A sleeping giant has been awakened

[demhottie]

I believe that until this election, many African Americans and people of all races had a view of the United States as being in a very different place in terms of Civil Rights.

BUT three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine hours in line gives you a long time to reflect and consider the forces at work trying to break your spirit and deny you the right to vote.

The voter suppression attempts will backfire and galvanize People of all races to fight for justice. The Republican Party just redefined itself as unabashedly racist and representing values contrary to the American spirit.

The Republican Party will NEVER recover from this, but this country will move forward. I hear pundits talk about the need to adjust "messaging" within the Republican Party, but it is so much deeper than that.

I believe that they will not be able to talk about freedom, love of democracy and of country without people seeing those lines of voters and how the Republican Party fought so hard AGAINST American values.

I also think it is a disgrace that no one from that party spoke out against these practices and I am disgusted that Romney was aware of them and so confident in the suppression efforts that he didn't even consider the need for a concession speech.

The rest of the world is watching and our push for democracy in other countries will seem hollow as it is, but would have been an outright affront under a Romney presidency.

The repugs finally kicked the dormant American progressive out of our slumber. We're up now and wide awake.

[Jack Sprat]

1. Hear Hear. Well stated.

I'm fired up after reading that.

[CincyDem]

2. This generation's silent majority is silent no more. n/t

[marions ghost]

3. well said

yeah that disenfranchisement "strategy" backfired BIG

Many have had their eyes opened THIS election!

[We People]

62. I agree. A big deal should be made of this and we should never forget it.

Never.

Ever.

[marions ghost]

70. it IS a big deal !

patriot:

Gotta fix this...

[southernyankeebelle]

4. I was so proud of the americans who stayed in line and waited to vote. They are the heroes.

[demhottie]

6. I am too

And so grateful for their faith that good triumphs in the end.

[loudsue]

31. Well stated. They are definitely the heroes in this election.

In fact, someone needs to point this out to Ed & Rachel, in hopes that they will recognize these heroes.

[Merlot]

61. Rachel has been following this - she did a great story

right before the election. Ended the piece with "this is not how democracy is supposed to work."

It's very good, go to MSNBC and watch the last segment of her show on either the friday or sunday before the election.

She gets it, and tells it.

[loudsue]

72. Thanks! I'll go look now!

I should have known she'd be on top of it.

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

38. Me too. So defiant!!!

The messages sent out on Twitter to people that had not voted yet with the hashtag #StayInLine was REMARKABLE!

[patrice]

5. And it is a great African American teacher who directed our awareness to the Beloved Community...

my personal vision of the USA and one that I'm pretty certain is shared by countless others.

[We People]

60. You're the 2nd DUer I've seen use that phrase today

The vision of "The Beloved Community" should be better known in the wider Democratic party. It also includes the concept of The Common Good, something that is almost foreign to our society today.

So also should the other words of Martin Luther King, Jr. become more familiar within our culture.

Thanks!

[patrice]

66. I learned it from Quakers who use Dr. King's teachings frequently. Our local 99% Movement also is

deeply involved in teaching about and acting upon Civil Rights here in Kansas City.

Dr. King's turn of phrase really works for me, because it speaks of the reality of our heart connections to all humans if we have the courage to love. Those connections are denied by so very much in our social and cultural environments; it's a good thing to remind people those denials are false, in error, wrong and the Beloved Community is very real. It's something I like to think about, because just doing that feels good.

You remind me, though, that it's been a few years since I read original sources from MLK on this topic, something to add to my to do list.

[cherish44]

7. "The times they are a-changin'" nt

[Tumbulu]

8. I do think you are correct and I do hope that

in two years time it awakens again and we are able to give our President the blue House that we all deserve!

[wake.up.america]

9. Should be required reading - nicely stated.

I have nothing against rich, older white guys, but a party, which focuses on these guys is bound to be in trouble. De acuerdo?

[ProudProgressiveNow]

10. K&R nt

[Zorra]

11. "The Republican Party will NEVER recover from this,"

The Republican Party will NEVER recover from this,
The Republican Party will NEVER recover from this,
The Republican Party will NEVER recover from this,
The Republican Party will NEVER recover from this,
The Republican Party will NEVER recover from this,
The Republican Party will NEVER recover from this,
The Republican Party will NEVER recover from this,
The Republican Party will NEVER recover from this.

[aletier_v]

13. I believe the could recover, but they won't recover from 2014/2016

when they repeat the same mistakes.

