#elect a third party candidate? who? where? you think jill stein is going to win her 40th presidential race with the same plan of minimal

[juniestar]

How on earth is harris v trump a tight race??? How do ppl look at donald trump having SEEN the way he acted in his presidential term, seen his LENGTHY criminal record, seen the fact that NOBODY else in his party aside from some loose hanging cultists wants to associate with him, seen the way he literally incited riots after losing an election which resulted in at least seven deaths, seen his total lack of coherent policy plan, and think yeah well but Kamala is a cop. Which isn’t even fucking true

[zanmor]

Using Your Vote Strategically

Your vote doesn’t matter (probably). Luckily you can make it do a bit more.

Your vote is one of a few hundred million game pieces. Knowing how best to use it requires you to understand your place on the game board. Let’s take a look at that board.

Current polling has the following ten states (yellow on the above map) as highly competitive in this year’s presidential election: Maine, New Jersey, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Georgia. Realistically those first three have only gone to Democrats since at least 2000 so speculation is more focused on the last seven (and even New Hampshire has been solidly Democrat since it voted for Bush in 2000).

If you’re one of the roughly 37.5 million voters who lives in one of those states, congratulations! Your vote will actually help decide who wins the presidency in November. As such you should probably vote for one of the major parties. To the other 82% of the electorate, it’s time to think a little harder about how you’ll utilize your vote in the fall.

Meanwhile there are 35 states that solidly belong to one of the two parties and that ain’t changing. They’re blue and red on the map above.

These states have only given electoral votes to their respective party since at least 2000 and current polling (according to 270towin.com) shows that they will do that again this year, well beyond any margin of error in the polls. California for instance is currently polling heavily in favor of the Democratic candidate and has voted for a Democratic candidate since 2000. Obviously that’s not about to change. That’s the case with these other 34 states as well. Which means if there’s any way to “throw your vote away” then it’s by blindly tossing it in with the millions of others that will not impact the electoral college or party platforms in any way.

The states where your vote matters least are:

California, Texas, New York, Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia, Alaska, Missouri, Hawaii, Louisiana, Kansas, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Montana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Idaho, Tennessee, Utah, Arkansas, North Dakota, Wyoming, Mississippi, Alabama, Washington, Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon, Connecticut, Vermont, Delaware, Washington DC, Rhode Island, and New Mexico.

If you live in one of these states I have no qualms about advising you to vote third party in the general election. It will not change the electoral college outcome. But it can have important benefits you wouldn’t see by simply tossing another ballot on the mountain. I’ll talk below about those benefits. First, the last part of the game board.

The following six states (green on the above map) are technically polling within the margin of error where they could potentially go either way. I personally think it’s unlikely they’ll flip but you can make your own call on that and vote accordingly. If you live in North Carolina, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, or Colorado, I think you’re likely to get more use from your vote giving it to a third party candidate based on current polling.

As I said above, I don’t expect that third party voting will impact the electoral college outside of those few truly competitive states.

So what does voting third party do?

If enough people vote third party it can do two helpful things: 1. if a party’s candidate receives over 5% of the popular vote then they can get federal matching funds in the next election, helping spread messages currently relegated to the sidelines, and 2. the major parties are more likely to take note of these votes and try to adjust their platforms to grab these voters in later elections. Voting for one of the two major parties doesn’t send any sort of message. What little utility your vote has in that regard is lost.

Voting for a candidate like Jill Stein of the Green Party can accomplish both of the above goals. Her platform is incredibly progressive. Across the board it’s a lot of things that leftists have been clamoring for. It will show establishment Democrats that there is voting support for those policies.

By supporting a third party candidate (not an independent solo candidate) we could see her get 5% of the popular vote and gain federal matching funds in 2028. It’s not about if she would be a good president or if you like her personally—she is not and never will get elected. It’s about hitting that 5% and showing the establishment that if they cater to the folks who like this platform that they can win votes.

