Still Not Getting It

Okay, so I was over at Shakespeare's Sister the other day, reading this post about the Supreme Court, and how important it is to not let it slide further to the right.  I'm nodding my head in agreement, reading the comments thread, and then I hit this comment:

ANYONE who thinks there is no difference between the parties,

ANYONE who is tempted to waste your vote an a green candidate as a matter of principal [sic],

ANYONE who thinks Ron Paul makes sense and might be a better choice than an "establishment" candidate of wither [sic] party,. . . . .

. . . remember those three words.  [The Supreme Court]

And I just lost it.  (Obscenity-laden response below the fold.)

What I wrote was this:

WHAT the HELL.

It's MY damn vote and I'll "waste" it however the hell I want. Neither the Democrats, nor the Libertarians, nor the Republicans, nor the Greens - and certainly not YOU - owns my vote, and I'm fucking sick of this arrogant entitlement and smug assumption that you know more about my principles and interests than I do.

It's MY vote, and I'll deploy it however the fuck I want.  Just because I don't vote the way that you might wish doesn't mean I'm stupid. It means that politics to me is more than just blindly checking the box next to a D just because it stands for "Democrat."

In fact, your "pragmatism" in voting for "electable" candidates who put "pragmatism" over principle is a large part of why we're in this fucking mess in the first place. By your logic, a candidate who's okay with torture and law-breaking but who might win is better than one who has - gasp - principles and a respect for the rule of law, but isn't a media darling.

Fuck your entitlement, fuck your "practical" tactics, and fuck YOU.

I was, obviously, rather angry.

And I would just leave it at that, except that it has become fodder for yet another round of "the pragmatists" versus "the purists."  (Thanks to The CultureGhost, who I know wasn't anticipating that.  It happens...)

I am so fucking sick of this reading of it, and the way that it is  always, always, always directed at people whom the Democrats think have no other "real" options but to vote for them.

I dislike the Republican Party intensely, but there are two things they do that I respect.  First, they take their base seriously, including the far-right loony fringe.  They know who puts them in office, and they know how to throw them a few bones now and then.  Second, someone who doesn't vote for them is not considered a traitor to the party, a purist, an idealist, or a fool.  Someone who doesn't vote for a Republican candidate is, simply, someone who didn't vote for the Republican candidate.

What's especially galling about Democratic purists - yep, I used that word, because it is, in fact, a better label than the "pragmatist" label they'd like to apply to themselves - is that they offer these same courtesies - to voters on the right.  If a Republican voter votes for a Republican candidate, it's not a big deal.  If a bunch of conservative people wave the religion flag, the Democrats jostle each other to see who will follow it with the most Bible-thumping, or start concern-trolling about how Democrats need to be more religious if they don't want to lose those votes.  If some independent decides not to vote for the Democratic candidate, they shrug and move on, and try harder next election to win him or her over. 

But if an atheist progressive decides that he can't stomach the Democrats' religious posturing, or a gay voter wonders if this might be another year of mealy-mouthing about marriage, or a pacifist is dismayed by repeated Democratic funding of Bush's war, or a religious liberal gets sick of Democrats' unwillingness to challenge torture, or if a Green voter decides to vote for a Green candidate -- whoa, nelly, we can't have that!  It's not practical.  It's too idealistic.  Worse, it's a wasted vote.  And worse yet, it's the reason Bush is in office.

No, it's not.

• Bush is in office because he and his party won sufficient votes to make his "win" feasible.  The election shouldn't even have been that close - the 3-5% won by Nader is far less than the percentage of people who didn't even vote, the centrists who decided to vote for Bush, the people who mis-punched their ballots, the absentee ballots that didn't get counted, and so on.  (So why Naderites?  Because of Democratic arrogance and sense of entitlement.)
• Bush is in office because generations of Republicans figured out how to get their supporters to the polls.
• Bush is in office because the GOP knows how to stick together.
• Bush is in office because the neo-conservatives have put tons of money into think tanks, media-schmoozing, and feeder programs designed to encourage young people to become Republicans.
• Bush is in office because the Republicans have put party loyalties above everything else.

and, finally,

• Bush is in office because the Republicans don't waste their time whining about how Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan and their supporters cost them votes, nor do they berate Reform Party members in comments threads for being "traitors" who "wasted" their votes; they go out and figure out how to get those voters to vote for them instead.

