Building on Victory

A lot of people have said this over the past 14 months, but nobody's said it better than Digby did Monday:

I can't help but recall hearing a whole lot of patronizing advice from these same people a few years back when anyone breathed that President Bush might not have legitimately taken office since he lost the popular vote, his brother manipulated the system in Florida and he was was installed by a partisan supreme court decision. Back then it was all "get over it," and "I've got political capital and I'm gonna spend it!" Now, these same people are all screaming that it's a usurpation if the Democrats win the majority and then pass legislation that they don't like.

It's fairly clear that Republicans don't understand how democracy works. You campaign, people vote, you win elections, you get a majority, you pass legislation. They seem to think Democracy means that that elections are irrelevant, majorities are meaningless and that all legislation is contingent upon the permission of the Republican Party.

I'm sorry these people are so unhappy. I know how they feel. I used to hate it when the Republicans passed some disgusting initiative that went against everything I believe in. But I don't recall having a mental breakdown at the notion that they could do it even though I didn't want them to. The idea that they were obligated to do my bidding didn't actually cross my mind.

As they used to say repeatedly, "elections have consequences." If the people don't like this bill, they have every right to turn the Democrats out of office and repeal it. But screaming hysterically that it's cheating to pass legislation with a majority just proves that these folks' great reverence for the constitution is based more on their love of wearing funny hats than anything that's written in it.

This is how the system works. If you don't like it, start pressing for a constitutional amendment that requires that all legislation be approved by every teabagger in the land before it can be enacted. Or start campaigning to put your teabaggers in office so they can have a majority and enact the legislation you like. In either event, stop the whining about "abuse of power." They passed a bill you don't like, for crying out loud, it's not like they seized office with a partisan decision by the Supreme Court and then invaded a country that hadn't attacked us or anything...

But Tristero has a sharp warning against complacency:

Democrats fail to understand that the real fight, the one with no holds barred whatsoever, began exactly one millisecond after the gavel came down. And if history is any judge, they are completely unprepared for what is about to hit them.

Foul epithets? Teabaggers carrying guns to rallies? Members of Congress finding excuses to justify terrorism against government offices? Don't Democrats get it? That's what the rightwing fanatics hellbent on wrecking this country were doing when they were being polite. That's their idea of civility. The gloves have just come off. After all, they got nothing to lose.

Democrats are in a weird position right now. We haven't had a victory like this since Medicare in 1965, or considering the purely Democratic (not a single repug vote) nature of the victory, the New Deal legislation of the 1930s.

Wouldn't surprise me at all if President Obama and Congressional Democrats saw this victory as an opportunity to appease the repugs, rather than rolling up more victories this summer to burn the GOP to the ground and piss on the ashes.

As always, it's up to us, the indefatigable liberals, to keep pushing and nagging and forcing Democrats to make this victory not a peak of achievement but the foundation for future achievement.