Why I am mad at myself as a voter

[Texacon]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1771803


Long racist rant;

Generic Other  (1000+ posts)         Fri Aug-19-11 01:08 PM

Original message

Why I am mad at myself as a voter
 
For three years now, I have been avoiding dealing with my relationship with my president. I have been angry at myself, torn between keeping silent and holding back on my criticism or raising my voice. Anyone who knows me knows I did not pull punches during the Bush years. I hated him with every fiber of my being. And because of that I fear, I was too easily led to vote with my heart and not my head where Obama was concerned. I have been floundering in a sea of doubt, denial, and desperate hope for the relationship between me and Obama to improve ever since.

I have tried to understand as best I could the deeper problems my president faces. The first African American, a bi-racial background, Ivy league education, somewhat moderate career as a politician, meteoric rise to power after a fluke put him in the Senate, and a riveting series of campaign speeches designed to create the persona of a man who embodied MLKs dream as well as those of Kennedy and our other liberal icons. Obama became a larger-than-life symbolic representation of our hopes and dreams of a better world than the one Bush and his class largely created.

It is painful for me to think that the whole thing was based on a huge public relations campaign to re-brand an inexperienced centrist with a lackluster voting record into a heroic champion of liberal ideals just to win an election. This is not an idea I can wrap my head around easily. To my credit, I had the uneasy feeling that he was re-packaged in just this fashion for maximum voter approval in 2008.

I knew his voting record as a senator was questionable. I defended it by assuring myself he was not the only one who voted to make it harder for Americans to file lawsuits against corporations, or declare bankruptcy, that he voted to give tax breaks to oil and gas companies, that he voted to re-authorize Patriot Act and extend Bush tax cuts, that he voted to confirm Roberts and Alito, and voted to cut $40 billion from the federal budget by imposing substantial changes on welfare, child support and student lending programs.
He also voted to tighten border security. I also knew that many of his Democratic colleagues also voted for these policies.

But I let myself believe he stood for something different.

I wasn't sure I believed as much as some of the most fervent seemed to, but damn I sure as hell wanted to. I forgot everything I knew about how candidates are bought and sold like a product, how they are taught to speak out of two sides of their mouth at the same time, how they are placed before us and framed for maximum effect. I let my guard down. I too was manipulated, sold a bill of goods. I confess. On Inauguration Day, I felt like it was a new day in America. Why? Because I had been inundated with images and ideas that painted Obama as the knight on the white horse who had come to rescue the nation in its hour of peril. He was going to end the wars. Make the rich pay their share. Provide for the country's economic and social needs. These are the promises he sold us.

And we needed someone who pledged to do these things. So we anointed him. We crowned him. We cheered his arrival in our nation's capital. We looked forward to the great change to come. And then we discovered he was not the man we had been led to believe him to be. He was not here to pull us back from the brink of disaster, he was here to continue to take us over the cliff.

Most of us thought he was a man of the people--elected with twenty dollar bills sent by the millions of struggling hardworking Americans he now ignores. We didn't know he would consistently backtrack on all his promises. We didn't have a clue he planned to enact all the worst GOP policies and more without blinking an eye. That he would spend more time criticizing our expectations of him than he spent fighting the ruinous policies our enemies proposed. That is not the man I voted for. I thought he was a man of principle. Many of us did. I really would like to believe he could still be this person I thought I voted for. That man was fearless. He stared down his enemies and challenged them to fight. He pointed to the people who stood shoulder to shoulder with him and reminded the others why we were here. He did not let his promises turn to lies. This is the thing I cannot get past. I no longer have any idea what this man stands for. Yet he and his followers would have me believe he is the same man I voted for in 2008. If this is so, shame on me.
 

Racist.  That's the only explanation for that.

Who's next?

Generic Other  (1000+ posts)         Fri Aug-19-11 01:19 PM
Response to Reply #1

6. I stayed out of the primary fight because it was too painful
 
I wanted to realize the dream of seeing either a woman or the first African American president in my lifetime.

