The ‘Dem base’ already know what the ‘Dem party’ is really like because Democratic politicians have demonstrated their interests for decades now.
Not really. If that was the case, about 60% of likely Democratic voters wouldn’t say that they’d vote for Hillary Clinton right now.
You characterize voters as being fickle for not participating in the 2010 mid-term elections
It’s not that simple. (Also, I’ve been referring to the 2014 midterms, not just 2010)
I’ve characterized many voters as being fickle for a lot of reasons in these threads over the years. One of which is a lack of focus on long-term strategies and instead hastily expecting short term results within every other election/administration. By its very nature, many lasting progressive changes will always be a slow process (we’re talking decades) in the face of huge status quo obstacles that inherently try to prevent them.
Destruction of the vulnerable (middle and lower class citizens, for example) is relatively quick and easy to do (as are espousing platitudes without action). However, building real things that better the lives of others often takes time, fortitude and persistence.
Another issue is the fact that a lot of progressive voters tend to be independent thinkers (or at least fancy themselves as such) and organizing non-activist progressives is like herding cats compared to conservative voters which are more easily influenced with manufactured consent, etc.
There’s a large amount of other factors I’ve listed in these threads before. There’s a list called “Advantages of the Corporatist Right” within a post located here, for example.
there is a simpler and less tortured explanation: many voters who might have supported the Democratic Party but did not judged their candidates on the basis of past performance.
I apologize, but I’d like you to reword that or explain it in more detail for me. I’m not following your course of logic there. I already mentioned that disillusionment would be a practical factor for the lowest midterm voter turnout in 70 years.
Maybe we should finally put an end to this idea that giving our time, effort, and money to a thoroughly corrupt system will eventually pay dividends. That is wishful thinking at its worst.Wishful thinking?
Progressive activists like myself have had quantifiable results within this corrupt system (I’ll go into just one of many examples down below).
Because of human nature, there are no large, non-corrupt human institutions and there never will be until humans evolve as a species. In the meantime, within our current reality, there’s work to be done to better the lives of others (and save them) the best we can despite our current human condition.
If your mission is to change our corrupt system to something more progressive and you’re getting quantifiable, real-world results already – I would like you to share that mission with me and I may very likely join you and perhaps arrange to send you and/or your organization some serious money your way. Just hit me up with a personal message and an email address (preferably relatively secure).
If you don’t have a PM with info at the ready and you’re not sincerely ready for action, that’s ok… We’re working on other agendas and getting results already.
In the meantime, the power of a voting populace enabled many of us here in Colorado to improve and save the lives of citizens (including children) and set a precedent within the most powerful nation in the world for the rest of the world to follow. And, not a single shot was exchanged in the political process.
Others and myself fought long and hard in Colorado to improve the human condition and the only way it was possible was with the vital assistance and the awesome power of a voting Colorado public AND the power of an American voting public.
Despite how amazingly shitty Obama and other Democrats have been, our goals wouldn’t have happened at all with a Republican Governor, Republican President and other more local Republicans in power.
Why do we know this?
Because we’re activists on the front lines dealing with government oppression very directly, not those spouting platitudes from their ivory towers.
We did this with the help of Colorado voters who enabled others and myself to stand up against powerful police unions and pharmaceutical corporations who give the most lobbying dollars to our politicians:
Top Industries for lobbying:
On top of that, we also stood up to a complicit corporate media along with the world’s most powerful prison-industrial complex among many other vastly powerful foes within this nation and other global corporatist interests.
With the power of voting along with a hell of a lot of various activism emboldened by voting, we are one of the first places in the world in modern history to legalize marijuana outside of Amsterdam and we’ve got Amsterdam beat in several ways as well to boot (aside from the fact that we have more influence on the rest of the world):
5 Reasons Denver Is Now More Weed-Friendly Than Amsterdam
How marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington is making the world a better place
Because of our ability to vote and fight against the forces that induce voter apathy (and worse), we were able to save these kid’s lives (see video below). As a matter of fact, there are families who have moved here and are continuing to move to Colorado as a safe haven to get the medicine their children need. During the struggle, some kids have tragically died, but we’re now saving as many lives as we can despite all the forces against us that I mentioned above:
The surprising story of medical marijuana and pediatric epilepsy
We’re also now very close to freeing people from prisons along with expunging the criminal records of non-violent marijuana offenders here in this state and have influenced other states in this nation as well. We’re also influencing the rest of the world to change their draconian drug policies.
That’s much better than influencing the world to torture their citizens, as many conservative agendas within the United States have managed to do. Torture is yet another corporatist, conservative agenda that’s been drastically empowered via the lasting effects of voter suppression and voter apathy.
Again, without the awesome power of a voting public, we’d never be able to achieve these human rights against such powerful foes down the road.
We don’t take up arms against the world’s most powerful country with the world’s most powerful military-industrial complex and lose. We’re slowly taking over this motherfucker, but we can’t do that with voter suppression. We can’t. We simply can’t.
I wonder if people like Russell Brand would like to comment some beautiful platitudes on how non-revolutionary and useless our utilization of voting rights was in this case with marijuana legalization?
And, if he were to ask… YES, voting for politicians enabled this to happen in the first place despite their various issues with the war on drugs.
And, YES, we may be going backwards because voter apathy upsurged in these midterm elections. If more people had voted we’d be in a much better position today to continue our progress much faster - and save more lives.
It also now turns out we’ve inspired other states within this vast nation to get out, vote and improve their human rights within their part of the United States as well. And, it will spread to the rest of the world, because that how my compatriots do things. That’s how we fucking roll.
We’re just trying to make the world a better place…
And this is just one example of many where we did it and were enabled and empowered by people… VOTING.
“The blessed work of helping the world forward happily does not wait to be done by perfect men.”
