I totally agree - we should only elect those that we want, and we should even be able to recall or force a resignation when our public servants misbehave. Though my initial point was about the POTUS office, and that’s such a closed club, we’ll never be able to get a true representative of the people (have we ever?) just by the very design of the system that is. Yep, that’s me sounding defeated. Obama was a complete and total disappointment - one of two things happened: 1) he meant all the campaign promises, and then when faced with the pressures of the office he couldn’t overcome the inertia of the wheels of the system and he caved, or 2) he never meant any of it in the first place.
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As long as the rest of the world realizes it’s the president making the orders, not me.
I didn’t vote for him either so you can’t pull the “well you put him in office” card.
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Voter identification laws. Because of the Kafkaesque mess of requirements for correcting different documents, we end up with conflicting documents.
I think the facts that it’s not representative, and it’s structured so as to be unrepresentative, mean it’s not even a flawed representative democracy.
Are you saying that you attempted to vote but were turned away due to conflicting documents? I didn’t even know voter rosters listed sex. What state do you live in?
I do get what you say, but I struggle with the idea that if I don’t like major aspects of Democrat policy, I should vote Democrat to let them know. Not that I get a vote here, but…
Maybe a more nuanced approach. Vote Dem whenever you are trying to unseat a Repub or in a marginal, vote e.g. Green if it’s a safe Democrat seat. Or vote more progressively at grass roots levels and work up.
Of course, if you want a non-interventionist foreign policy, you’d have to find a way to get a Ron Paul to win.
And obviously, affecting political change requires more than putting an x on a piece of paper once every 2/4/5 years.
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[quote=“Cowicide, post:13, topic:8711”]
If you didn’t vote at all or threw away your vote on someone you knew couldn’t win, it’s one in the same.[/quote]
Voting Democrat has never accomplished me much of anything. Voted dem in '08 and it was irrelevant because my state swung Democrat by such a large margin that I could have voted for Emperor Norton I a few hundred times and that no one would have noticed the unprecedented level of voting fraud it would have entailed. '10, I was pretty much the only one voting dem in my state and the tea party took over. Woo-hoo. Further down the shithole. In '12, I voted dem and my state stayed firmly in the tea party camp.
Voter turnout for the U.S. is higher than I would have expected so even if you got everyone on your train, it likely wouldn’t have the profound effect you’re looking for in terms of party control.
And as an actual socialist who laughs mockingly at those who call President Obama a socialist, I’ve got to say the Democrat position is only marginally different than the Republican position. If I’ve got to take one or the other, yeah, I’ll take the one with abortion rights, school funding, a slightly less horrible SCOTUS, and slightly more health care. This idealistic reformist platform is only going to mean so much so long as companies can buy senators in 24 packs and they’re giving away representatives for a pittance.
I vote. I’m not likely to stop. It’s a bad habit. Won’t give me cancer like smoking or cirrhosis like excessive drinking but it’s soma at best. Does it mean we stop trying to vote? For most of us, probably not and there’s always the outside chance it’ll do something. But we’ve got to stop thinking voting is the solution. It’s a lottery where the rich guys always win.
Obama won in '08 with some of the largest margins in a presidential election in my life time and swung hard right. It wasn’t lackluster support from folks who vote Democrat. Taking a principled stand energizes your base and gets you lots of enthusiasm. Pandering to the mystical center doesn’t win you votes. Trying to get the mystical center to be more engaged in voting won’t boost the dems by much more than it boosts the GOP.
Am I a defeatest? Absolutely not. I believe we can have socialism in my lifetime and I believe we can have it without civil war. I think we’re going to have to build that socialism on a direct and local level though I’m open to other workable suggestions to pair it with. Join me, comrade. Join me in my glorious struggle to help Americans feed, house, educate, etc. themselves outside the oppressive structures of capitalism.
Somehow I expect most big time voting advocates would rather I was defeatest. 
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Voting Democrat has never accomplished me much of anything.
I think everyone who didn’t lose their job would beg to differ.
it was irrelevant because my state swung Democrat by such a large margin that I could have voted for Emperor Norton I a few hundred times and that no one would have noticed
I’ll tell you who noticed was the candidates. Democrats tend to go further left when they get more support and go further right when they don’t.