Maybe you are right. I should not have hung back from Clinton over the bagqage she was carrying. I just didn't want any holdovers from the painful past maybe. Which was very unfair to her, but the memory of how her husband's admin. ended (not to mention Gore) was too fresh. And I still blamed them for giving us Bush.

Racist.  Still a racist.

Warpy  (1000+ posts)        Fri Aug-19-11 01:15 PM
Response to Original message

2. Not me.
 
I never thought he was a liberal going in. In some ways the man has disappointed me, as in his lack of use of the bully pulpit to tell people what's really going on in Washington. In others, he's exceeded my expectations, doing a few things very quietly while tossing the press some red meat somewhere else.

Still, he was the much better choice going in. Whenever I get disgusted with the man, usually about four times a day, I stop and think where we would be with a McCain/Palin administration.

No, Obama is not the perfect model of a Democratic president. He's very much a mixed bag. However, I'm surviving quite nicely with him in office even if I'm not thriving (thanks in large part to a conservative Congress).

My survival would be in doubt had the other team won.

Another racist.

Curmudgeoness  (1000+ posts)      Fri Aug-19-11 01:19 PM
Response to Original message

7. The most powerful (and saddest) comment you made
 
"That he would spend more time criticizing our expectations of him than he spent fighting the ruinous policies our enemies proposed."

This is the one thing that has been bothering me for a long time.

I am sorry you have become disenchanted enough to write this. I am sorry for us all. We did believe.

Yet another racist.

Enough.  I can't read anymore.  There is simply too much racism at the DUmp for me.

KC

[FlaGator]

Generic Other... you have no relationship with the President. To have a relationship he must know you exist. He doesn't so you have no relationship.

Face it, you were fooled by an magican who wasn't wise enough to follow the magican's code and never attempt the same trick twice to the same audience.

[Texacon]

femrap  (1000+ posts)        Fri Aug-19-11 01:40 PM
Response to Reply #11

18. What was very eerie to me was
 
seeing Rockefeller behind him over his right shoulder. Rockefeller is no more a Dem than Cheney is...he is Big Biz/Wall Street. Obama does as he is told by the multi-national corporations and the very, very wealthy Banksters and Elite of this nation.

I just wish we would primary him. I dont' think we have anything to lose.  

Man, the racism on that thread.  Wow.

KC

[GOBUCKS]

And every one of those DUmp racists professing their hatred for the jug-eared muslim are absolutely guaranteed to cast their votes for his reelection.

He knows he can afford to ignore them.

He also knows they're a bunch of losers who won't cough up any useful amounts of cash.

So go ahead and whine, DUmmies. The more you suffer, the funnier you are.

[Karin]

Lots of people feel generally like Generic Other does, in different ways.  Obama made himself a blank slate, that people could project anything onto.  Unfortunately, people are stupid.  The awake ones screamed and yelled about his Marxist upbringing, his Bill Ayers connection, his mysterious past.  Who was this guy? 

I do think a lot of people learned some hard lessons in the ensuing years.  I hope so.

[RWKindaGuy]

I knew his voting record as a senator was questionable. I defended it by assuring myself he was not the only one who voted to make it harder for Americans to file lawsuits against corporations, or declare bankruptcy, that he voted to give tax breaks to oil and gas companies, that he voted to re-authorize Patriot Act and extend Bush tax cuts, that he voted to confirm Roberts and Alito, and voted to cut $40 billion from the federal budget by imposing substantial changes on welfare, child support and student lending programs.
He also voted to tighten border security. I also knew that many of his Democratic colleagues also voted for these policies.

And yet you still did this? (see below)  This is why we call you DUmmies.  The name fits to a tee.

So we anointed him. We crowned him. We cheered his arrival in our nation's capital. We looked forward to the great change to come. And then we discovered he was not the man we had been led to believe him to be. He was not here to pull us back from the brink of disaster, he was here to continue to take us over the cliff.

[wasp69]

Warpy  (1000+ posts)        Fri Aug-19-11 01:15 PM
Response to Original message

2.
 
No, Obama is not the perfect model of a Democratic president. He's very much a mixed bag. However, I'm surviving quite nicely with him in office even if I'm not thriving (thanks in large part to a conservative Congress).

