We just don't get it. We don't understand that the majority of American people do not support Bush and the Repubs. We don't seem to get it that they win the elections not because the American people vote them in, but because they control the voting process. Everybody (of our ilk) knows Gore won in 2000. Everyone knows that privately owned Republican companies own most of the voting machines. Everyone knows that there is no way to verify that Bush indeed won 270 electoral votes or 51% of the popular vote in November, but we go right along thinking that if we do something different in framing our values, or getting out the vote, or finding the right candidates and issues, or reinventing the Democrat Party, we will win in the next election. Get real.
The Bush Cabal must be laughing themselves to death. No matter what we do, if we don't get honest elections, we'll never win again. That's the only thing this grassroots movement should be focused on, getting the votes counted honestly. Once that happens, all this other stuff comes into play, but until then we're just fooling ourselves.
Right now we are our own worst enemies, being content to play some kind of philosophy games. I just finished reading about half the 300 or so comments in Kos' diary asking for 30 word statements of the Democratic position. It made me sick. I found not one statement reflecting the need for honest elections; it could probably fall in some cases, under the rubric of freedom or honest and open government, but we're not focusing on the very real problem of who counts the votes. The longer we continue to stick our heads in the sand about this, the harder it is going to be to do anything about it.
We had better start to get it soon.