And as an actual socialist who laughs mockingly at those who call President Obama a socialist, I’ve got to say the Democrat position is only marginally different than the Republican position.
That’s completely untrue. On many issues, as a whole, the Democrats are very different than Republicans. You really need to look at the majority of their votes and actions instead of relying on anecdotal evidence.
Seriously, educate yourself: Vote Smart - Facts For All
They’re not even close.
Embracing false equivalence only further empowers the corporatists and they sure LOVE it when you do that. There’s good Democrats and, by far, a lot more “lesser evil” Democrats than Republicans if you look at their actual voting records and actions.
For example, 60 percent of Democratic Representatives voted against the Iraq Resolution while less than 3 percent of Republican Representatives voted against it. For some reason the media rarely focuses on how much dissent there was from Democrats. I wonder why?
When the Iraq Resolution was “up for discussion” it would have clearly been voted down (see percentage above) if more “lesser evil” Democrats were in office. But, there was a dire lack of lesser evil and greater evil prevailed. We’ve lost countess people worldwide and in the USA and multi-trillions of our precious treasure to the Iraq War based upon LIES. Sometimes less is more, no?
The recent NSA scandal had a vote that failed to neuter it. Guess who voted in greater numbers to stop it? The Democrats. For some reason the media rarely focuses on how much dissent there was from Democrats. I wonder why?
I’ll tell you why, because false equivalence falls right into the hands of those who want to enslave you. It keeps our country ping-ponging back and forth between lesser evil and greater evil without making the slow progress we’d have by now if we’d consistently voted in lesser evil.
I vote. I’m not likely to stop. It’s a bad habit. Won’t give me cancer like smoking or cirrhosis like excessive drinking but it’s soma at best. Does it mean we stop trying to vote? For most of us, probably not and there’s always the outside chance it’ll do something. But we’ve got to stop thinking voting is the solution. It’s a lottery where the rich guys always win.
Agreed, but one winner of that lottery is very actively trying to thwart average Americans (especially if they have some darker color on their skin) from voting. How are you going to vote in a socialist down the road if we keep on the same path where we keep ping-ponging and keep pushing representatives towards the right?
Obama won in '08 with some of the largest margins in a presidential election in my life time and swung hard right. It wasn’t lackluster support from folks who vote Democrat.
It was incredibly lackluster and I said it even before that fucker won. The American people put in Obama, but didn’t bother to truly support him by voting locally to thwart the Republican fillibuster. That would have been true support.
We got to this devastating point in the United States from two vastly, greater evil Bush administrations (
seriously look at this link) with a greater evil conservative, rubber stamp congress in tow. This didn’t magically happen with Obama. It’s the cumulative effect of allowing greater evil into office for a decade beforehand.
This travesty didn’t start with Clinton and we sure as hell wouldn’t be here now if Americans hadn’t sat on their hands and put Bush into office instead of Gore by making it a close race that was easy to steal.
How about telling me how horrible consistently voting in a lesser evil over decades is after we’ve actually tried it?
Take a long, hard look at this chart:
Ever play ping-pong? You know, where the ball goes back and forth, back and forth? Poor ball never seems to get anywhere, does it? That’s the result of false equivalence in action.
Here’s another chart:
Look, I tried to stop the Bush administration in the first place before it ever got to this point. It sure was a lonely, fucking place because I was surrounded by people who didn’t see the difference between Bush and Gore (because they didn’t bother to look and embraced false equivalency instead).
Somehow I expect most big time voting advocates would rather I was defeatest.
The fact that you vote in the first place is a strong indicator you’re no defeatist. I also throughly agree with you that voting in itself is just one aspect of what Americans need to do.
I believe we can have socialism in my lifetime and I believe we can have it without civil war.
Maybe some form of it, but I have to admit I’m skeptical it’s going to happen in our lifetime. Ironically, the fact that so many don’t support the very people you think are the same as Republicans is why I’m skeptical. How are you going to vote for socialists when greater evil clamps down on voting itself?
I can’t say I support pure socialism… For one, because there’s so many different interpretations of it and vastly different implementations. But, I’d definitely love to see more of a hybrid of some forms of it with capitalism and a well-regulated militia free market.
