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In a recent NPR interview House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated, "We didn't lose the election because of me," instead blamed high unemployment and "$100 million of outside unidentified funding;" for the loss of sixty plus seats. Further saying "any party that cannot turn 9.5% unemployment into political gains should hang up their gloves."
All I could think was of the following quote by Captain Edward Smith; "When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly 40 years at sea, I merely say, uneventful. In all my experience, I have never been in an accident. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked, nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort."
Four years after this quote Captain Smith was on the bridge in command when the Olympic collided with HMS Hawkins resulting in a financial disaster for his employers. In deference to his forty plus years of service, this major disaster was overlooked and Captain Edward Smith was given command of RMS Titanic. At least Captain Smith held himself accountable and took responsibility and went down with his ship.
At both the national and state level the leadership that led the Democratic Party into a Titanic size disaster is remaining in power. The old gray bulls are refusing to go quietly, rallying around each other making excuse after excuse for the debacle, while a whole generation of young effective future Democratic leaders has been lost. Some may return to fight another day; some will get reelected, most will depart government service forever; many who were thinking of, won't.
They have paid the price for the failure of the party leadership to understand the effects that the Great Recession has had on the mindset of the everyday American; where self-reliance and self-determination is now valued over government security. The old gray bulls, the entrenched leadership has lost touch with America. Most Americans no longer trust their government, their elected leaders to look out for their best interests.
In many ways the wealthy, well educated, many in their 70's and older Democratic elite became very condescending to the average American. They believed that they were not only smarter but better; that they and only they understood what was in our best interests, that they had to protect us from ourselves.
They failed to realize that a wild mustang stallion can survive the harshest Wyoming winter. With the Democratic leadership's desire to make it easier for him, they captured him, they fed him, they sheltered him, they did everything for him in their belief that it is in his benefit, the result, he ceased to be a mustang, he could no longer survive on his own. If they had left him some feed after a major blizzard he still would have had to find it in order to survive but he would have survived or perished with dignity. They failed to understand that most Americans wanted a leader, not a caretaker. Republican copy writers understand this, and they know it sells.
After every disaster (and 2010 was a major disaster) leaders must understand that they have to take responsibility for the failure, that they have to hold themselves accountable for the failure, that they must have the intellectual courage to allow and accept constructive criticism from subordinates in order to identify and rectify the cause of the disaster.
I don't see that at either the national or state level. So while the current leadership looks outside themselves and makes excuse after excuse, all I and some others can do is go down in the bowels of the RMS Titanic and find every empty crate, piece of wood or anything that can float and start building a life raft, because the current leadership doesn't understand that the iceberg that tore a huge hole in the side of the ship, wasn't the only one nor the largest one. We just entered the ice field.
The worst mistake we can make going forward is to become so blind to reality that we become so paralyzed with fear that we are unable to find the courage to make any meaningful change. Without change it is not if, but when the next disaster is upon us.
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