Now that I have processed a while, I have changed my mind. The initial reaction I had, like many in the media and out, was how the Democrats misread the room and should have been cannier in how we ran the campaign. It is easy to fall into the trap of the horserace mentality. True, there will be much to consider about where we find ourselves in history and how to advance the liberal cause, but that is for another day.

In addition to all the whinging about Biden and whether he should have retired or defended his record, the structures of the Party, messaging, whether we should tack to the middle or to the left, we now get the quadrennial scourging on how we have failed the middle class and we are now the bourgeoisie. This is the middle class that has now allowed itself to choose not just bigotry and racism but to do so with the facade of pocketbook issues. Of course, it is, and has always been, a falsity that their economic lot will be better under Republican administrations, yet this is the middle class who ignored the best, most progressive, economic measure enacted in a generation. Ingrates.

No, Kamala ran the campaign I wanted her to run - win or lose. The good fight. This was not a change election. It was not a status quo election. It was a referendum on how low a moral and ethical character we will have as the minimum for our president. Would we allow a person who without exaggeration plotted to keep power at any cost. I have practically nothing else good I could say about Liz Cheney's political position except that she aligned herself on the side of patriotism. So did we Democrats. Our common cause is nothing more or less than standing up for the constitution that the right loves to fetishize but is now willing to destroy.

The truth will stand. The anti-immigrant, racist, bigoted language is one, but not the only, of the tools of the authoritarian. Many things have put us in this position as a nation - some structural and some political, but what of that? Whether the forest is flammable is no excuse for being the arsonist. The other side has chosen the worst path even under trying circumstances.

We are so used to the other side cloaking themselves in the flag that we have missed the message of this campaign. Democrats are the patriots. We believe in creating a more perfect union. We believe in the virtue of service and sacrifice. The other side are now the ones who hate America and call it a garbage can. They are the ones who allow their leader to mock the military. They are the cowards and the recidivists, not us. Let's be proud of that.


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