This is crossposted at dailykos and MLW
It’s been a long week for most of us. The Alito confirmation hearings were exhausting and telling. It says a lot that the spat between Specter and Kennedy, that the crying jag of Martha Alito, were what made the headlines, it speaks not just to our media but also to the job the Democratic senators did or rather did not do.
When we hear on the Sunday talk shows that half of the senators didn’t know what `unitary executive power’ was it’s like a slap in the face. When executive powers became as hot a button issues as abortion has been since Alito was nominated, I felt a rush of hope. If the Democratic and Republican senators didn’t have what it takes to protect a woman’s right to choose surely they would care about the place Congress has in governing this great nation of ours.
For those that think many of us are having a knee jerk reaction to the Alito hearings, for those of you who think we’ll get over ourselves, for those of you who think we haven’t thought this through, I’d like to offer evidence that that is simply not true.
At least for me, even thinking of leaving this party has left me crestfallen for months. It’s not something I take lightly. It’s finally realizing that at some point it’s no longer about short term results, it’s about what we leave to our children and their children.
There is no miracle fix, there is no magic bullet, there is a time when time is up, there’s a time when what comes next has to be looked at because none of it happens overnight. A political party doesn’t dissolve overnight and the answer to a party that has left us behind isn’t built overnight. When I look into the eyes of my grandsons I see the hope that is America. When I look into their hearts I see a longing and I see dreams of what they aspire to. When I hear what their souls say to me it is of an America they were born knowing, an America that speaks of justice, liberty and of freedom. When I look into those eyes I know it is their future that matters most, that I am on the other side of looking out at the world, I am on the side that is looking in at their world that is to be. I cannot entrust that world to the Democratic Party any longer.
The following is a comment I made on a diary written by Eugene after Harriet Miers was nominated to the Supreme Court. It was written on October 4th. Since the lost election of 2004 I’ve thought a lot about my history with the Democratic Party. What it has meant to me, what a touchstone it has been for me for four decades. What a savior it became for me in 1966 when I was a pregnant teen in high school without a choice. This party was my best hope, it was the best hope for women, it made me so proud to say, “I’m a Democrat” even though I would have to wait until 1972 to vote in a presidential election. Not being of age didn’t stop me from joining Democratic clubs, didn’t stop me from becoming a feminist who protested the war and fought for Roe v. Wade and for the ERA. I was a seasoned Democrat before I ever entered my first mark on a ballot.
‘A tip of the hat and a so long to what once was’
I wrote this comment, sorry for the length, in response to Eugene’s diary late last night. All of this has been brewing inside my head and, most especially, in my heart. It came into sharper focus after watching the non-leadership Democratic Party decide they needed to come out and show their mugs on camera saying Harriet Miers is a ‘nice lady.’ With leadership like that we really don’t need a Republican Party.
I’ve said it ad nauseum I know but after 40 years of being a Democrat it’s really hard and heartbreaking to even imagine quitting this party. It’s hard to even type it through the tears. Through all the ups and downs we, as Democrats, have been through during those decades we’ve always soldiered on because we had our principles to hold onto, we still had that deep down inner knowing that we stood for the truth of who we are as Americans. That truth is only in sight for me when I’m on threads like this one in response to diaries like this where the true liberals congregate.
For 35 years I truly believed I was fighting for equality for women, I was fighting for abortion rights, I was fighting against the death penalty, I was fighting for voters rights, I was fighting for better schools for the generation I was born into and the generation that were our children. For the past 5 years I started to question if that was so. I didn’t let go of the dream though, I still thought it was a possibility I would see myself as an equal. I still had such high hopes I would see an amendment in my Constitution that told me women have equality at long last. I still envisioned a day when I would stand up with such pride because we had finally won, we would have those chills that come when you have fought so hard for so long and finally prevailed. I thought there would be dancing in the streets with trumpets blaring as we danced and sang knowing they could never take it away, the feeling when you know, inside your very soul, that you are equal to all men.
What I know now, after November, 2004 is that it won’t be so. I will die without knowing what it’s like to be an equal, not because I have an illness but because I don’t have a party that supports me. I don’t have a party that protects me. I don’t have a party that will stand up for me. I don’t have a party that believes in the ERA enough to fight for the basic rights women should have had 250 years ago. I don’t have a party that, even when they were the majority, saw fit to vote in the affirmative to send the ERA out to the states. When asked, “should women be equal?” I have a party that said no, they cannot.
This is what I know now. I know that the fight we fight today and tomorrow will be for the generation of Maryscotts, Eugenes, and Sassy Texans and for your children. That what we choose to do today you will see in your lifetimes. That your children and their children will know equality because you will keep fighting until they do. I know that the party we create is not for my generation or even for yours but it is the party that your children and their children will prosper in.