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Of course, if you want a non-interventionist foreign policy, you’d have to find a way to get a Ron Paul to win.
I don’t think Ron Paul has any hope. He has said too many nutty things too often to be taken seriously by the majority of independents and democrats. It’s a shame, really.
Maybe a more nuanced approach. Vote Dem whenever you are trying to unseat a Repub or in a marginal, vote e.g. Green if it’s a safe Democrat seat. Or vote more progressively at grass roots levels and work up.
I think that’s a very good idea. It only perturbs me when a lesser evil outright loses (or has a close race) and it shifts representatives to the right.
Obama was a complete and total disappointment
He’s done some good things (or has at least tried) and that shouldn’t be ignored. Even GW Bush had some redeeming qualities despite the overall horrific effects of this rule.
I think the facts that it’s not representative, and it’s structured so as to be unrepresentative, mean it’s not even a flawed representative democracy.
I definitely would agree it’s not representative enough, but in reality there truly is some limited representation and that’s vital.
Trust me, if there was zero representation we’d be in a living hell right now beyond your imagination. I’ve known some Fortune 500 business leaders personally and if it wasn’t for our representative government that keeps some of these absolutely sociopathic bastards at bay, shit like soylent green would be on grocery store shelves right now.
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True enough. The facts behind that point make it relevant in how We could move in future elections…
It well occurred to me with the now-famous “Hope” poster Shepard Fairey created that no President should run on such a slogan. Why imply voting for a candidate that he/she can offer just hope?
‘We the people’ don’t control what country we’re born in, nor what system of government we get to work with.
The country I’m in (that country being the United States) has an extremely flawed system. This includes such gems as. . .
- Deceiving the public on a matter of public policy is considered acceptable, despite public citizens being held to a higher standard.
- Our laws don’t have a purpose written into them, they don’t say ‘There’s the problem, here’s what we tried so far, here’s how it worked out, here’s the latest revision’ They’re soulless rules.
- It is so difficult to remove a politician from office that what they say before an election and what they do can often be two completely different things
- The primary process for major office is controlled by a small number of states, the rest of us don’t have much of a choice as to who we get to vote between
- Our ‘news’ has become ‘entertainment’, dumbing people down and requiring a tremendous amount of analysis to become competent on an issue
- We have no real control over how our money is spent (give some sliders and buckets to put the money in and watch how things change)
And that’s just off the top of my head in less than a minute.
We can and SHOULD blame the guy in charge for his actions, period. Our leaders should be held to higher standards, not lower ones.
We’d be better off with random toddlers seriously, that’s how bad it is.
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The idea that your base threatening to not vote for you, especially in secure states, is going to suddenly make the Democrats go right is crazy
Agreed… but, that’s ABSOLUTELY not what I’ve been saying. Please go back and read what I said and duly note that I clearly stated this is going to take (literally) DECADES.
Please don’t be intellectually dishonest with me in the future like this. You’re just going to piss me off and make yourself look like you have an utter lack of reading comprehension and/or are being purposefully obtuse with me.
Sorry, this isn’t a video game, son. It’s trying to build a representative democracy in a vast nation. Nothing “suddenly” is going to happen no matter what we do, but what we’ve been doing by embracing false equivalency is spinning our wheels.
Also, please note… if you’d like me to treat you with respect, then I suggest in the future you try being less disrespectful and knock off the condescending, rude demeanor you approached me with in this thread. Misconstruing and exaggerating my positions while implying I’m an “idiot” will guarantee you a jack-slap. Thanks for understanding.
You sent the signal loud and clear that you are an idiot party line voter
Thanks for calling me an idiot.
Sorry, I don’t think I’m an idiot (nor is anyone else) for pushing for a long-term strategy that will actually work over time. Especailly when the infantile alternative is whining that it’s all unfair and spinning your fucking wheels.
What we’ve already done hasn’t worked, son. How about whining about the failure of voting in consistently and consecutively a lesser evil once we’ve actaully tried it?
We have NEVER done this in modern history. This is reality:
Ever play ping-pong, son?
