An “open letter to Democrats from a disillusioned young voter” is circulating on the Internet, where the author tells us to “get populist or get ready to lose bad.”
Oh my, he sounds just like the Tea Party talking to Republicans. Because of Carl Gibson, who penned his post on Reader Supported News,?and other millennials, we lost badly.
We wanted to leave younger people a better country, cleaner air, to make the younger generation less beholden to corporatism, to keep their water clean, to allow them to marry the person they love. To stop the extraordinary burden of student debt.
We fought, but Carl and others sat home, or as he writes, “We just didn’t vote for Democrats who haven’t done anything for us since we voted for them in 2012, and who brazenly took our votes for granted this year.”
Behold the idiocy:
Contrast the unified Republican message with the profound silence from you Democrats on addressing the trillion-dollar student debt crisis, rampant inequality and underemployment, and your collective fear of openly embracing economic populism, and you cook up what we saw on Tuesday night. Older people showed up, highly motivated to elect war hawks. Younger people mostly stayed home, disillusioned with the only alternative on the ballot who didn’t even talk about the issues affecting our lives every day.
So, in young Carl’s line of thinking, staying home will really show us older people a thing or two. Well Carl, you hurt yourself. Now, student debt will be more difficult to address. War hawks are in power.
I’m so fucking sorry that you feel “disillusioned” enough to stick it to this country. By the way, if you don’t vote, you lose your right to complain. If you want to be treated like the adult in the room, suck it up and fight the good fight. I’d rather you stay home on voting day than to try to extort the very people that fought for what you believe in.
Carl, you sound exactly like the Iowa hog castrator who ran on a platform of making “Washington Squeal.”
“Disillusioned” Carl continues:
Even though the Republicans have made it clear they won’t raise the minimum wage, legalize marijuana, or address climate change as long as they’re in power, they at least have a unified message that appeals to enough people who share their values. They can also communicate that message in a confident way. The Republican platform comes in easy-to-remember, tweet-sized sentences. We all know their buzzwords ? ?national security,? ?family values,? ?free markets.? That may translate to endless war, homophobia, and corporate feudalism for the better-informed, but for most people, those are catch phrases they can get behind.
You Democrats, on the other hand, looked pitiful in the year leading up to the midterms. You didn’t seem to stand for anything in particular, you just pointed the finger at the other guy, told us they were bad, and that you weren’t like them. That’s not enough. Take a risk, be bold. Get behind Elizabeth Warren’s 0.75 percent interest rate for student loans. Allow student debt to be abolished with bankruptcy. Push for single-payer healthcare, or at the very least a public health insurance option. Need some catchy buzzwords? Try ?affordable education,? ?good jobs,? and ?healthy families.?
We are behind Elizabeth Warren. We’d love a single payer health care system but in case you didn’t notice there were huge obstacles in the way. We call them Republicans.
There are a lot of Democrats who fought tooth and nail for some of the very issues Carl listed, and by not voting, the millennials handed us the likes of Joni Ernst and now we’ll have to endure her cackling for years.
Where were you, Carl? Democrats volunteered and worked day and night in order to highlight the very problems you want addressed, then you sat home by your computer and whined.
Selfishly, Carl concluded:
President Obama hit the nail on the head ? we won’t show up and vote for you if you aren’t offering us anything real. If Democrats want to stay relevant, they’ll have to learn to stop taking us for granted and actually make an effort to get our votes. Simply banking on being the lesser evil and having that be enough won’t cut it any longer.
Carl’s entitled, self-serving, narcissistic demeanor lost us the midterms. It’s not all about you. It’s about all of us. If we don’t get what we want – such as single payer – we fight to keep Obamacare from being ripped apart.
In short Carl, shut the fuck up. This ain’t no tea party. Proud liberals and democrats voted who want change, so they refused to sit home on election day. We’ll continue fighting while you whine about your issues, meanwhile, watch how fast Republicans push for war, cuts to Veterans benefits, repealing Obamacare, ripping Social Security to shreds, ?climate change denial, obstructing medical marijuana, ceasing the right for two gay people to live their lives together, and so many other relevant issues.
You own that, Carl. It’s all yours. If you wanted a different kind of politician, you should have gotten behind one. But you sat home. We fought for ?your generation while you sat in the corner in a fetal position sucking your thumb.
Meanwhile, Tea Party politicians who want to rule this country according to Biblical law are emboldened. To the young people who did vote, thank you for standing up for what’s right, instead of encouraging the Tea Party.
Love,
A 56-year-old proud liberal who exercises her privilege to vote with impunity.
PS: Don’t worry. We’ll still have your back, but it’s because we care. It’s not because you tried to blackmail us.
