I’d say that they’re already dead. They always had their problems, but the Tea Party opened the defenses and now the far right has cored them out and are wearing them like a meat suit.
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“Carthago delenda est” is snappier, though. Makes a better bumper sticker.
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That’s how it’s entered into popular culture, yes. I’m just being historically accurate here.
sorry that a mild comment that i might possibly consider a 3rd party vote two election cycles away upset you so badly.
I’ve noted that I am obligated to continue voting for candidates who harm me or I will be a terrible person.
In all likelyhood I’ll hold my nose yet again, but as I asked the other poster: how long am I obligated to? When do I “earn” the right to vote as I choose? 2022? 2024? Will it take decades? Please let me know.
Some thoughts on “who are the non-voters”:
By far the largest group of non-voters are those in non-competitive safe districts (the category which covers most of America). Although you could criticise this group for lack of civic enthusiasm, their actions do not substantially affect outcomes. If millions of extra Californians had voted for Clinton in 2016, California would still have sent the same number of electoral college votes, and Trump would still be President. Similar for the millions of non-voting Republicans in secure GOP states/districts.
It is sometimes possible for minority-party non-voters to swing a marginally safe district with a turnout surge, but this effect is hard to sustain and usually provokes a counter-surge in subsequent elections.
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Then we have the actively disenfranchised. Mostly urban, mostly PoC, mostly poor. Who face:
- Multi-hour delays at polling booths, combined with extremely long working hours and no time off.
- Polling booths deliberately located so as to be inaccessible by public transit.
- Police, ICE and vigilante harassment around polling booths.
- Threats of violence as retaliation for voting.
- ID requirements surgically targeted to disadvantage the poor and PoC.
- Etc.
And, even if they overcome these obstacles, they are then faced with the prospect of voting for a Democrat who is frequently grossly corrupt and actively racist/classist.
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Way down the list of non-voting groups are the radical accelerationists and disgruntled Democrats. While these people doubtlessly exist, their contribution to the total is utterly trivial. The degree of vitriol directed at this group represents a serious case of misplaced energy.
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Until there is a viable alternative for the party, in a two party system it will continue to shamble on like a zombie. Which is actually a good metaphor for the current GOP, a zombie moving randomly about groaning “brainssss”, it’s uncanny.
You can count the number of times when one of the two established parties was usurped by a third in US history on one hand. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
That image is a practically perfect metaphor for what has happened to the GOP.
Then again not something that can be changed or enforced as a branding exercise. However, the preamble to the platform generally contains a strong statement of values.
The Democratic Party has always been a “big tent” party, so it will always be difficult to isolate a single set of core values that characterizes it.
Sure they can. In a statement of core values that don’t last just one election cycle:
“Much of America’s strength lies in its being a nation of enthusiastic immigrants. We will continue to support any law that enables this situation.”
The majority of Dems would find nothing controversial or temporarily expedient about the statement (or what it implies about birthright citizenship), but it gives Manchin and others like him far less room to pander to bigots for votes.
If the “big tent” is allowing people inside who urge everyone to simmer down so they can give a fair hearing to the demands of the cross-burners outside it needs to get a little smaller. Strong branding, statements of values intended to apply for decades, is what does that.
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From the platform:
The United States was founded as, and continues to be, a country of immigrants from throughout the world. It is no coincidence that the Statue of Liberty is one of our most profound national symbols. And that is why Democrats believe immigration is not just a problem to be solved, it is a defining aspect of the American character and our shared history.
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Good enough if it’s more than the platform. It doesn’t mention upholding the laws that support it, but if that’s a core value then where is the Dem leadership condemning Manchin as violating it? A brand is nothing if its promises aren’t kept by its owners or leadership.
Suppose there was a successful national restaurant franchise that prided itself on only using only fresh ingredients. Now suppose a local franchisee in WV was caught using frozen ingredients. How long would the franchise executives keep allowing the franchisee to use the brand name, even after he said that “things are different in this state and I do what I can to stay in business”?
Party discipline and leadership: the GOP enshrined its anti-choice position in its last platform statement to the point that it is a core value that they won’t compromise on. Result:
Meanwhile, in the land of the wishy-washy:
Note that the headline does not read “The Near-Extinction of Nativist Democrats in Congress”, and the story mentions a lot more than two lone dissidents in Congress (and not just Latinx or Muslim ones) to the stated core value.
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are you seriously suggesting that clinton 16 would have created more harms for you than what we ended up with? if you are then we really don’t have anything left to discuss. if that was meant as a rhetorical thrust, i agree with you that we haven’t been confronted with many presidential candidates who adequately represented all of my issues. even sanders, had he managed to enormously increase the number of primary votes he got and so won the nomination would still not have been a perfect match for me as i am to the left of him. but clinton, as far as she fell short of my ideal, would still have been a vast improvement over the monstrosity we currently have and so i gladly voted for her. i didn’t have to “hold my nose” because she was by far the better candidate on the november ballot.
we are guaranteed a choice, not a perfect choice and unless the republican party chooses to nominate bernie sanders instead of the incumbent in 2020, i am certainly going to vote for the democrat on the ballot because that is the only candidate who will have a chance of winning who will even approach representing my interests.
i’ve said this before, and i’ll tell you this again–the margin by which the electoral college was swung to the loser of the popular vote in 2016 was so small that the “radical accelerationists and disgruntled democrats” represented a significant and possibly clinching number in those states. misplaced the vitriol may seem to be, i find it too serious to give those people who knew better a pass on their execrable irresponsibility.