This all started for me when Reid became minority leader, when Pelosi said Tim Roemer should be chair of the DNC, when Schumer said Casey was ‘the candidate’, when Kos couldn’t let go of Langevin, when Hillary stood beside Democrats for Life. It takes time to let go, it takes walking away with babysteps, it takes picking the pieces of your heart up as you go, it takes wiping a million tears away, it takes remembering the pride you felt just saying the word, Democrat and accepting that pride is a thing of the past, it takes believing there is something else, something better, something brighter, something healthier, something more vital and robust. It takes knowing we are worth so much more, we are worth everything, we are the best there is, in our hearts and in our souls there lives majesty and goodness.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m very close to my swansong. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t take the heartache. Forty years is enough, they’ve had my very best years so far and I’ve had the best of their years but it’s over. I’ve loved being a Democrat more than I can say. I wish all the Reids and the Schumers and the Leahys and the Clintons and the Pelosis and the Obamas knew how much this hurts. I wish they could appreciate what it costs us to hang on, I wish they had an inkling how hard it is to leave.
Count me in on what comes next. The next new thing, whether it’s a party or the next best thing in the progressive movement. Eugene has some excellent ideas. Just give me a minute to wash my face, put on a dash of lipstick and a tip of my hat to the past.
For me, it isn’t just the leadership in the Democratic Party, it’s also what the party itself has become. I’m not sure what came first, the chicken or the egg, but the two elements in this instance are the leadership and the members of the party. Whichever came first, the party started to shift to the right and I don’t think it’s going to go back to what was once known as the center. Because it’s not just the leadership, it feels to me like I’ve stayed too long at the fair. It’s no longer a fit, I’ve outgrown it or perhaps it has outgrown me but when I let the sadness rest I can see clearly that I no longer belong.
At first I did think that it might be my age but I really don’t think that is it. For months on Kos there has been fighting that is vicious. That is not to say we didn’t fight before in this party, of course we did but there were some things that were tried and true. A healthy respect was one of those things. Another one is that once women had rights those rights were respected. It’s not that we didn’t have to prod the members to remember us, we did, but the foundation of the party made a place for us, be it smaller and quieter, there was still a place at the table.
Granted, it was a time of Feminism come to life once again and we weren’t shy about saying our piece. Issues like sex discrimination, sexual harassment, equal pay were all issues that came out of the closet so to speak. We fought mightily, we were called names, we were put in our place often but with steely determination we got our leadership to listen. That isn’t happening any longer, it’s as if they gave us a voice for awhile and now they want that voice muted. Women’s issues clearly scare them. Abortion, reproductive rights, Title IX, equal pay, violence against women are all issues that threaten elections somehow. It’s ridiculous and it’s true, this party is running scared away from the very word abortion, they don’t want to talk about a medical procedure that women deserve to have access to. They don’t want to talk about our reproductive rights because then they might have to utter the word, abortion. They don’t want to protect us period. How often is Title IX or the Violence Against Women Act in the headlines? Never because our leadership and many in this party don’t want to touch us with a 10 foot pole.
That attitude permeates the leadership and the members. I’m only willing to expend energy fighting one or the other, not both. We will be fighting the Republican Party for many, many years so clearly that’s where I think our best work should go. Maybe others are better at fighting the center and the right of the Democratic Party, it’s clearly not my strong suit. At the end of the day I’m not sure what has done me in more, the leadership, the center, or the right of either or both of the parties. The telling thing is that I can’t differentiate, I don’t have an answer. I think that’s a statement in itself.
Before, during and after the pie fights on Kos and then after the election in 2004 all of this has been made very clear. We’re a fractured party and I don’t think it will be different for a very long time. To stay political, which is in my blood, I have to make a choice and that choice to me is to align myself with people who believe as I believe. United we stand is absolutely true and I don’t believe the Democratic Party with us in it can accomplish that. Just as Kos has suffered greatly from the exodus of strong women’s voices the Democrats will suffer when a proportionate number of us, liberal men and women, leave but they won’t know what the cost will be unless and until we do. I truly believe that. It’s not out of revenge or bitterness that I say that, it’s because we want more, we want different things, we have different values and principles. It doesn’t make them wrong but it does make us right because then, and only then, can we stop doing what we scream and yell at them for doing, we will stop compromising.
Now Alito stands before us as a threat to the country we have known and the country we have all loved. There is no disagreement in what direction this country will likely take if he is confirmed. There is disagreement on what actions should follow. There is disagreement on who will stay and who will leave this party. I’m sure all will agree, no matter where we are in this debate, we are all filled with fear.
I wrote the following letter in response to Senator Feingold’s request for our views on the prospect of Alito as a Justice on the Supreme Court. I have since emailed it to all of our senators on the Judiciary Committee because what they decide affects not just their constituents, it affects every generation of Americans living now and those who will be born in the not too distant future.
‘Alito is extraordinary, you must filibuster, our fate is in your hands.’
As a lifelong Democrat I’ve had ups and downs with this party. Every time my party compromises any of my rights as a woman to have an abortion under Roe v. Wade, I am livid. Every presidential election cycle that comes and goes without women’s issues being a top priority, I am incensed. Every year that goes by without the passage of the ERA I say to myself, through clenched teeth, “maybe next year.”
