I had high hopes for the midterm election this year. We had
a centrist candidate for Governor who was gaining important endorsements and
funding. We had several amazing, hardworking and charismatic candidates for
local races.
Yet when Election Day came and went, and all the votes were
tallied, we ended up with Democrat supermajorities in both the state house and
senate as well as in the governor’s office.
WE Lost
We lost the election. When I say WE lost the election I mean
exactly that.
I see people blaming Conservative Republicans for staying
home and not voting because they did not like Knute, blaming the Democrats for
cheating and vote tampering, blaming party leadership for a lack of support,
blaming Portland for having too many people, and generally blaming anyone they
can find.
I remember seeing this sort of behavior recently in politics
just on the national level. Hilary Clinton wrote a book and did a whole tour
blaming everyone but herself for her loss against Trump.
Now we stand here on the eve of our election loss and we
have a choice before us, do we continue to blame each other and everyone else,
or do we take an honest look at ourselves as individuals and at our party.
As individuals we need to ask ourselves, as Washington
County GOP Vice Chair Melissa Laird did every day leading up to the election,
what have I done today to help my candidates win? If your only answer is I
shared a post on Facebook, I must inform you that is not enough.
Facebook is a powerful tool but it is not a magical tool. It
can help us reach thousands of people in an instance but if that reach does not
materialize into action it is more or less useless.
It is hard to break the routine of daily life, kids need
help with homework, projects need to be done around the house, and pay checks
need to be earned. Our time is valuable but I do not think it is unreasonable
to ask for one hour each week. That is the amount of time you would spend
watching one or two episodes of your current Netflix binge. (If you want to help,
get in touch with your local county chair).
I am not asking you to trade the hour for nothing. You will
get the chance to meet the people who will represent you, who will actually
listen to your concerns and ideas. You will get connected to an amazing
community of wonderful, hardworking, and brilliant people that share similar
values to your own.
As a party we need to listen to feedback from our
candidates, build our infrastructure and support systems, and find a way to
connect everyone. We need to learn from our past mistakes, our successes and we
need to grow our party, in membership, leadership, and candidates. We need to
identify, promote and recruit people of talent and take a long term view of
things.
This is what you need to do if you want to help get Oregon
on the right track. Blaming the Democrats, each other, the party leadership or
the system not only does not help but hurts us all in the long run.
The Seductive
Ideology of Victimhood
Victimhood has social value for both the victim and the
person who wants to help the victim. They both gain attention and social status
from the victimhood. The bad thing is that the victim, who is seeking
attention, will become dependent on the victimhood to produce that attention
they seek.
If they have been victimized by an individual the victimhood
only lasts until that individual has been dealt with or is removed from the
picture. It becomes harder and harder to produce victimhood and gain attention
by relying on individuals.
Victimizers, true victimizers, are rare and you quickly run
out of them, but if you are able to become victimized by a group of people than
you can maintain that victimhood status almost indefinitely. If you are
victimized by men than you can remain a victim as long as there are men.
The problem with this idea is that it is built on a lie, you
are not a victim of men, you might be a victim of a man, or a group of men, but
not the collective gender known as men. But like the drug addict the victim
does not mind the lie as long as it gets them their fix of victimhood and the
attention that comes with it.
This sort of behavior is very attractive. It gives you an
excuse to refuse to take an honest and often painful look at yourself as well
as someone to blame for any short comings you might have.
The Choice Before Us
This is a choice we need to make. We, as individuals, need
to decided, are we going to play the blame game, giving in to the seductive
ideology of victimhood, or are we going to take a look at ourselves and find
where we can change and do better.
Ultimately blaming someone else, justly or unjustly, will
only cause division and create resentment that will lead us farther down the
path of loss we have been on for over 30 years.
We can blame and fight each other and hope that our faction
comes out on top only to be the king of the losers, or we can build a coalition
with each other on the understanding that we all might not agree but that we
are all dedicated to the betterment of our state and the betterment of each
other as individuals.
Some people have said that we need to clean our house before
we can hope to become successful again. I think we need to take that a step
deeper, we each need to clean our own rooms before we can start to clean our
house.
What path will you choose? Will you blame everyone else for
the problems you see before you, or will you take responsibility to do
everything in your power to solve those problems yourself? The choice is ours,
choose wisely.