[flamingdem]

17. The MSM was trying and failing to put a bandaid on today

Let's not let them ever get away with spreading lies for the Repukes in exchange for money again

[ProfessionalLeftist]

12. Voter suppression attempts DID backfire. n/t

[Lucinda]

14. Well said. KNR

[spiderpig]

15. You said it better than I ever could have.

Hey, Queen Ann - it's OUR time.

[flamingdem]

16. The lines were a bigger story than any other

A clear symbol of the desire to take away basic US citizen rights

[dchill]

18. K & R

[demhottie]

19. What does that mean please

[dchill]

22. It simply means kick and recommend.

(It's a compliment and a congratulation.)



Edit to add: kick means your post goes to the top of the list in the relevant sub-forum.

[demhottie]

24. Oh thanks!

[dchill]

25. No problem.

I believe I wondered the same thing about 8 years ago.

[TPaine7]

20. Very well put.

Last edited Thu Nov 8, 2012, 01:57 PM - Edit history (1)

And as you say, it's much deeper than the Republicans acknowledge. Talk about "messaging" is insulting—as if the same contempt expressed more eloquently would be acceptable.

Their feigned or real blindness means that they are not about to correct themselves.

[coalition_unwilling]

34. As much as I despise marketing and marketers, I think that here the concept of

'branding' trumps the concept of 'messaging'. IOW, Rape-publicans have been branded as the party of misogyny and racism and no amount of messaging can counteract that brand.

That it was an African American who succeeded in branding the Rape-publicans indelibly is a final historical irony and one I shall treasure for the remainder of my days.

[L0oniX]

44. The Dirty Seven Rape-publicans...

[femrap]

47. Do you have a link

to this picture of the 7 Rape-publicans. That's a keeper!

[L0oniX]

48. I don't have a link to a collection of the info concerning those involved but I do...

have the link to the pictures: 25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md51rxPfMG1qb5h0fo1_500.jpg

[femrap]

49. Great....that's all I wanted. Thx! nt

[awoke_in_2003]

55. "some girls, they rape so easy"...

Un-fucking-real.

[Quantess]

56. "some political careers, they end so quickly".

-Steven Colbert

[L0oniX]

58. ...and that's a good thing.

[L0oniX]

57. Yea ...makes you wonder where he is getting his info from ...his college frat days?

[oldhippydude]

59. finally i can make the observation

LOoniX bugs move in unison...

[awoke_in_2003]

65. Hell, probably last month. nt

[liberal_at_heart]

21. those who stood in line for hours and hours

should be commended for standing up for their and all of our right to vote. They helped protect something very precious to all of us.

[kentuck]

23. With women and the young voters, it is a powerful coalition.

If it can be maintained.

[Beartracks]

26. If you have to keep people from voting to win elections, your ideas suck.

Can't remember where I read that. It's a quote from somebody.

=====================

[rudycantfail]

27. Hopefully the Democratic Party leadership won't sing us a lullaby

like it did four years ago.

[Piazza Riforma]

28. We need to make sure that sleeping giant

doesn't pass back out before 2014 so there is a chance to reverse 2010.

[easychoice]

29. If they treat voters poorly

the voters vote for someone else.So, Republicans are committing political suicide by angering us.
I live in Washington,we vote by mail on paper ballots and it is working out fine.Once we stop the election drama at the federal level we can get the people in office that are actually working for the well being of our citizens,all of our citizens.
Honest, non-chaotic elections will go a long way toward reaching that end.To do that we need congress to change federal election laws and that won't happen until we take back the house in 2014.We need to start working on the House of Representatives today.

[still_one]

30. problem is because of redistricting it will be some time before we can regain the South

[csziggy]

42. If we want to fix redistircting we have to take state legislatures!

And hold control until after the 2020 Census is taken and used as the basis for the next redistricting.

[still_one]

46. Absolutely, not easy though

[Blanks]

32. This isn't the end of the republican party.

Hopefully they are weakened. The problem with the republicans is that they are the opposition party. They don't belong in control of congress. They are there to debate the growth of government, so that the government grows at a slow rate. They provide a function, that function does not work when they are in control.

They aren't gone because no other party has emerged. We need to regain control of the house and control both the white house and congress for about ten years and then it will be OK to have another republican president (as long as democrats control congress).

We would be even worse off without an opposition party. We need to push hard in 2014 to get control of the house so that we can get things going back in the right direction, but this is, by no stretch of the imagination, the end of the republican party.

[coalition_unwilling]

33. There's a fundamental paradox at work, in that the Rape-publicans typically succeed

when turnout is suppressed and the franchise limited. The greater the franchise and turnout, the less relevance as a party the Rape-publicans will have.

