Blue Balls
What the Democratic party's been promising but not delivering
I’ve been avoiding social media since the election. Mostly it’s because I just can’t stand to consume another bit of information about these politics that have been consuming North America (and beyond) for over a year. But it’s also because I feel like people–on all sides–aren’t seeing the whole picture. They’re honing in on specific aspects of the campaigns, what worked, what didn’t and why Kamala wasn’t picked over Trump. Herein lies the overall problem: we all have blinders on, and have been wearing them for quite some time.
I say all of this as an observer, as a Canadian who isn’t directly impacted–but is indirectly–by the U.S.’s political choices. I am not currently affected by abortion bans or restricted access to health care. I’m not an immigrant whose life is being threatened. I don’t have the ability to vote in these elections. But I have been observing and listening. And now I have something to say.
The U.S. is broken. It’s not just the political system, but the social systems that support–or should be supporting–the country and the people in it. Kamala didn’t lose just because she’s a woman–although I’m not denying that that was a factor in people's voting patterns. She lost, in large part because the Democratic party has long been in denial about the country’s political temperature and where things are headed. They see that people want change and that they can fix it. They point out that Trump is a bumbling old egomaniac, but that’s not going to change the fact that the economic, social, education, and health care systems of the country are fundamentally broken. And in order to reach the top of the liberal ladder, fundamental changes to the way the country operates need to not just be fixed, but completely overhauled.