Five percent of the 2020 election would have been just under 8 million votes. Four million Californian voters could have voted Green Party and Biden still would have won the state by over a million votes. We can definitely find 4 million votes in the other 40 states that otherwise are unlikely to impact the election. And we should.

[reasonandempathy]

The weird radical/revolutionary politic larpers on this site are so allergic to political pragmatism I swear lmao. I am definitely left of the Democratic Party and I am certainly voting for Joe Biden in November. Not because I like him (I don’t). He is absolutely horrific on Gaza and that’s only the top (and priority considering there is a genocide going on there) of a list of complaints I have about him. I even voted uncommitted in my state’s presidential primary (the Pennsylvania one; I had to write it in) to protest. However, I’m still thinking pragmatically. Trump has said things that make me credibly think he will be worse on Gaza (insane that being worse on Gaza than Biden is possible but it is unfortunately), and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Project 2025, the potential for him to appoint more deeply conservative justices, more of his aggressively screwing over poor and middle class people with his tax policies. And does anyone else remember the spike in hate crimes after the race was called for him in 2016? Before he was even inaugurated? Whether people vote or not in November we will still have to deal with one of these two men in office come January unless all of the internet ancom larpers overthrow the government by then (doubt), so I’d rather deal with the one who will be marginally less bad and who didn’t try to overthrow the government. Can’t have your revolution if nobody’s alive cause you kept pushing off politically participating because there was no perfect option. 👍

Political pragmatist anon, sorry for ranting in your askbox but I feel like I lose brain cells watching these people talk. The other day I saw someone say Biden is bad because Roe v. Wade fell under his administration… even though the reason for that was Trump appointed justices. 💀 (2/2)

Fucking insane. Sincerely.

It's a completely, flatly binary choice for anyone with a brain stem and sincerity. It's distilled into the two below images:

Where all major third party candidates are even on the ballot

How many electoral votes the largest of those (green party, a.k.a. Jill Stein) would win if they won every single state they're on the ballot for.

They are literally, legally, incapable of winning the election. They are not on enough state ballots to win and Jill Stein would need to somehow win California and Texas to even "win" all the states they're on the ballot for. Which, again, would still not be enough to win the presidency and throw it to the currently existing Republican House of Representatives. Which would put Trump in office.

It's that straightforward. That simple. That BLARINGLY obvious to literally everyone except these people.

On the one hand you have:

Significant and continuous support for Israel and it's genocide

Record levels of pardons for low-level drug offenses

the gearing up of the strongest anti-trust regime since the early 20th century

the most aggressive NLRB I've seen in my lifetime, with massive wins and institutional changes to help workers

Including getting Rail strike workers a week of sick-leave that gets paid out at the end of the year, which is better than NYC and LA sick leave laws

Millions of people (not enough) getting student debt forgiveness

Some trillion dollars (not enough)of investment in renewable resources and infrastructure

Proposed taxes on unrealized capital gains (a.k.a. how billionaires never have any money but can still buy Kentucky, Iowa, and Twitter)

Effectively an end to overdraft fees

The explicit support of leftist world leaders like Lula de Silva. Who he has explicitly worked with to expand worker rights in South America.

Has capped (some, not enough, only a tiny amount really but it's something) some drug prices, including Insulin.

Reduced disability discrimination in medical treatment

Billions in additional national pre-k funding

Ending federal use of private prisons

Pushing bills to raise Social Security tax thresholds higher to help secure the General Fund

Increasing SSI benefits

and more

vs

Said Israel should just nuke Gaza and "get it over with"

Personally takes pride in and credit for getting Roe v Wade overturned

Is arguing in court that the President should be allowed to assassinate political rivals

Muslim Ban Bullshit, insistently

Actively damages our global standing and diplomatic efforts just by getting obsessed with having a Big Button

Implemented massive tax cuts on ich people, tax hikes on middle class and poor people, and actively wants to do it again

"Only wants to be a dictator for a little bit, guys, what's the big deal"

Is loudly publicly arguing that the US shouldn't honor its military alliances after-the-fact

Tore up an effective and substantial anti-nuclear-proliferation treaty with Iran

Had a DoEd that actively just refused to process student debt forgiveness applications that have been the law of the land for decades now

Has a long record of actively curtailing and weakening the NLRB and labor movement, including allowing managers to retaliate against workers, weakened workplace accommodation requirements for disabled people, and more

Rubber stamped a number of massive mergers building larger, more powerful top companies and increasing monopolistic practices

Fucking COVID Bullshit and hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths

Openly supporting fascists and wannabe-bootlicks ("Very fine people" being only the beginning of it

It's really not fucking close.