Were you asleep or something when we got to watch the former governor of Massachusetts, a boring moderate who signed into law the model for Obamacare suddenly decide that he was “severely conservative” and almost lose to that shit smear, Santorum?
No, I wasn’t a sleeping idiot, thanks. But, apparently you were wide awake, congrats. In the meantime you go on to contradict yourself here:
“… The Republican base was threatened on their right flank by the Tea Party. The Tea Party was a credible right wing flank. Did Republicans respond by saying “fuck it” and running more to the left to snatch up more middle? Hell no! They ran screaming to the right to try and get their base back.”
You just proved my point that when the base pushes, the representatives usually respond. The public pushed the Republican party to the right and they moved to the right. When the public pushes the Democrats to the left, it’s not at the same rate or consistency, but it does happen. Life is complex, sorry.
When you push to the right in public, you’re doing what the richest Americans who own the media truly want you to do (overall). If you push too far to the right that it even makes the rich uncomfortable, the media will deride you verbally but that’s about it. However, when you publicly push to the left, you can expect some batons cracking against your skull and possibly some tear gas. (I’ve been there, no fun)
Let’s face it, it actually takes fucking guts to push the establishment to the left and it very often requires civil disobedience for the mainstream media to usually even just bother to cover it. You can gather five tea baggers in a park and it’ll garner far more mainstream media coverage than 5,000 left-wing protestors of wars, income disparity, etc.
That’s reality. And, it’s time to cope with it, deal with it and overcome it. Using false equivalency and discounting the fact that some (not all) Democrats will move to the left (in varying amounts) if there’s enough pressure doesn’t help the situation.
While it’s certainly more difficult and takes GUTS to push the establishment to the left, that’s not a reason to tuck tail and give up unless you’re a bloody coward. And, it’s sure as hell no reason to throw away your vote on a candidate that can’t win in a cowardly “protest vote” that ends up ushering in greater evil and solves nothing.
If Democratic candidates believe that, they are fucking stupid. –
Your vote only “counts” in less than a dozen states. If you live in a “doesn’t count” state, are a lefty, and voted for Obama even though you think he sucks, you are a moron who threw away a vote. You couldn’t have wasted your vote more efficiently if you tried. You sent the signal loud and clear that you are an idiot party line voter who will put your hand in a buzz saw before you do anything other than mechanically put a check next to ever D you see. You are worthy of absolutely no attention because the only thing they need to do to get your vote is be a Democrat.
You’re regrettably falling into the same trap I’ve already spelled out. You’re using short-term thinking for a long-term problem.
Whether Democratic candidates are “fucking stupid” or not is beside the point. The reality is many of these “fucking stupid” Democrats currently and undeniably have the power and shift more to the right when they don’t get a lot of support. Your little protest vote means very little to the establishment except to establish that you’re a fringe element and don’t matter anyway.
In our current reality, if you don’t have corporate money, radio and television media ( extremely important) on your side, you simply can’t reach enough Americans to radically sway the public away from the “status quo” no matter how many fancy progressive blogs cover you. This same power has nearly killed organized labor, demonized all forms of socialism and convinced many Americans their true enemy is immigrants (not to mention war with eurasia).
Why? How? Because the corporatist right has many more advantages over the social left. This is reality. To ignore this power when strategizing for the future is foolhardy.
ADVANTAGES OF THE CORPORATIST RIGHT:
• Far more retired elderly at home exposed to corporate TV media and radio that influences them to vote conservatively. (This affects other points below as well)
• People who commute further distances than those who live in (or near) cities are heavily exposed to and influenced by right-wing radio in their automobiles. Furthermore, the electoral system leans in the favor of these more rural dwellers who are heavily inundated with corporatist propaganda.
• Corporations are vastly more likely to fund anti-regulation, conservative agendas. The most you can hope for is something like MSNBC that leans socially left, but is (overall) conservatively pro-corporatist. The rich support conservative media (even when they run at a loss) because they understand the long-term profits of influence.
• More people still get their “news” from the corporate TV media than online alternative media sources (source). Also, many get their online “news” from corporate media that’s simply moved online. This influences these people towards a pro-corporatist agenda.
