Building a Majority
In her said-to-be-last essay at Democratic Underground before taking a hiatus, The Fat Lady Sings, the Plaid Adder says:
I have never been part of the majority. I don't really know how you go about building one.
I claim here to know the answer:
strong leadership.
The rest is discussion about just what I might mean by that, and I doubt very much that I can think of it all and then write it down within the confines of this entry. First, my election analysis.
For all the talk about "moral values" being the determiner of the election, it's rubbish. Even if it is true that Bush actually won by some number, X, of votes, it can no more be said which X were the surplus of winning votes and why they were cast than it can be said which truss holds up a bridge, but take away enough of them and the bridge collapses.
Besides, it makes a good smoke and mirrors game to suggest that "moral values" are finally back in style (whose "moral values", one might ask, but everyone knows "moral values" when they see them, even if they don't see the same "moral values" until it's too late). It gives politicians something to wave their arms and shout about, as though they were auditioning for an episode of the Jerry Springer show; besides, it helps to distract the electorate from their own self-serving corruption.
I'm not happy with the current round of self-hating gay guilt trips either, politicians and "gay leaders" wringing their hands and anxious to feel guilty about the election results, proclaiming their culpability in the loss because "we" pushed too hard, too soon for marriage equality.
They need to get over it. There was no "we", there were historic situations and events that one could pursue in a positive way or miss a chance that might never return. There was no centralized gay marriage effort this past year, and that's all for the good I say.
The struggle for gay equality is geurilla combat; a centralized leadership of faint-hearted, hand-wringing, well-behaved and soft-spoken homos won't get anyone anywhere. Do they honestly believe that good things come to those who sit meekly and wait, that–as some people seriously claim–black people would have made civil-rights progress faster if they'd behaved themselves better and quietly asked for equality rather than demand it? Never has worked that way, never will work that way. Backlash is the inevitable reactionary response to progress, but the progress only comes more slowly if one crawls rather than strides towards it.
This election was determined by a strategic course of many events that all added up to more votes (presumably, but not without doubt) for the winning guy. In the end, despite hope and desire and hard work, Kerry ended up being too weak a candidate to build a majority.
It was for the reason that we've always known but nearly always fail to recognize because it takes fortitude and conviction. Namely, leadership takes fortitude and convinction.
To build a majority takes leadership, and leadership means taking chances with unwavering fortitude and conviction to set out to do the right things for our country. It does not mean more polling, it does not mean more pandering to some pesumptive "base", and it does not mean desperately trying to grab the "center" away from all the other panderers trying to claw their way to the "center".
Recognizing the right path, the one that includes enfranchising as many citizens as possible, the one that recognizes the rights of all citizens, the one that celebrates the diversity of the American people, and then setting out on that path with clear vision and a strong sense of direction — that is the action that the majority will recognize as leadership, and they will gratefully head down that same path with the leader who recognizes these authentic moral values, embraces them, and acts on them.