There are a LOT of factors behind the success of the Republicans and the mess they have made of the country - including the passivity - or even active cooperation - of Democrats like Lieberman and Feinstein.

And yet, somehow, it's alllllllllllll the fault of the Greens.

Who didn't line up, like good little drones, and vote for Democrats.

(And nevermind that Greens and Naderites are not identical sets.  Many Greens didn't vote for Nader.  Many Naderites were not Greens; indeed, many of them had never voted in any election, period, before punching the ballot for Ralph.)

Which is more "pragmatic" - looking to the long term and trying to change the way politics is done in this country, thinking hard about both short-term and long-term goals, focusing on local elections as a way for your party to gain experience and influence, taking your values and principles into account when choosing the people who will fight for you and represent you before the world...

Or voting for someone just because the media said "this is the one," the GOP launched attack ads, and there was a "D" after that person's name?

Which is more "purist" - looking for options and new approaches to replace the ones that aren't working, thinking long term and trying to change how politics work in this country, forming alliances when it makes sense and standing one's ground when things like human rights, the rule of law, and the Constitution are too important to concede...

Or insisting that the only "real" option is to vote for whomever has a "D" after their name, and then spending the next four years crossing one's fingers and hoping that this time, finally, things will change?

I'd like to assume that most people who vote for Democrats have thought carefully about the issues, pondered things like the Supreme Court's make-up and health care plans and media spin, weighed their principles against the campaign promises, and so on -

Because that's how I go about making my decision.

But, if, in the end, it turns out that I choose to not vote for the front-runner, or even - gasp - for a candidate who belongs to the party in which I'm registered - then suddenly, I'm less "pragmatic" and more of a "purist" than someone who just walked into the booth, saw a "D" and punched a hole?

Get real.

Comments

[Chris Clarke]

replied.

[John]

I agree with you. I think the hostility to left-wing third-party candidates is part of the Democrats' inferiority complex. It's partly a matter of not having sufficient confidence that they can still win despite a challenge from the left and partly embarrassment at the existence of a left-wing in the party.

[Jim Yeager]

Boy, I pissed you off more than I thought I did. It's gonna be a long eleven months for me, I can tell.

I do have two good bits of news, though. One, I apologized to you in the comments to the post I wrote for skippy* after I tried explaining my reasoning a little more clearly. Re-reading what I wrote in the post, it does come off as arrogant. That was not my intention.

Two, I've blogrolled you. You're good. It's been a few months since I've even bothered with my template. Maybe this'll get me back in gear...

[Jim Yeager]

Oh, I almost forgot...

*: I owe skippy an apology, too -- I called him a son of a bitch in the comments to one of his posts.

I've had better weeks...

[jim]

Yes. Thank you.

[Agi]

What's the difference between Shakesville and Protein Wisdom? I've been having trouble distinguishing the two lately...

[Madman in the Marketplace]

Brava. Well said.

I for one say "no" to the Donkles this year, and going forward. They are the center-right party, offered as the only alternative to the far-right party.

I'd rather they just lose a couple so that Americans have to face the consequences of the corporate empire building that they keep voting for.

[ms_xeno]

All of you had better line up to kneel down and kiss Speaker Waterboard's Prada pumps right quick. Or no more piddling minimum wage hikes for YOU !!!

C'mon. You know you love it, so PUCKER UP !!!

[Rana]

Jim Yeager - apology accepted - I admit this is one of my sore spots, as I've been annoyed by this sort of thing for a long time, so you happened to be a fairly polite straw atop a much-fatigued camel's back. I'm usually not this - ahem - salty in my comments. *slight blush*

The whole situation is intolerable, let's face it. I don't have any easy answers, and I don't believe that this is the sort of thing that can or will be "solved" easily or quickly. It's rather like any number of social and environmental issues - the current situation is the result of lots of little things building up over time, and it's going to take lots of other little things building up over more time to change the overall picture.

I don't think one magical election is going to do it.

I don't even think a series of elections is going to do it.

In fact, I think the whole over-focus on elections, at the expense of so many other factors, is a large part of the problem.

[miguel]

Man, Rana, I LOVE when you get angry! You're always so damn ELOQUENT! (^J^)/"

[Rana]

*blush*

(What's the emoticon for blushing?)