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I honestly don’t get what you’re asking for here. Are you suggesting that Tom Perez should be attacking Manchin during an election year?
FWIW, here’s Obama today, stumping for Joe Donnelly:
http://www.staradvertiser.com/2018/11/04/breaking-news/barack-obama-praises-joe-donnelly-says-voters-dont-want-a-yes-man/
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I’m saying that, long before the election, the party leadership should have told Manchin and Donnelly and the others in the TheHill article:
“When we say ‘Democrats believe immigration is not just a problem to be solved, it is a defining aspect of the American character and our shared history’ we damned well mean it. So if you ever talk about considering an end to birthright citizenship or building border walls you can find yourself another party.”
If that means losing WV for a generation, well, the Dem leadership lost the South for more than the generation LBJ predicted when the party made civil rights one of its core values. The Dems didn’t end as a duopoly party, their candidates still got elected (including those like Byrd who stayed and changed their tune), and the country is a better place for that decision.
I understand that right now the Dems, including Obama, are looking at the short-term problem of getting a lot of warm Dem bodies into Congressional seats. I understand why that’s important. What bothers liberals like myself is that the hapless and incompetent and complacent party leadership is always looking at the short-term problem.
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The DNC also had the option of supporting Paula Jean Swearengin in the primary. Instead, they chose to back Manchin.
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But that’s not how the party is organized, leadership has no say in this. State parties can symbolically kick members out of the party, as the New York party did with Simcha Felder this year, but it has no binding force.
Perhaps one could change the rules so that the national party does have this power, but it would be a very different party. For me the bottom-up nature of power in the party is one of its strengths, and if the price is a few people outside the core running under its mantle, so be it. It also allows, for example, a </removed as per BB policy> like Julia Salazar to run as a Democrat out at the other edge.
The DNC supported Manchin in the primary? I hadn’t heard that. DNC Deputy Chair Keith Ellison was on a panel with Swearingen during the primary, which as far as I was aware was the closest the DNC came to backing a primary candidate.
The national GOP doesn’t have any say, either (see the bona fide Nazis even they were ashamed of running in local races). Somehow the leadership has still managed to enforce its core values to the point where they’ve winnowed the number of pro-choice Republicans in Congress down to two (both female incumbents).
They have the power to deny funding and support to candidates who break with core values. But there’s Obama, trying to make a virtue of Donnelly’s nativist position.
That’s where we differ. For me core values are not merely purity tests or ammunition for circular firing squads. They’re standards that apply to the brand across the country. They are the promises that can’t be broken just because someone claims they (supposedly) won’t work in a given market.
I doubt that Salazar or any DSA-approved candidate is seriously at odds with any stated Dem platform plank or core value, certainly not the one about immigration. They’re opposed to the neoliberal-lite positions of the Third Way establishment, but those aren’t proudly stated as core values like they used to be.
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Are you saying this is a good thing or a bad thing? The GOP leadership has decided to abandon all values for the sake of wins on policies, and they have successfully whipped the rank and file into compliance. For me, this is not something to be emulated.
I doubt that Salazar or any DSA-approved candidate is seriously at odds with any stated Dem platform plank or core value, certainly not the one about immigration.
Not with positions, but certainly with fundamental integrity. I would argue that Salazar’s cynical appropriation of outsider status (claiming to be an immigrant and Jewish, when she is neither) is at odds with core Democratic values, not to mention just plain racist.
I’m saying it’s an effective thing, one used successfully for rotten ends in the case of the GOP.
They really haven’t abandoned them. An anti-choice stance is effectively one of the GOP’s core values. The leadership sticks to it publicly (privately is another matter with those hypocrites) because it’s important to the rank-and-file, especially the Know-Nothing base and the Xtianists.
Core values != values of basic decency and fairness for the Republicans. Their core values are things like being anti-choice, pro-corporations, etc. – all the stuff the RNC leadership talks about on a regular basis. Heck, even when it comes to their cheating it’s in line with their stated devotion to winning at all costs.
If that’s one of the Dems’ stated core values (it may be, and should be), I’m fine with them disavowing her. Are you equally fine with them disavowing Manchin for demonstrably violating the core value you posted?
I still don’t know what this can mean, without fundamental changes to the party, changes with which I completely disagree. If by “them” you just mean individuals and groups within the party, then yes, I agree, and of course some established groups within the party have disavowed Manchin. That some incumbent leaders (like Schumer) haven’t I accept as a valid criticism of those leaders…but not the party.
An anti-choice stance is effectively one of the GOP’s core values.
That’s not a value, it is a policy. The value it reflects is that of thinking that women are merely living incubators.