• Many moderates and left-leaning people work more than many people do on the right (for various reasons). This gives them less time than those on the right to dedicate themselves towards getting involved in national and local politics, voting, etc. in general. On the flip-side, this also exposes more on the right who work less to more corporate TV media and radio.
• The rich are far more likely to support Republicans, even though they’re not more likely to be socially conservative. That confuses people who don’t understand the difference. Most of the rich hold their noses and vote Republican (and give them money) because it supports their corporatist conservatism. In other words, they prioritize the profit they gain by not paying for externalities (pollution they create, public health care, public education, etc.) over socially liberal agendas they may agree with (gay rights, women’s rights, anti-censorship of sex/violence, etc.).
• It’s much easier to organize and get media attention when you have money and influence over sheep people who have too much time on their hands, too little education and too little critical thinking skills. On the other hand, trying to organize moderates and people on the left is like herding cats.
• They can and do use their control of mainstream media to use fear to suck money and massive power away from average Americans to support their monstrously corrupt and extremely profitable military-industrial complex. There has never been anything with this much vast power in human history. They can spy on many average Americans communications to thwart everything from business to activism. This kind of power is vast and undeniable.
• They have the money, power to lobby (bribe) and influence candidates to basically only fear being voted out of office and little more than that. Your little third party candidate doesn’t have the bribe money to stand up to this and many politicians and top advisors, etc. simply go into profitable business with the same corporatists they “legislated” after leaving office (and vice versa).
• They have vast money, power, connections and media resources to spread their chosen campaign over the airwaves. How many third party TV commmericals did you or any other Americans see in the last 20 elections compared to Democrats and Republicans? Exactly.
… And this list just scratches the surface of the power they have over third parties.
So… in this currently reality, what does your underfunded, true left (or true moderate), third party dream candidate have against that? Little or nothing because most Americans are’nt going to get exposed to their ideas or will only get a distorted, filtered view of them via mainstream, corporate media.
That’s our current reality. This is what we cope with and overcome. This is why there are only long-term strategies that will actually work against this vast, entrenched power.
If you don’t face the reality of our current, entrenched power structure… you’ll be doomed to keep spinning your angry wheels with lots of squealing and smoke, but no traction.
If on the other hand you voted for the Green, or even Libertarian, you would be signalling to Democrats that they can’t run screaming to the right in all things because their left flank does in fact have an end.
Comparing the left-wing Green party to Libertarians (much more many of whom are corporatist sympathizers and worse) is ridiculous, but that needs its own thread and is off-topic. If you are a Libertarian and DO want to espouse the virtues of Libertarians, you need to start a new thread. I’m sure the moderator will graciously enforce this.
But, anyway, more on-topic… one thing they both have in common is that when you vote for them all you show to the establishment is that you’re on the fringe and don’t matter. Although the establishment is going to give certain anti-regulation Libertarians far more credence because they lean towards their corporatist agendas, they are often just used as pawns. But, like most Greens, many Libertarians don’t support very profitable foreign-interventialism and they are mostly sidelined into obscurity because of it. Hence we ping-pong and greater evil prevails in keeping average Americans down.
Please observe my “ADVANTAGES OF THE CORPORATIST RIGHT” list above if you still don’t get why and how.
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Now, onto valid soutions that will actually work. (see part one above for pretext)
Some of the only disadvantages the corporatist rich have is sloth, corruption, hubris and greed against average Americans. And, in their sloth, corruption, hubris and greed they get caught in their many half-truths and lies. But, don’t expect the media they own to report much on this.
These corporatist transgressions are only going to be heavily reported on by left-wing and moderate blogs, alternative online news and places like Boing Boing who (no offense) are just a drop-in-the-bucket compared to the reach and influence of mainstream, corporate media (with mainstream television, print and online vehicles combined). Once again, see my corporatist power list in my previous post above if you question this.
While online media and the sharing of information between average citizens has exploded in recent years, we’re still paying the price for past transgressions of voting in the greater evil (please don’t ignore that link) instead of consistently and consecutively voting in lesser evil in the past.
That’s why in the short-term we’re basically screwed and the only hope we have is to continuously educate one another online (as the internet continues to progressively encroach upon television media saturation), get civically involved, practive civil disobedience/whistleblowing and vote in the lesser evil locally and nationally consistently for decades.