My survival would be in doubt had the other team won.

Well, let me be the first in this thread to say that I am very happy you have had your efforts thwarted, looter.

[Gina]

Generic Other... you have no relationship with the President. To have a relationship he must know you exist. He doesn't so you have no relationship.

They get emails from his autospooler and think it means it's a relationship.  I actually know a woman at work that believes he is sending those to her personally 

[Texacon]

They get emails from his autospooler and think it means it's a relationship.  I actually know a woman at work that believes he is sending those to her personally 

Really?

 

KC

[Karin]

I actually know a woman at work that believes he is sending those to her personally 

  GET OUTTA HERE!!

[miskie]

Well, its obvious to me you suck as a voter - you had a feeling you were being lied to, yet you pulled that lever anyway.

Next time, I'd suggest not voting at all - you'll do less damage that way, and your conscience will be clear. -- A win for all of us.

[Erasmus]

somewhat moderate career as a politician

Hanging out with avowed Marxists, a convicted domestic terrorist, and appointing a pro-pedophilia homosexual "Safe School" czar is now considered "moderate"?

 

[FreeBorn]

Having second thoughts now, DUmmies? A wee tad late for that.

[zeitgeist]

  GET OUTTA HERE!!

Agreed, I am assured democratixs voters are light years ahead of the pack in all ways.  Why us poor knuckle dragger's could never hope to measure up to their brilliance.    Oh wait, generic1 just blew that all to H E double hockey sticks  didn't he.  Never mind.

Then too, I watched them wheel in the halt, lame, and crippled, from the local assisted living home in the last election.  These were literally the drooling in their boot folk who needed "help" in the booth.  A very interesting circumstance. 

Obie may not sign them but I have it on good authority that Old Slo JO'biden licks all the envelopes personally.

[Traveshamockery]

They need to form a support group over at the DU for these disaffected Obama voters.  They obviously cannot deal emotionally with the betrayal of BHO. 

 

[JohnnyReb]

They get emails from his autospooler and think it means it's a relationship.  I actually know a woman at work that believes he is sending those to her personally 

  I've told y'all about holding the first republican party meeting in my county since reconstruction days. Well, after RR got elected me and the X-wife (because she was the chairperson, I guess) got an invitation to THE Inaugural Ball. BOY! was she excited but I had to explain to her that they send some of those things out as souvenirs. Well, a few months later my uncle was here. Uncle had been a friend of Jimmy Carter in the Navy and was a big democrat himself, although he was a soutern conservative one and also friends with Zell Miller. He had been to the Carter inaugural ball so he knew more about that kind of stuff than his redneck nephew. He looked at the wife's invitation and tells her, "This was the real thing. Y'all should have gone." Yes, I caught hell....

[zeitgeist]

They need to form a support group over at the DU for these disaffected Obama voters.  They obviously cannot deal emotionally with the betrayal of BHO. 

 

Damn, great idea TSM.   ^ 4 1/2  ( well 5 rounded up)

[JohnnyReb]

DUmmies were promised a unicorn but all they got was the horn.

[Gina]

I've told y'all about holding the first republican party meeting in my county since reconstruction days. Well, after RR got elected me and the X-wife (because she was the chairperson, I guess) got an invitation to THE Inaugural Ball. BOY! was she excited but I had to explain to her that they send some of those things out as souvenirs. Well, a few months later my uncle was here. Uncle had been a friend of Jimmy Carter in the Navy and was a big democrat himself, although he was a soutern conservative one and also friends with Zell Miller. He had been to the Carter inaugural ball so he knew more about that kind of stuff than his redneck nephew. He looked at the wife's invitation and tells her, "This was the real thing. Y'all should have gone." Yes, I caught hell....

is that why she is the X-wife?

[USA4ME]

Generic Other

And because of that I fear, I was too easily led to vote with my heart and not my head where Obama was concerned.

How is this different than all the other decisions you kooks make everyday?

Don't worry, generic other primitive.  When the clock strikes midnight, it will bring with it a whole new 24 hours in which to allow your emotions to rule the day.

.

[JohnnyReb]

is that why she is the X-wife?

No.