42 Days to Go: Stop Wishing; Just VOTE!
If there is one thing the professional left loves more than anything is to craft some sort of far-fetched way in which we “progressives” can win and positing that as a “do or die” performance point, n matter how insane it is.
Take the perennial (quadrennial?) “safe state” theory, in which it’s okay to vote fr a third-party candidate if you’re in a state that is guaranteed to go either all blue or tall red in the Electoral College, but not if there is a chance that your state could be in play. This is absurd, for several reasons. For one thing, if it was possible to know which states are sure to go blue or red in a presidential election, then 2016 shouldn’t have been such a shocker; certainly not the second or third such shock in 16 years.
And before you look to electoral maps to “prove me wrong,” I will point out that even such “liberal bastion” states as Maryland have a Republican governor right now, and it wasn’t all that long ago that California was run by Pete Wilson and, before that, George Deukmejian, who were Reagan Republicans, and yes, I mean they were neocons. Like Pennsylvania, California’s liberals live in Los Angeles and San Francisco — the big cities. Hell, even Massachusetts, the only state n the union that voted its electors to George McGovern, replaced Ted Kennedy with a Republican when he died.
So, the question is, what is a “safe state”? And who gets t decide which states qualify? The professional lefties? In the last 40 years, their political “judgment” has led to 40 years of a far too high level of Republican neocon influence, which has led us to eat least two of the worst presidents in U.S. History. It gave us Trump, for chrissakes; I can’t imagine it gets worse than that.
Ver last weekend, we had to face the unfortunate (and perhaps the last major danger posed by the Trumpers and Republicans before the Democrats take over) death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In response, the usual professional left “pundits” decided to pretend the GOP doesn’t have an advantage after the 2016 debacle. My favorite scenario was the one in which Senate Democrats could recruit three Republicans to stay home with them and prevent a quorum, so they couldn’t hold hearings or a vote on Trump’s replacement nominee. This is another in a series of “wishes” that take the place of actual cogent thought, and which occupy most of the space on far left blogs and websites.
You know, it’s like the wish that Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, which was conducted under the auspices of Trump’s extremely corrupt Department of Justice, but which would cost Trump the presidency. Then, many pro lefties chided Democrats for not passing Articles of Impeachment “sooner,” even though, again, the Republicans who always side with Trump control the Legislative Branch’s “upper” chamber.
And again, THAT is the problem. There are repercussions and consequences when too many people stay home and don’t vote. We will pay for what happened in 2016 until at least January 20, 2021, and there is no quick and easy way out of it. We have to do better at not screwing up elections in the first place, instead of always trying to make up fr ur “oopsie.” Our way of fixing election screw-ups is all about reversing the mistake in the next election. That’s what democracy is. Sometimes, when a politician is so openly corrupt and the rest of the government is principled and not corrupt, we may be able to impeach or recall someone. However, that’s only a possibility and it’s not much of one as long as we are saddled with one of two major political parties with no principles and no morals.
No more wishing for miracles, folks. Just vote and encourage others to do the same thing. If we all do our job, and do it together, we can eventually elect functional governments at all levels and in all states.
Originally published at The Pragmatic Progressive.
