Yes "We" Can

November’s election results renewed hope in progressives that their work still pays off at the polls. What was important was that this was the result of the strength and unity of working people without much support from the corporate-funded Democratic leadership in Washington.

Those fighting the good fight without help from the talk-of-change crowd in D.C. deserve full credit, and they deserve to find hope in what happened on November eighth against powerful, moneyed interests.

How many were surprised at how Mississippi rejected by more than 55% the right-wing’s model personhood amendment? Supporters were poised to challenge the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling by provoking a lawsuit that would end up in what they believe to be a US Supreme Court on their side. But the amendment failed in what a 2011 Gallop poll ranked as the most conservative state in the union.

The same night, voters in Ohio defeated Issue 2 by 63%. Working people humbled Koch brothers’ buddy, Governor Kasich (who became a Republican poster boy for conservative overreach) by rejecting Senate Bill 5, his new collective bargaining law that would prevent public sector strikes, limit bargaining rights for 360,000 public employees, and scrap binding arbitration of management-labor disputes.

By 60% Maine voters turned back another textbook right-wing, Koch-brothers-funded tactic: in the name of unproven voter fraud, limiting access of historically Democratic voters to the polls. Maine voted to repeal a new law requiring residents to enroll at least two days before an election, restoring a four-decade policy of allowing registrations as late as Election Day.

In North Carolina voters repudiated the Tea Party agenda backed by the state’s notorious political boss, Art Pope, a billionaire and staunch ally of the Kochs. Voters in Raleigh dealt Boss Pope, a major embarrassment in his hometown. In the run-off for the controlling seat on the Wake County School Board, progressive Democrat Kevin Hill defeated Pope's Tea Party Republican candidate, Heather Losurdo. Hill stalwartly opposed the Pope-orchestrated re-segregation of Wake County Schools, while Losurdo supported the return to "neighborhood schools," code for the end of cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity.

In Greensboro, voters ousted the hand-picked, Pope-funded ticket of “fiscal conservatives.” And the popular Democratic mayor of Charlotte, Anthony Foxx, easily won re-election with a smashing two-to-one victory. Democrats, in fact, swept all eight contested seats for Charlotte City Council as well as in other local elections in the state's largest county, Mecklenburg.

One of the winners in Charlotte was its first openly gay candidate, LaWana Mayfield, while openly gay Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt won his reelection bid with 78% of the vote.

To name just a few others, openly gay, 22-year-old Alex Morse beat 67-year-old incumbent Mary Pluta in Holyoke, Massachusetts to become the nation’s youngest mayor. Chris Seelbach became the first openly gay city council member elected in Cincinnati while Zach Adamson became the first openly gay City Council member in Indianapolis, Caitlin Copple the first openly gay council member in Missoula, Montana, and Adam Ebbin the first openly gay state senator elected to Virginia’s state senate.

Voters ousted some Republican poster boys around the country. In Arizona, voters recalled Republican legislator Russell Pearce, author of Arizona's tough anti-immigration law, which was seen as a model for other states, while, by the way, they seated Democratic mayors in Phoenix and Tucson.

In Michigan they recalled Republican state Rep. Paul Scott of Grand Blanc, southeast of Flint, the first state lawmaker recalled in that state since 1983. Scott chaired the House Education Committee and took anti-union, anti-teacher stands typical of right-wing extremist legislators, destroying tenure and slashing school budgets while supporting further tax breaks for already profitable corporations.

Up in Traverse City, voters supported by a nearly two-to-one margin an ordinance that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. A loud group of right-wing opponents had collected signatures to force the referendum, arguing that it singles out one group for “special treatment.”

In Iowa, Democrats maintained their advantage in the State Senate by 26-24, which meant that marriage equality remains safe from legislation. In conservative Kentucky, the popular Democratic governor, Steven Beshear, cruised into a second term.

In the meantime, the Occupy movement around the country is forcing a change in national priorities. Demeaned, if not ignored, by mainstream media, beaten and bullied by police doing the bidding of corporate America, scaring politicians, and minimalized by many even in the Democratic Party, the movement for the 99% against those who’ve bought Congress, the White House, and the Courts, keeps bringing democracy back into political expectations.

All of this reminds us of the “We” in the “yes we can.” We’ve learned after the last twelve years that we are all we can count on, no matter which least bad presidential candidate we must vote for.

Both political parties have plenty of excuses for not challenging the status quo. But “we” know that their funders are whispering in their ears. They’ll allow for tinkering, but no return to the successes of the New Deal.

While the President has shifted into a campaign mode, sounding again as if he intends to make a populist difference, will we remember how he lined his appointments with business leaders from the top 1% when it came to governing and, no matter what else he claimed he wanted to do, ensured the protection of the rich, the warriors, and his corporate funders? Sorry, he’s not the “we.”

Then we watch Republicans scramble to find a candidate that can pull their fractured party together - someone, anyone, who can gain the support of the moneyed Republican corporate machine while energizing their evangelical and Tea Party ground troops with promises they can’t keep. The parade of candidates in endless debates and meaningless polls promote international embarrassment. But none of them will be the “we” either, no matter how duped the non-rich tea partiers are.

We now understand, I hope, that we are the “we.” “We” did it on November 8, and “we” can do it again, and again, and again.