You may see this as bleak and “unsexy”, but I see this as reality and cope with it. I’d rather do the smart thing in the long term and see our world get better when I’m old and grey than strut around now screaming that Democrats are “fucking stupid” and spin my wheels to my grave.
All we can do is slowly (but persistently) push the establishment over the long-term into a better direction instead of a progressively worse direction as we’ve already done by:
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Thinking in the short-term.
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Not voting or throwing away votes locally and nationally.
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Ping-ponging back and forth leading to stagnation.
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General apathy and not getting involved en masse in direct actions.
Pushing the lesser evil establishment that’s already in entrenched power (please face that reality) is the only way we’ll ever see a crack in the door in the long-term for a more honorable (more representative of average Americans) third-party that has a chance in hell of unseating them.
Allowing in greater evil Republicans and pushing Democrats further to the right by not supporting them is shooting yourself in the foot and nothing more. The establishment isn’t afraid of you and your relatively small cadre of Greens and Libertarians. They fear average Americans at large educating one another online (and in the streets) and persistently and consecutively (finally!) voting in the lesser evil locally and nationally for decades.
Once the Democrats get to a point where they cannot blame Republican fillibusters and obstruction for their actions and inactions, we’ll be in a much better position to force them to change or remove them for a third party. Until we as Americans put Democrats in that actual position, many are just living in a pipe dream by voting for third party candidates.
Granted, this is not to say that one shouldn’t support third parties with time and money (if they have it to spare in this economy). And, it’s not to say that one shouldn’t take action in many other ways as well. But, just voting for a third party in hopes that the establishment will notice (or care) hasn’t worked in the past and won’t work now until far more groundwork is laid down for decades.
Right now, after two consecutive, greater evil Bush administrations with a greater evil rubber stamp congress… we’re still in nothing more than massive damage control. After that utter disaster and complete failure of the American public to do anything about it, we’re lucky to have even someone as shitty as Obama in office. It’s that BAD and it’s because we screwed up that BAD.
It’s time to learn from past mistakes. Many of those of us reading Boing Boing right now are getting far more nuanced information from the Internet than many average Americans. We are not in the majority right now but we’re growing. Don’t hinder that slow progress with hasty short-term thinking and frustration. This struggle is going to take decades of perseverance. If you don’t have the fortitude, patience and critical, strategic thinking for this kind of long-term battle, then we don’t have much more to discuss here and just need to agree to disagree.
Disclaimer: I have never said that voting in itself that is all that is needed. But, to dismiss voting entirely is to dismiss the reality of its proven power. If voting wasn’t important, then corporatists wouldn’t spend so much time and effort attempting to thwart it. Voting is a vital element despite the lack of proper representation. As a matter of fact we got to this point of even lower representation because not enough Americans have been voting. Vote locally, nationally and consistently. At least try it. We NEVER have in modern, American history.
The Democrat establishment is in no danger if a Massachusetts resident votes third party during the election. I went through that entire wall of words, and maybe I missed it, but I failed to see how any of that applies to a “doesn’t count” state voter. If your only contribution politically is voting and some general internet slacktivism (petition signing, slapping fights on reddit/boingboing, Facebook/twitter posts, etc), the most useful thing you can do with your vote is apply pressure. There is literally zero pressure for a Democrat in Massachusetts after primaries are done with. A Democrat can safely ignore the state because if they lose it, they also lost 48 other states.
You have two options once the primaries are done. Toss your vote into the big pile that no one is going to bother counting, or apply pressure from the flank. The only way to apply pressure to the flank is to show that you have limits. The only way to express that you have limits and yet are still engaged is to give your vote to someone else. Like I said, if Obama had won Massachusetts 42%, 38%, 20%, the Democrats would be engaged in full on panic mode. They would suddenly care a whole hell of a lot more what their left flank has to say. Instead, we have a president who has just carried on and expanded Bush terrorism policy and doesn’t seem to have much worry about his base abandoning him. We have a president who finally managed to choke out some nice words about gay people after holding a politically awkward position on gay marriage for years… and then promptly did nothing to repeal DOMA (which is still partially in effect…). We are about to go to war again in the Middle East. Other than some worthless lip service which is almost word for word the worthless lip service he gave when he was first elected, the drug war is still being waged with gusto against the poor. He fought against teen access to birth control despite non-partisan government agencies telling him there was no reason for it.
