Freeform Beat Strategy

It's hard to vote for something. Easy to vote in opposition against it.

Standing up to be counted for your beliefs is different than saying someone else's beliefs are wrong. It's the difference between putting yourself out there to be judged, which is a scary and terrifying thing with real consequences, and judging someone else who's put themselves out there, which doesn't carry nearly as much risk.

The Democrats need to force the Republicans to go on record not as being against their policies but being for the war. They have to shift the debate from the nuances of whatever their proposals are to the overall narrative of the President's intransigence and Republican attempt to run the clock out. They need to scream bloody murder about the gridlock. Because, again, we're talking about the bloody murder of our country here. Our soldier's lives. Our budget. Our international reputation. All of it, being pissed away by the hawks who continue to persist in their myopic belief that if we just wait long enough, if we just wish hard enough, we can turn things around. We can salvage things, we can turn this around, we can find a solution but only after we admit that we need one. And it's the people who are standing in the way, who are opposing any and every attempt with a snide, “It'll never work, so why bother?”, who are the ones keeping us from reaching that solution. The Republicans have to be made to say, for the record, whether they're trying to help our country get through these trying times. Or whether they're the ones who are the anchor around our collective waist.