Democrats Aren’t Coming to Save You

And they never were.  

I’ve long had a weird sense of respect for Republican lawmakers. Not that they have done many respectable things in my lifetime, nor do I agree with nearly any of their stances or positions. But what I can recognize is that they get things done. I might not like the things that they are doing, but they’re happening. And that is something I can respect a hell of a lot more than what I see from the Democratic party, with whom I’m allegedly more politically aligned.

I say allegedly because Democrats are far too conservative for me. Any time I have said that on social media, I have gotten comments from people thinking I misspoke. But I mean it. Democratic politicians are conservative compared to my politics. On the global political spectrum, Democrats actually don’t fall very far left. And that’s because they’re not. Their policies are often moderate at best. But in a two-party system, many Americans have been fooled into thinking they’re the far-left antithesis of the Republican’s move to the far-right. When in reality, many of the people on the actual far-left joke about Democrats just being Diet Republicans. There are thousands of memes like Spiderman pointing at his clone, or people saying that Democrats are just Republicans who wave Pride flags. When you come down to it, most if not all of the politicians in DC are there for the same reason: to uphold the establishment.

I don’t think a binary of politics being “left” and “right” is actually helpful. Because we know there are many different issues, many different philosophies, and many different approaches. There are other systems people have used to discuss political parties and ideologies, with more dimensional visuals. But the thing I keep reminding myself is that if you’re looking at mainstream American politics, you’re only getting a fraction of the story. That’s what people call the Overton Window, the topics and views that are considered politically acceptable in a certain region or context. Our Overton Window tells a story of one side versus the other, but who are you hearing that story from? And where is there information being left out?

Liberal and Leftist are two terms that I hear being used interchangeably, though I have a pretty clear distinction between them in my mind. I see people on the internet talking about them as if Leftist were just an extreme of Liberal, because our framework to discuss politics is so one dimensional. The actual difference between Liberalism and Leftism that I understand from conversations with and listening to people who identify as leftists, lies on the edge of that Overton Window. Liberals exist within the window. Liberals play within the system, want reform, and believe changes can be made to make it better. Leftists, on the other hand, are anti-establishment. Leftists would rather throw out the systems of harm like capitalism and find alternatives than try to improve it. Is that considered radical and extreme? To some, yes. But that is the line between Liberals and Leftists. Not how many genders you think there are or how many rallies you’ve shown up to. It’s about your relationship to the establishment.

Once you understand this distinction, calling Democrats “radical leftists” sounds completely silly. There has never been a mainstream Democratic platform that came near dismantling capitalism or tearing down the establishment. And that’s because they ARE the establishment. The system is not going to take itself down. Democrats will use some talking points around social issues that matter to Leftists, as many Liberals and Leftists share some social justice values. But when push comes to shove, I don’t have for Democrats the ironic respect I have for Republicans. Because Democrats don’t get anything done. Democrats might make enough change for their images to look good, but stop before things get too good. And that’s because they campaign on the potential for change. They don’t want to actually make change, they want to dangle it in front of us like a prize we can’t reach. They run on potential, not on progress. They do not care about making the change they pontificate about. They care about getting elected, they care about their pockets, and they care about their own interests.

I am generalizing a bit here. There are outliers in both of these parties, and as I have mentioned there are more than just two political parties. But I’m talking about the average politician in these parties. I’m talking about the center of the power here, the ones who garner the most power and the most attention. The sad reality is that the people who are close enough to the center of power, the people who could make change happen to benefit us, are the same people who benefit from the systems staying intact. That’s why we see symbolic gestures like murals and national holidays instead of legislation that would actually impact and protect our people. How long did they have to codify Roe v Wade into law? Where were protections for trans people amidst record numbers of anti-trans legislation over the last four years? They don’t make those moves, because then they can't run on the hope that they’ll follow through. But Republicans make their moves, and then Republicans run on making even more moves.

While I don’t have much faith in the system as it currently stands, we do need more representation that actually represents the views of the people. We need more than a two party system, because these issues and political alignments can’t be so easily sorted. And while we as citizens don’t have much power to instate things like ranked choice voting, which would make our elections far more fair and reflective of the peoples’ choice, there are other things we can do. Too many people overlook the power that local government can hold. But if we want to make changes in the big leagues, we have to start small. We need to be electing more independent candidates, or just people who actually reflect our views, in city and state elections. That way those people can build careers that will help them run for more offices in the future. That would be, admittedly, the Liberal solution. Working within the system, making some changes and hoping that fixes the problem. My actual solution would be to throw the whole thing out and start over again with a new system. But I also know that’s not entirely realistic.

Since Trump’s wild executive orders started to get signed, people have been in an uproar, and I keep hearing the question “why aren’t the Democrats stopping this?” But I thought we all knew that the Democrats were doing what the Democrats do best: nothing. They just respond to moments like this by getting on social media or to a press conference where they can point a finger and say “That’s bad. Someone should stop that.” And then they ask for campaign donations. They turn it to their own political agendas. They’re not actually trying to end whatever they’re responding to, they’re instead trying to leverage it to benefit themselves.  Democrats aren’t coming to save you. Democrats aren’t even trying to save you. Democrats are just trying to save themselves.