[cazort]

I've seen a small number of people on Tumblr advocating for voting for Jill Stein, the green party candidate, and a lot of them seem to take for granted the idea that she is better than Harris. None of them really make a convincing case for her, they just seem to assume that she is, particularly on the issue of Palestine.

But here's the thing. I don't even think she's a good candidate. Like I consider her borderline unacceptable, whereas I consider Harris to be a genuinely good candidate. It's bad enough that if I were in a state like Maine or Alaska that had ranked choice, I'm not even sure I would rank Jill Stein above Kamala Harris.

Why don't I like Jill Stein?

Inexperience. She has only held one political office, the town meeting (like city council) of Lexington, MA, a city with population under 35,000. This community is an extremely affluent community that leans very far left; in 2020 nearly 81% of the community voted for Biden and under 17% for Trump. Interestingly, in this own community where she served as a local elected official, in her 2016 run she still only got 1.3% of the vote, so she isn't even popular in the one place she has the most experience. She has never held state- or national political office and she has lost every other election she has run in. Her lack of experience is related both to her ability to win (people are unlikely to vote for someone who lacks experience) and her ability to do the job if she were to win. And it's not unrealistic for independents and third-party candidates to get elected to bigger offices. There have always been a few in US congress and it would be more attainable to get into a state congress; a few green party members have done this recently: Shane Robinson served in the MD state house until 2019, Henry Bear and Ralph Chapman in Maine. One, Fred Smith, even got elected in Arkansas as a green party candidate although he later changed back to a Democrat. The point is that there are even people in her party who are more experienced.

Disregard for the consequences of her actions. She threw at least one national election, the 2016 Presidential election, for Trump, and we are still suffering the consequences. Jill Stein's actions contributed to outcomes including the loss of abortion rights, all sorts of horrible environmental consequences, all sorts of negative consequences for immigrants, and a long list of other problems. This scenario is fully preventable; it could be prevented for instance by calling on your followers to only vote for you in states with ranked choice and non-swing states, and then giving a conditional endorsement of the next-best candidate and calling on your supporters to vote for them in swing states that lack ranked choice. She could have made this call and prevented the calamity we lived through, but she didn't. This shows great irresponsibility.

Age. She is already getting very old; she is currently 74 which is only 7 years younger than Biden and 4 years younger than Trump. Age was one of my biggest objections to Biden, was a big factor in me disliking Trump, and is a major reason I think Harris is a big improvement. And Jill Stein is much closer to Trump and Biden in age than Harris. Age is a big concern for me because older people are likely to be or become out-of-touch on many issues and also may experience cognitive decline.

Platform. Jill Stein's platform is objectively worse (and weaker) than the national/global green party's platform. One of my favorite things about the green party is that they tend to take a systems approach to environmentalism, through things like carbon tax which work with the market rather than against it. In countries where the green party has a significant number of seats in the legislature, like Germany where they control 117/733 seats in the Bundestag, they often end up cooperating with pro-business parties like Libertarians and even the center-right party on some issues, and this makes them better able to achieve their goals. But Stein takes a more stereotypically liberal "tax and spend" and regulatory approach making her not much different from the mainstream of the Democratic party in this regard. I.e. she supported the "green new deal" which is supported by many Democrats and to some degree by nearly all Democrats. This approach makes it less likely she would be able to appeal to and/or cooperate with moderates and independents.

