my old man was a yellow dog democrat. while that nomenclature didn't make it into his obit, it was applied in the news story marking his death. what's a "yellow dog democrat," you might be asking yourself? "he'd vote for a yellow dog before he'd vote for a republican"(i still say, FUCK YES!!!) is the answer. that's how i was raised.
i remember the morning after kennedy won, bobo driving some odd political "ice cream truck"-like bus through the streets of p'cola & me, all of five years old screaming into the microphone: "move over mamie, jackie's moving in." mamie eisenhower was the sitting first lady. she would be moving out. something extraordinary, i was told as a five year old, would be moving in. we know how that ended.
other than my brother chip getting wounded in vietnam, nothing was more wrenching for the jones family than watching the '68 democratic convention on tv. the turnaround from '64 was quick & drastic & the torque split the country in half. that new civil war, the one that divided families, friends, & political parties has been w/us right up until the country came to its senses & elected barack obama in 2008. it's been used & manipulated by cynics to put their guys in place but it's spun the country into an odd inertia. the world has been settling into its new circumstances in the 21st century. over the last 8years, america has been kicking & screaming as it's been drug there too.
prior to this election, we've been teased several times w/reconciliation, w/democratic candidates that seemed to embody everything the nation needed to heal itself(tho i'll take this moment to point out that NO republican candidate has EVER been perceived as true agents of change((except in retrospect)). they have always embodied a certain set of ideological principals that were more divisive than healing).
we've had the historians tell us why & how carter failed. we're still hearing about bubba's failures(unlike kennedy, clinton didn't have the excuse of drug induced priapism nor was he similarly endowed---mid-century doctors believed the larger the organ, the greater the need). i remember feeling when both of them were elected that "change had come to america" & each & every time being schooled in how to fail in washington. carter was so naive he thought the presidency could just do what it wanted & promised(based on solid democratic principals), staffed w/washington outsiders who weren't acquainted w/washington protocol(& who insulted everyone & anyone along the way because they knew what was right). clinton, one of our sharpest presidential intellects, lost his political instincts in dc(getting a bj isn't what i'm talking about here. what democratic or republican representive hasn't gotten one of those?). i suppose arrogance doomed the clintons. & yeah, they were BOTH guilty of it.
neither of these guys, w/all their shakespearian flaws, were faced w/what obama is looking at today. in fact, none of our presidents since roosevelt have been faced w/what obama's looking at today.
seeing the infantile failed bush presidency ushered out today would have been a reason to raise a glass, a glass of the best, but knowing where we are & what's got to be done makes that impulse feel weak & delusional.
No comments:
Post a Comment