I think you’re partly right - they’re not all about personality. I think the die-hards are more interested in drama… and what’s more dramatic that lifting someone up and then tearing them down again? Like Tea-partiers, they should take an improv class or join a community theater. Politics is boring, and (to be good at it) you have to take into account conflicting opinions. All your constituents will not be wonderful, colorful, spiritual victims. Some will be boring middle-class folk with IRAs who may not like the idea of a revolution… people like your parents! Some will have lived through real revolutions… you know, the kind where people get killed. Some (like my father) may even have escaped tyrants and mistrust the angry mob shouting down the moderates. If 1/10 of these people vote in the midterms, if 1/1000 of them run for office to put their ideals into reality, I promise I’ll eat my hat. But I get to choose which hat.
I guess this shows why my grandfather sternly told me that our family didn’t bet on things. I should have known better.
Man. Way to miss the whole “dismissing them is counter-productive” thing.
Remember this?
Sorry, but while people aren’t binary, votes are. Or maybe trinary? With, against, or abstain (or protest vote). Consider abstain half a vote for Trump.
Were you of age in 2000? GWB was elected by the protest vote of Liberals for whom Gore was insufficiently orthodox, despite having written a book on environmentalism before becoming VP. The parallels to today are very strong.
I think Bernie and his supporters are being listened to. They have bargaining power, and they’re using it. They’re just not getting EVERYTHING. And I think that’s boring and annoying. Where’s the triumph!? Why can’t they dance about on the graves of their enemies, damn it!
My 2 cent opinion (but, I mean, come on; this is a comment stream of a blog post; if a 2 cent opinion can go anywhere, it’s here) is that a core characteristic of American culture is the need to see oneself as the center of an apocalyptic drama. I’m 1st generation, and was educated in foreign schools, so I think I can see it from the outside a bit (though I love a bit of apocalyptic drama myself! That’s why I love fantasy novels).
Yes. Too well of age. I’ve had a lifetime of voting for lesser evils.
A better example is Bush-Clinton-Perot.
Except Bush wasn’t evil, nor was McCain, Romney, or even Bush 2.
But Trump is a legit authoritarian, and an impulsive thin-skinned one at that. Imagine a situation like the Cuban missile crisis, Perl Harbour, or 9/11. Trump can’t even handle jokes about his hands, do you really want to risk him being in charge when things hit the fan?
If Clinton was running against Jeb Bush then I’d be more sympathetic, you’re probably losing Obamacare, exploding the debt with dumb tax cuts, but otherwise the country survives.
Even Cruz you’re looking at massive new debt, no Obamacare, war on gay marriage, but it’s not the end of the country.
Having Trump in there is the one way you get really bad things to happen. I don’t think that’s an acceptable risk to take.
As have I. I turned 18 in time to vote for Carter’s 2nd term. I’m resigned to it, lesser evil means less evil, rather than more evil because I wanted to stay on my high horse. I would love the day when ranked voting (instant runoff) comes, when I can vote 1st for my conscience and 2nd for the lesser evil. Especially in my city with non-partisan elections where corruption and vote splitting is fine art.
Hold your nose and vote.
I never knew that was something I really want to watch. Thanks!
Then you are resigned to continuing a system that is corrupt and exploits us. Change has to start somewhere. I understand - you hold your nose and vote. My state won’t fall to Trump. I’ve got more important things to vote for than the despot, or the status quo tool.
And continuing the status quo via Clinton is also not an acceptable solution to Trump being a despot. Its the easy solution.
Sanders Delegates Stage Mass Walkout, Promising to Leave Democratic Party
And as for me:
You dopes have to realize that if you all roll over for Clinton without any challenge then nothing will change. The only leverage with her is if she is in risk of failing, and she has to sway to the pressure. More than she has. In fact she’s done a piss poor job of it.
Trump will be defeated. But she has to god damn work for it. No hubris. No assuming our support. She’s going to have to bend, and her big donors are going to have to suffer some broken promises for our benefit.
So quit being such a pathetic begging bunch of wimps and lay on the god damn pressure.
You honestly think it is helpful to call those of us on the left who are thinking of voting for Clinton “dopes” and “a pathetic begging bunch of wimps”?
I only mean the ones whining about it.
As it stand now, there’s only the 2 of them with the possibility of being elected. What are you proposing, armed insurrection? If you want to change the party, try it the way the Tea Party took the GOP, by electing state and congressional officials till you overwhelm your opposition. Bernie didn’t try and change the Dems from within, he still isn’t a fucking member!!
I’ll get right on that.
I feel @lava’s frustration. The Bernie campaign built up a lot of steam and it takes a tight lid to keep that steam from letting out, especially in light of the DNC emails leak. As someone whose lid doesn’t seem to fit right some days, I can sympathize. I read his post as an impassioned rally for action louder than votes, with tact prioritized lower than volume.
I’ve got no problem with that. I’m lucky, in that in my state the Sanders supporters have already taken over the party structure, so it is easy for me to see that as the right path.
I think getting these Sanders planks into the official platform and into the Clinton campaign rhetoric is actually a big deal. Even if one believes Clinton will renege on everything come November - which I don’t(*) - it means that a vote for her in November means a vote for these positions (in a way that a write in or nonvote does not). I voted for Obama in part because he promised to close Gitmo; he didn’t keep the promise, but he remained aware that it was a campaign promise, and brought it up regularly. I believe that my vote was not wasted even with respect to this failed promise. If Clinton doesn’t keep these promises, then the time to not vote for her is the 2020 election, since only then can you reasonably punish her for going back on her promises.
(*) because I remember that she was a strong, outspoken progressive before she let the right wing grind her down to pragmatism, and because if one believes that that is irrelevant because she changes opinions with the political winds then one merely has to notice that the political winds are in favor of these party planks.
You are very kind, and generous, because admittedly I am purposely being a bit of a douche bag. I’ll get over it though. It will just take a little while.
