A NEW YEAR'S LETTER TO JETHRO

Dear Jethro:

We are 40+ days into PEOTUS territory.  Your guy won, my gal lost. You are anxiously looking forward to January 20, I’m dreading it. You are high-fiving with the other camo-wearing bro’s down at the hardware store, while me and my left-coast liberal elites are sobbing into soy latte’s at our local, non-Starbucks coffee joints.

But after much consideration, I’m writing this letter, a month after the election, not to point an angry finger at you and curse your choice, but rather to thank you. You and your side has done something that quite simply, my left-wing associates and I could not do on our own: You have guaranteed a return to power of the Democratic Party in a massive and convincing fashion.

Your unwavering and rabid support of Donald Trump and your feral hatred of Hillary Clinton over the past year has coalesced to deliver a beautiful and sacred gift to all of us progressive, idealistic folks. For in two to four years’ time, a tidal wave of regret and recrimination will sweep through your rural and suburban environments which will affect real and lasting change in American politics and make the 1960’s progressive era look like a John Birch Society cocktail party.

For you have unloosed the great and might Trump – soon-to-be destroyer of the Republican Party and unlikeliest hero to liberal democrats from sea to shining sea. If Newt Gingrich was our pony on Christmas morning back in the 1990’s, Trump today is our fire red Ferrari parked in the driveway with a giant bow perched on the hood.

Don’t get me wrong.  I realize there will be tremendous pain for the country during Trump’s first and only term in office. The environment, the economy and the social contract that makes America great will suffer tremendously. The middle class will fall further and further behind the One Percent and a great many minorities, women and marginalized populations will live in fear and hopelessness. Indeed, dark times lie ahead.

Yet, it is always darkest before the dawn – as they say – and a great light and hope will soon emerge on the horizon. That light and hope will come in the form of crushing buyer’s remorse among the white, under-educated voters who actually believed that a fabulously wealthy con man who sees the world through a Manhattan penthouse window was some kind of regular guy populist.

Once that buyer’s remorse sets in, and sets in deep within the pit of your stomach, you will all do what you do best – robust apathy. You’ll do nothing. Just like you’ve done little to nothing to improve your lot in life and lift yourself out of the working class malaise you’ve been stuck in for 30 years, you’ll forget all about the energy and emotion that brought you out to the rallies and the voting booths to support your orange-haired messiah. In short, you’ll stay home in 2018 during the midterms and certainly you will stay home on the second Tuesday in November of 2020.

And with you sitting out the elections, or at least phoning in your efforts, my side might actually get our act together and really move in to enact change. You see, democrats and just as responsible for Trump as you are. We blew this last election in a lot of ways. We were overconfident and unlike you, we simply went through the motions without putting our blood sweat and tears into the process.

Understand; even if we somehow eked out the win in 2016, damage – perhaps permanent – would have been done to our party and our philosophy. My God, the lapdog media, conservative zealots and Republican-led House and Senate would have been absolutely giddy at the prospect of savaging every move or decision Hillary made over the next 48 months. A Clinton victory would actually set back the party more than four years of Trump will, without the future upside.

A Clinton win would only exacerbate our problems at the state and congressional level. Our own apathy during midterms and our lack of a coherent response to the Republican’s bag of dirty tricks, voter suppression and ALEC legislation would simply be kicked down the road like an old can. We would limp along – holding onto the White House - but letting go of everything else.

No, the juvenile behavior, laughable policy missteps, sham strategies and overall international embarrassment that will be a Trump administration, portend much better for my party’s long-term viability. You’ve broken our arm by electing him. Yet, as any physician will say, a break grows backs stronger than the original bone.

So thank you. In this season of giving, you have truly bestowed a wondrous present to all of us liberals. And while I fully realize it’s a gift you didn’t want to give, my thanks are heartfelt all the same.

Happy 2017!