Lack of a realistic plan to win. There is a realistic path for an idealistic third-party candidate to win the presidency, and it is through getting ranked choice implemented in more states first, thus removing the spoiler effect. And it particularly through embracing TVR (total vote runoff) over IRV (Instant Runoff Voting, which Alaska and Maine use currently.) Jill Stein hasn't even mentioned TVR, and although she has voiced support for ranked choice, it is not a point that she emphasizes particularly strongly. She is not active in the Fair Vote movement which is the largest movement to implement ranked choice in most states. To me, this sends the message that she's not really in it to win, she's just here to make a statement.

She's not a serious candidate, not a good candidate, and not an acceptable candidate.

I don't say this lightly, but I think that if I wanted to, I could mount a more successful third-party campaign for the presidency than she has. I think I would be a better candidate for president than she is. And I think I could make a more realistic path towards those goals than she has.

And I don't even think I'm particularly good. I know other people who could probably even do a better job than me. This is not saying I or these other people would be good candidates. It's more saying how I just see Jill Stein as being inadequate.

And this is why I think Jill Stein is a really lousy candidate. She is not the idealistic third-party candidate to break us out of the two-party system.

And when you see this, you see that all the people pushing her as "the only good candidate" are really pushing anti-vote propaganda. They are trying to manipulate the left into throwing the election.

This election cycle we have a legitimately good candidate: Harris. She ticks all the boxes. She is younger than Biden. She is more progressive yet while being rooted in reality enough to bring in moderates. She has called for a ceasefire in Palestine, and has been critical enough that she's attracted ire and backlash from the Israeli hardliner and AIPAC-funded crowd. And her track record as Attorney General when you start scrutinize it, is surprisingly and refreshingly good. Go look it up and see for yourself.

[gallifreyriver]

Why you NEED to vote!!

This is so serious. Do not withhold your vote. It's not going to send the message you think it is.

It never will. It will not be the 'devastating blow' or 'learning lesson' to the Democratic party as a whole- they won't learn a thing by you withholding your vote. It won't help Palestine- if anything it will make you complicit in whatever further harm comes to Palestinians when your "protest" results in Trump/the Republican Party winning the election, because they've already stated that they will back Israel no matter what.

Know what sends a better message than not voting? Voting for the other candidate, or voting "Uncommitted," in the primary.

So many of you are forgetting about the Primary!!

Currently there are two other notable* Democratic candidates (Dean Phillips & Marianne Williamson) and four notable* Third Party candidates (Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Chase Oliver, Jill Stein, & Cornel West). People have also been writing in Claudia De La Cruz. *In this context, notable means that a candidate appears on enough ballots to stand a chance to win a majority of the Electoral College, as according to Ballotpedia.

And let me tell you, even though only a few Democratic primaries have passed as of the writing of this post, their results already seem to be having the desired effect, because Biden started pushing harder for a ceasefire right after he lost 13% of the vote in the Michigan Primary to "Uncommitted."

Of course it's not perfect, but if 13% in one state could have even that much sway, imagine what could be accomplished on Super Tuesday* if everyone went out and did the same in their states? That's what could actually stand a chance at getting the Biden administration (and rest of the Democratic party) to scramble towards doing what we want. Withholding your vote won't do shit, I'm sorry. They only notice/care where the cast votes go- not votes that are absent. And unfun fact, Trump was elected by only about 25% of eligible voters. We got Trump because so many people (43%) DIDN'T vote in 2016. This is why turnout is such a big deal- your vote absolutely does matter. *Super Tuesday [March 5th] is the day where several [15] US states hold their primary election.

Need another reason? There are 468 seats up for election. All 435 seats in the House, and 33 seats in the Senate. That is huge.

Currently Republicans hold majority in the House. This is a chance to change that- to flip seats! We have the chance to tip the scales further away from fascism instead of further toward it- But we can only do that if people get out and VOTE. Vote in the primary to choose your candidate, and then vote again in November to try and secure a blue majority and actually get shit done.

Do not withhold your vote!

Withholding your vote isn't a rebellion, it's silencing your own voice. It's complicity in whatever bad thing happens when the bad people win. It's an active sabotage of the things you supposedly want.

