healthcare.
We care about strengthening and expanding Social Security.
We care about making education affordable for everyone.
We care that there's unemployment insurance in place just in case a person loses their job.
We care that Medicare is funded and works as best as it can.
We care that women should be the arbiters of their own bodies.
We care that gays and straights and everyone in between are treated equally.
We care about electing progressive politicians.
We care about helping refugee children of foreign wars and won't cower from the fear mongers.
We care that our troops get the benefits and leadership they deserve and are not sent on missions to settle grudges and kill innocent civilians.
We care about the security of our country, but not having an armed police force with authoritarian leadership.
We care that we don't to spend billions of dollars on nuclear weapons and battle ships just to look like we're tough. We have enough weaponry and the military right now to destroy the world tenfold and no other country can come close to us on the front.
We care about our privacy rights and civil liberties.
We believe in getting big money out of politics.
We care about racial justice.
We care about criminal justice.
We care about climate change and the environment.
We care about freedom of religion or no religion at all.
We care about supporting our unions because they support the working class.
But what we can't do is decide on a conciliatory approach.
That is the path to our quickest destruction.
Liberals, get wobbly at your own peril.
(I'm sure I missed a few in this article so add to the list. This is a rant, so to speak.)
