The Other Side of the Coin

Dear Mr. President,

Your ratings are in the toilet, in case you haven't noticed.

FOX News and the Tea Party are hammering into the heads of America that it's because you're so off-base, so off-course, so bad at being The Boss of Us that the only thing we can do to "save America" is to swing so far to the Right we fall flat off of the edge of the Earth. (We'll be able to do that, just as soon as David Barton's Big Book of Bible History is being taught to all the school children).

Your terrible ratings are being trumpeted like a K Mart Blue Light Special- and it seems to be working. People all over this fair land are lapping up the dangerous vitriol being spewed by every single Republican candidate, believing in desperation and willing to give up MORE- more money, more freedom, and the tatters of what's left of their own American Dreams PLUS those of their parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren.

Anything to make it stop. Make the financial free-fall and social uneasiness we all wake up in every morning stop, because our mental vertigo from it makes it very difficult to plod through every single day with our noses to the grind stone without puking our lungs out.

Your most vocal enemies (and I searched every word I could think of without success before using such a strong one) on the Republican side of the aisle are singing a siren song and people are so scared and blinded by despair that they're following- following the flaming figures wrapped in the flag and holding high a bible and not seeing the cliff right in front of them. Our people- OUR people- are being led (actually pushed) off, lemmings stampeding to the hollow promises of freedom and rights while the abyss is the reality and coming up fast.

I'm sure it's discouraging to see people who voted for you shake their heads and turn away, some with sadness, some with a disillusion morphing ever more quickly into critical sarcastic loathing- that special emotion generally reserved for the wronged lover.

While the Far Right is maniacally shrieking that you're losing your support because you're turning the country into an entitlement-sucking, money-bleeding pit of godless homosexuality, let me tell you the real reason.

You haven't done enough, you're still trying to reason with bullies.

The Health Care bill is a personal thing for our family- my husband has several health issues that preclude him from any private insurance company coverage. Luckily he's on medicare, or we'd be bankrupt and he'd be dead. Your enemies think that'd be OK. Your enemies believe that "Obamacare" is a job-stealing, government-takeover monster. In reality, it didn't go far enough. What you NEEDED to do was make damn sure there was a public option- THAT would've leveled the playing field. I know you've heard it before but it's true. I know all us "little people" don't know all the ins and outs of how the Game is played up there on the hill but dammit- that was an important item and it got dropped.

During the debt ceiling debates? The words "Social Security" should not ever ever EVER even have left your mouth when listing things that could go on the table for cutting. Ever. Your base took that as a direct betrayal, because it was.

I understand that you're trying to be bi-partisan and fair and compromising for the benefit of all but I'm sorry to inform you that it's not working.

I'm sorry to inform you that you cannot reason with bullies who don't care if they are making any damn sense at all or their constituents lose their jobs and homes and die or the country falls to literal ashes as long as you yourself are also lost in the debris of what was once a strong nation. That's the only compromise they'll accept- anything that means you lose.

The problem is that you won on a promise to fight for US, to FIGHT for us- and for 2 years we've watched you try not to hurt the feelers of your enemies.

May I speak for all old ladies who voted for you when I politely suggest that you tell them all to go to hell and do what you promised US you'd do.

Whenever the Right has control, they don't mess around. They do whatever they want and unapologetically dismiss the Left like so many yammering puppies under their feet.

I understand you are trying to be better than that, but you have no choice if you are going to be, and remain to be OUR President.

The reason your ratings are so low is not because you can't do a good job, but because you won't.

You've started. You blazed into the Jobs Bill like a hero, and I know I wasn't alone in my happiness when you pointedly asked the Republicans "Well? Show us what you got."

But you've already back-paddled a bit, given in a bit, even though Social Security is supposedly safe, now it's Medicare and Medicaid? Seriously? Last I checked (and I do write the checks at work and pay the taxes) a hefty amount is taken out- bought and paid for by the people and their employers for Medicare. It's not an entitlement program any more than Social Security, other than we're entitled to them because we're paying for them.

Mr. President- remember those giddy few days after the assination of Bin Laden? Remember how high your ratings were? Across the board?

Here's why.

Because you showed yourself as a man who gets shit done. Who looks at facts and listens to good advice and gets shit done because it needs doing and you have the power to do it.

Our country is failing, floundering, bleeding from greed and selfishness and not-so-hidden personal agendas and it will not be healed by wrapping it in a flag till it suffocates or thumping it to death with a bible.

You can do this.

Look away from the corporations- they're not people.

Close your ears to the Far Right politicians- they're not unemployed and hungry.

Look at the people who voted for you, listen to the people who voted for you, not the men and women in lesser offices who blatantly say their number one political goal is to get you out of office- even if it means the continued suffering of their constituents and the decimation of this country.

They are the enemy.

Do what needs doing.

Sincerely,

Sheri Dixon
Mother, Wife, Business Manager
Texan, American
Proud Unashamed Flaming Liberal