And to those who think "Oh who cares if things get worse for us! People in Palestine are already suffering in unimaginably worse ways!" I need you to reflect, and realize that trying to punish yourself because you feel guilty that you're not suffering with them will not help them. It's not "solidarity." It's not heroic. I'm having trouble finding the right words, but to think it comes anywhere close is a slap in the face to those actually suffering. If anything it will only make their situation even worse if Trump wins. Again, the Republican party has already stated it's intentions to back Israel no matter what.

You need to make sure that your actions aren't just you trying to assuage your own guilt because you feel bad that you can't help more. And you need to make sure that you aren't holding these guilty feelings over the actual needs of Palestinians and that you're not speaking over them in your "activism."

I'll say again, Do not withhold your vote. Do not silence your voice.

We have a chance to make this better, but we can only do it if we all do the work- and voting is the bare minimum of said work.

So make sure to get out and vote in your primary!

[anthonycrowley]

sorry i cannot believe the fucking nyt is wasting space on this

i’m not advocating for voting third party. vote how you want. if anything, i think in most cases it is useless to vote third party and doing so basically kisses your preferred candidate’s victory goodbye due to math.

however. first of all there are potentially good reasons to vote third party. i have discussed it in the past but i will elaborate. yes - if you live anywhere that’s considered even slightly a swing state it’s probably a bad idea. small margins mean that a candidate that doesn’t really have a snowball’s chance in hell could lose the candidate precious delegates and get the candidate you don’t agree with at all in. that would be bad and is what happened in 2016. that’s one thing the article and i agree with - that would be bad to repeat. but there are also many states that aren’t swing states! i live in one of them. massachusetts is one of the most solidly blue states in the country. i mean…that could change, but if it did, basically i think harris and the democratic party in general have much bigger problems with the country in general. but like, if harris won a smaller margin in this state without losing it? that could send a message. that could send a message in california where democrats also won by a wide margin for the last several elections and where harris is from. like, if you actually like her policies and stances, vote for her. but if you don’t, and you’re pretty sure she’s gonna win, it’s not inherently stupid to vote more strategically imo. i know i’m gonna be labelled as a fucking bot or something, but i really do think it’s pretty milquetoast middle of the road to say ‘i think there are places where voting third party doesn’t actually hurt the top candidate and in those places you can probably protest vote.’

and i mean second and imo more importantly i fucking hate the let’s blame jill stein/third party candidates for the fact hilary lost sentiment that still persists. yeah, the opinion is right that she lost by narrow margins in certain states that she needed to win and in most of those states, if stein’s votes went to her, she would have won. true! yes! but those were clinton’s votes to lose. no one wants to say this! they were her’s to fucking lose! i don’t know why people voted for stein over her. maybe they were sexist. maybe they didn’t like her policies. maybe they didn’t like something she said. but it’s ridiculous to say that voters would rather give their vote to someone who has no chance of winning over clinton and then blame the other candidate when she lost. i just hate the idea that oh well if the third party candidates just made way for the real candidates the real candidates would have a better chance at winning.

like i know politicians think voters are stupid but most of us do actually have a memory span longer than a baby. i’m not happy with harris’ behavior on certain things and i live in a state she will probably win so i am considering not voting for her. if stein were on the ballot, i might vote for her - not because i want her to be president, i absolutely don’t. but she, unlike harris, doesn’t actually have a chance at being president, but a margin here tells harris that left leaning people in massachusetts are not happy with her. if stein isn’t on the ballot? it’s still not automatically going to harris. it might. i might go third party. i might do write in. i might not vote.

idk. i’m just so sick of the you gotta vote how we want 🔪 or else 🔪🔪🔪 sentiment from the dems. i was over it with biden and we as a society have got to get over 2016. she lost. stop trying to lose this one too.

[anadrenalineslut]

Is it okay if I plan to vote Third Party and try to convince people to vote third Party without emotionally manipulating them?