Those are the actions of a guy who doesn’t give two shits what his base thinks because he thinks they are going to mindlessly vote party line no matter what he does. I seriously am out of ideas as to how Obama could violate his base more without simply switching parties.
If you are in Florida, sure, vote Democrat. Your vote actually counts, Democrats care how you cast it, and your protest voting could actually cause damage. If you are in some state like Massachusetts, though? Don’t waste your vote. Prove that you can’t be taken entirely for granted as Obama has merrily done. Scare them a little. Show them that there are limits. If Obama had won Massachusetts 42%, 38%, 20%, it would have been a top news story. Democrats would have been gnashing their teeth in anxiety for the next election. They would be actively looking for places where they could turn left instead of chasing the Republicans off to the right and over a cliff.
Personally, I think this is all moot. I think Democrats are going to get slaughtered in 2016 unless the Republicans put on a truly epic shit show because they have already violated their base so completely. I think they have gone too far, and that enough of the base is going to be so demoralized that the Republicans (baring a Santorum style shit show) are going to win. It doesn’t take much. You don’t need to demoralize half the base. With elections in the states that actually matter being as close as they are, convincing just 10% of your base that you are no better than the other guy is enough to lose the election. That is not even taking into account the fact that a demoralized base is one that doesn’t help your organize, work the phones, or give you money. I have an amazingly hard time imagining a Democratic candidate energizing the full base to vote after Obama. That goes double and triple if Hillary, someone who had a (perceived) strong hand in Obama’s policy after acting like a Republican, is selected during the primaries to serve Bush’s fifth term. I hope I am wrong because I personally realize it could in fact be worse, but I think that the Obama has done so much damage to the heart and soul of the Democrats that in 2016, short of the Republicans putting forward some nut from the American Taliban wing of the party, it is over except for the crying.
In a two party electoral system with close battle ground state elections, you respect your base, or you burn.
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Exactly.
Does anybody think this is getting us good results?
Why are we taking it so seriously? I’m pretty sure the founding fathers didn’t want us to be amazingly stupid. We can try to have our revolution without playing the strengths of the people that keep making bad decisions
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We can try to have our revolution without playing the strengths of the people that keep making bad decisions
Sure, down the road once the current, massively entrenched system is disabled. Please see my list above called Advantages Of The Corporatist Right.
Don’t get me wrong, I think @Rindan, you and myself probably want the same basic, good things. We just don’t agree on how to realistically get there.
I’ve lived in D.C. and dealt directly with politicians and I’ve seen the frustration firsthand when they try to do the right thing and the American public sits on their ingrate hands and think their government is on auto-pilot.
I’ve also seen how the power structure entrenches itself and there’s no way in hell they’ll give it all up quickly and easily. Not to alarm you, but some of them would literally kill you if you could. You’re talking about the same people that melt the skin off of their enemies to get what they want. These people who push these policies for financial gain really do exist in America. I even know some of their exact addresses.
One thing’s for sure, any method is going to take decades because we are so far backwards today. Anyone saying anything else needs to share their drugs with me. And, as you probably know, trying some kind of ridiculous, violent overthrow against the most corrupt, vast military-industrial complex the world has ever seen would be laughable.
I truly understand the angst and desire to shun the entire corrupt system. But, that’s the thing. Not everyone is corrupt in D.C. Some are really trying, but they aren’t getting support. Instead they fall victim to false equivalency based upon public ignorance. They end up either leaving politics or moving to the darkside (further right) where the money and support is. It’s a crying shame and public ignorance and false equivalence is to blame.
I’m not so much about shunning it is throwing every tool on the table and seeing how best to game the system.
I don’t see our form of democracy as terribly viable, a drunk friend accidentally came up with a reversable proxy-by-authority system that would work orders of magnitude better, but I’m really about using the scientific method (yes, evidence based policy, why not?) on top of several experiments to see which one people like the best.
Why not?
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