via
http://ift.tt/2fwV9U0:
checkersandbalances:
sandalwoodandsunlight:
melanieholiday:
justmelvin:
One can hope…
My heart fills with peace just looking at this picture.
imma tell y’all now how this ends…if for some reason these two run in 2020, they won’t be in the same ticket, they’ll run opposite each other in the primaries. You’ll then vilify michelle for supporting her husband’s policies or maybe making some high paying speeches as a private citizen or for setting up a foundation that does good work and you’re tired of dynasties, be mad that Bernie once again got rigged by DNC even tho he lost by every measure except Bernie math, then when she runs again the incumbent Trump, you’ll vote for the new Gary Johnson or Jill Stein coz you can’t in good conscience vote for someone who doesn’t share your beliefs 100%.
then we’ll have trump for another four years. maybe in 2024 you all will help elect Ann Coulter.
Let’s leave aside the sheer lack of grasp of reality it takes to blithely say “let’s nominate Barack Obama’s wife next time” when this country two days ago elected a man who was endorsed by the KKK and who was caught on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women, and did so in large part because of sheer hatred of former first lady Hillary Clinton and backlash against Barack Obama. Let’s leave that aside, and focus on the sick glorification cycle that has been creeping up in the more liberal side of the democratic party.
You elected Barack Obama - cue cheering, joyful weeping, history made. Then, apparently because you have no actual functioning knowledge of how politics works in a democratic society where there are three branches of government and some people disagree with you, you trashed him when he turned out not to be able to wave a magic wand and accomplish all of his goals at once simply by virtue of being elected. You let an obstructionist Congress get in and left him with it for years instead of voting them out, and you trashed him for not somehow making sufficient Hope ‘n Change happen.
You remember what you, the liberal wing of the party, did about 4, 5 years ago? You started fantasizing about a Hillary Clinton Presidency AU to the extent that actual tv shows were made imagining a world where Hillary, suddenly a perfect magical being compared to Weak Disappointment Barack Obama, mounted a primary challenge against him. Of course when she actually ran for president, and people actually had to pay attention to her real record, they suddenly started portraying her as worthless corrupt trash because she wasn’t the flawless wetdream people had imagined her to be - despite the fact that 90% of the things she was criticized for (for example: voting for the Iraq War, having Wall Street connections, being Bill Clinton’s wife in the 90s) were already true in 2011-2012. Because you didn’t care who she actually was or what she had actually done. Your shiny symbol had been slightly tarnished, so you deemed it worthless and wanted to throw it out in favor of a different, shinier one.
So you know what I think is happening with the above graphic? I think 99% of you people reblogging this don’t know shit about Michelle Obama, who has in fact consistently expressed the opposite of a desire to run for office, and you don’t care to know. You’re not actually trying to pick a good candidate here, you’re not examining your newly elected legislators and governors for an actual up-and-comer, you’re not doing the real work to plan for the future. You’ve just decided Michelle is your latest idealized perfect candidate who makes you feel liberal for supporting her. Conveniently, she’s also someone you can put next to Bernie in a photo in order to mask the sheer misogyny that has been running underneath the liberal distaste for Hillary Clinton, a woman whose positions are to the left of Barack Obama’s, in fact to the left of virtually every president in history, and to the left of most of the democratic legislature. So let’s be real here. If Michelle ran for office you’d suddenly be shocked, shocked, by how she fell short of whatever outrageous standards you set up for her, and you’d probably also blame her for not divorcing her husband for failing to close down Guantanamo or whatever fucking thing suddenly becomes a convenient excuse to dismiss her.
You’re a political group who purports to support women and people of color, but in practice you have used them as temporary symbols of unimpeachable perfection, and you deem them to be failures as soon as you notice that they’re whole and complex people and functioning politicians. You don’t care how politics work, you don’t know or care who Michelle is or what her actual candidacy would look like, deep down you just want symbols that make you look progressive for voting for them. I know you’re not doing it on purpose, but that’s what you’re doing.
Delusional graphics wishing for a Michelle Obama presidency are not a substitute for the deep, deep soul-searching that this party, especially the allegedly liberal wing of this party, needs to do to figure out why it was such a struggle for it to prioritize the actual rights of women, poc, immigrants, lgbt, disabled and disadvantaged people over idealogical purism.
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