Logic says it should command no more than 10-15% of the electorate, with Dems and Dem Socialists battling it out for real power.

But that's in another 15-20 years.

[datasuspect]

35. the white (i mean right) wing has been hammering their racism

forever, having escalated it and gone beyond the pale since 2008.

that, and the open season on people with spanish surnames (there are A LOT of us) has struck a chord with many americans.

regardless of any media message, americans are fundamentally fair people.

the GOP message of hate has killed them and relegated the republicans to the dustbin of US political history.

[hifiguy]

36. For the last thirty-plus years the Repigs have been devolving.

During the Raygun years they subtly sowed fear, religious intolerance and racism.

The Newt era added fairly open hatred and the real beginnings of a genuinely paranoid mindset.

In the last 10-12 years they tripled down on fear, intolerance and openly embraced flat-out bigotry, morphing entirely into a party of theocratic, xenophobic lunatics that live in the Twilight World of Total Paranoia. They hate and fear everyone and everything that is not them.

This has all happened with the active backing of the 1%ers who have always been the real power in the Repig party. The moderates are gone - they have all been purged with Stalinesque efficiency, or have run into the night. There is no place for the Repigs to go. The paranoid bigots and the religulously insane will never, ever change. As they die off over the next couple of decades there simply won't be enough young people who take the bait. The Republican Party is in an irreversible death spiral. Which is a damned good thing. Perhaps a responsible center-right party can emerge from the smoldering wreckage.

[Springslips]

37. How do we keep the giant awake for midterms?

That's the question that can make all the difference. I hope that they thought about how those toxic leaders got into office while they were waiting in line.

[TRJuan]

39. Well said

but I won't be happy until they are forced to wait in five hour lines to vote while those of us they want to supress can go to the front of the line. Their time of controlling us is over and they need to recognize it.

[CakeGrrl]

40. I agree. America is getting further and further from the John Lewises of the 60's

and the depth and meaning of the Civil Rights struggles.

I think the "powers that be" would love nothing more than a collectively dumbed-down, reality-show-saturated electorate to manipulate, but the GOP in their hubris is taking it too far. And that's a very good wake-up call.

[Oubaas]

41. I Can't Wait!

I'm already longing for 2014 so we can work on cleaning up the House of Representatives.

The Republicans will conclude, after lots of inner turmoil, that their message and goals are not odious enough to offend everyone and develop an even nastier approach to formulating their own extinction.

[nolabear]

43. Pleased to be part of the alarm clock. Good Morning America!

[brentspeak]

45. Not really

Obama was reelected with a 50% personal approval rating. That's par for the course, as no President has ever failed to be reelected when he had at minimum a 50% approval. So, it shouldn't be a great surprise Obama beat Romney.

Furthermore, while three progressives were newly elected to the Senate (Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, and Martin Heinrich), they were elected in blue or somewhat blue states; there was no real red-to-blue turnover during this election cycle (Scott Brown's term in Mass. being an aberration.)

Also, the GOP has solidified its presence in state legislatures that were previously Democratic -- esp. North Carolina. These states will be Republican gerrymandered for decades.

Also, the House is still Republican.

Finally, while religious right Tea Party Senate candidates Akin and Mourdock crashed-and-burned, younger, non-religious right Tea Party favorites Ted Cruz and Jeff Flake were elected. Both will severely hamper progressive legislation for years to come.

The Democrats performed a pretty good defensive rearguard action during this election cycle, but there was hardly any "progressive revolution".

[craigmatic]

50. The next nominee has to embrace Obama to get the minority vote out. It's very important.

[demhottie]

51. are you assuming the next nominee won't be a person of color?

[craigmatic]

53. Who knows who the next nominee will be? I assume it'll be Clinton if she runs. Still I think we

should nominate either a woman or latino.

[Skittles]

52. I am sick of Republicans and their "real America" bullshit

we are all REAL AMERICA and the majority of us are DECENT FOLK

[JNelson6563]

54. The Big Test...

Can the awakened Giant stay awake for two years? I sure hope so.

Julie

[avebury]

63. Well said! K&R

[Bernardo de La Paz]

64. "Never recover"? You forget who remains the Speaker of the House. nt

[Rosa Luxemburg]

67. Republicans thought they could sew it up with big money

Excellent post!

[Pryderi]

68. VOTE IN OFF-YEAR ELECTIONS!!! EVERYONE! N/T

[Historic NY]

69. For all those who endured those lines a grateful nation offers...

[AsahinaKimi]

71. "Father! The Sleeper HAS Awakened!"