I always brush myself off and pick up the mantle of the Democratic Party because I’ve been a member of this party for almost 40 years. 40 years of support, 40 years of phonebanking, walking precincts, hosting coffees in my home, fundraising, GOTV, the list goes on and on.
I’m loyal to this party but I’m having an increasingly hard time believing this party is loyal and/or committed to me. I am beyond angry or livid or incensed today though. I’m frightened by where the Republican Congress and administration are taking us and I’m scared that the only thing that stands between Americans and the evil and corrupt government we have under the Republican leadership is the party I’ve believed in for almost four decades.
It isn’t always about losing in and of itself, it is often in the way we lost that counts. Alito’s beliefs on where this country should go is a snapshot for every other Republican in roles of leadership. It’s abortion rights, unitary executive status, the environment, worker’s rights, civil rights, the rights of the hungry and unsheltered, women’s reproductive rights, equal pay, Medicare and so much more.
I’ve drawn my line in the sand Senator. That line is what you do as a congressional body to stop the confirmation of Alito. We will most likely lose but what I know for sure is this; if the Democratic senators can’t make me feel safe in my home from my government essentially spying on me with wiretaps and surveillance, then you surely can’t make me feel safe from terrorists. If the Democratic senators can’t address violence against women overall but also against Alito’s view that women should notify their husbands about terminating their pregnancies, then you cannot protect me from terrorists. If you can’t protect our children from law enforcement that will shoot them in the back because they may have stolen $10., then you can’t shield us from the terror that lurks from fundamentalist extremists outside of the court that calls itself Supreme. If the Democratic senators cannot stop the strip searches of our ten-year-old daughters without a court order, then you can’t even begin to tell us we’re safe from those who wish us harm.
Samuel Alito will set back the advances we have made in the lives of women for decades to come. He will stifle our children’s rights to an education that will surely speak to the quality of their lives and their children’s lives. Samuel Alito will have a say in the air they breathe, in the water they drink and in the availability of national parks we have come to take for granted.
Samuel Alito will be the defining moment for many of us, for the bloc of women voters this party has come to rely on, it will spell the future for us in many ways. You have a say in what that future will be for us and for you as leaders of our party. I will stay home for the first time since 1972 if you don’t stand up for me. I have placed my vote for the D candidate for 34 years. I have proudly done so, it will break my heart not to ever again, but stay home I will unless you give me reason not to.
That history for me will come to an end if my party refuses to protect my rights and the rights of my daughter and her daughter. I will stay home before I vote for one more Democrat if you fail to listen this time.
It’s no less than women’s lives that are at stake here. There has never been as compelling a reason in the 30+ years I’ve voted as there is now. Don’t take lightly when I say it’s women’s lives. I was a pregnant teen in high school in 1966 without a choice. One Monday morning the news of Charlotte’s death rang through the halls of my high school, she bled to death after she tried to self abort. A boy named Bobby brutally beat his girlfriend until he was sure she had lost the baby she was carrying. There were abortion wards in those years, all the girls my age knew of them, those wards were our choice.
If you send us back to that world we will not forget for a very long time. When our daughters, sisters, granddaughters and nieces ask us why we lost Roe v. Wade we will tell them we fought hard to protect our rights of choice but we had a party that didn’t think it was `extraordinary’ enough to do so. I hope you do what’s right, what’s right for us and what’s right for you, so we never have to have that conversation.
Make no mistake, we are deadly serious.
Sincerely,
XXX
I was watching the figure skaters who will go to the Olympics this year and those who fell just short of their dreams. The ice dancing team of Tanitha Belbin and Benjamin Agosto skated to Born in The USA, An American Woman and America the Beautiful. They did so as she carried an American flag across the ice. It was a breathtaking moment for those who know their story. Tanitha is a Canadian who, with her partner, Benjamin, have won the silver medal at the World’s Championship. This is their third straight U.S. Championship gold medal. For a country who savors those who win and banishes those who don’t, their struggles to gain citizenship for Belbin has been like a metaphor for ice dancing. It doesn’t stop there however. The reigning U.S. silver medalists, Melissa Gregory and Russian native, Denis Petukhov will be going to the Olympics for the first time as representatives for the U.S. He won his citizenship in February. They placed second. The couple who placed fourth, and out of contention, in this year’s U.S. Championship, Morgan Matthews and Maxim Zavozin, would have also been in the Olympics as he was sworn in as a U.S. citizen on December 30th.
This reminds us all who and what we are. We are a country of immigrants, a people who longed for and dreamed of a better life, a republic built on the principles of a democracy. As Tanitha and Benjamin spun and glided their way into our hearts, they held our flag up as a symbol to us and to the world, we are America, sometimes we skate on the thinnest of blades but we persevere because we live in the land of the free. We know it, our hope is our leaders will find their skating legs and glide with us into a future where we are free from the powers that be.