Okay, here is why it is not a good idea to vote third party DURING FEDERAL ELECTIONS only. thank you for asking this question and i will do my best to explain my thought patterns and what i hear from actual activists in my local third party rallies and meetings.

1. None of the third party candidates are on all 50 states, this means voting third party in the FEDERAL elections will not ever be feasible under the electoral college but especially in 2024.

2. Jill Stein is a russian plant. I mean this literally. She takes money from putin and other russian players only to split the democratic vote. there is a reason her "policy" is basically leftist utopia.

3. The way the third party works in the FEDERAL elections is that it works as a vote against YOUR second choice. This is why Jill Stein only shows up during FEDERAL elections with a leftist agenda. it is to make sure YOU don't vote democratic. because the way it is set up in the electoral college is that a VOTE FOR THIRD PARTY HURTS YOUR SECOND CHOICE.

4. Even if you managed to get a third party candidate into the presidency (see point 1 for why you cannot), they NEED THE FUCKING CONGRESSSSSSSSS to pass bills. this is why it is important to vote blue up and down your federal ballots because the goal is to get a president who is the executive branch (they execute the laws, they DO NOT WRITE THEM, the president is the equivalent of the monoarchy in Britain) and a congress who is the legislative branch (they write the laws) that are in agreement with one another. What is a third party candidate going to do with ZERO members in congress? nothing. the answer is nothing.

So when can you vote third party? good news, it's literally EVERY OTHER ELECTION POSSIBLE BECAUSE THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ONLY AFFECTS FEDERAL ELECTIONS AND CHANGE HAPPENS LOCALLY. IT'S A BOTTOM UP SYSTEM WE HAVE NOT A TOP DOWN SYSTEM.

this is actually a good thing in theory because we have the numbers to NEVER go republican again. we have enough registered voters democrat to win EVERY SINGLE ELECTION EVER if we all voted at over 90% in our communities. MOST PEOPLE AGREE WITH US. WE ARE THE 99% AND WE HAVE THE POWER.

1. local elections!!!!!! these happen 2x a year basically maybe more where you live idk how the system is set up in every county. it is super easy to find out where your local elections are. just type in local election my county into google.

2. state elections. this is won by POPULAR VOTE!!!! but nobody votes in the state elections because of REPUBLICAN PROPAGANDA during federal campaign season. YOUR VOTE MATTERS. USE IT!!!!!!!

3. We DO have third parties in government. Bernie is a socialist. AOC is too im pretty sure. There are others. But they understand that you need people on the inside of the system to do anything within the system basically. We need to vote locally and statewide every year as democrats or leftists or socialists or anachrists or whatever. this is how we get enough people who think like us to gain political power to change the system.

4. this is very important because i want you to understand "the system is corrupt" is true but it dehumanizes the humans that make up that system. there is no social system that is not made up of humans. the system we have is corrupt because we are letting corrupt individuals gain too much social power. while we have the ability to vote, we NEED to vote so that the majority can rule over the society.

Anarchy just means removal of hierarchical thinking. there is no reason why we cannot have order and respect for other human beings in anarchy, right? we respect that we are all human beings and none of us have any superiority over the other. Thus, we listen and we make decisions as a group to decide who we think will be best to do what we want as a group socially. does that make sense?

if you do not like the idea of voting, if you think you should just be able to tell people what the right thing is and they will automatically agree with you if they are "good" people, you are engaging in fascist thought patterns.

voting is good. third parties need the representation within the LEGISLATIVE branch of government in order to make and pass laws. the president is a monoarch, the power comes with parliament aka congress.

vote third party candidates in for local and state elections, not for federal elections while the electoral college still exists.

[urlocalqueer]

both biden and trump are awful but i think there needs to be an understanding that when people say there isn't another choice, they mean that realistically, there is no way in hell a third party candidate would win only a few months out of the election. third party candidates get no media coverage unless they make fun of them (see RFK). i really hate biden, i think hes a conservative who hangs abortion in front of my face like a fucking reward, i think he's a genocidal piece of shit who is so out of his mind he doesn't know where he is half the time. but. he will listen to his party. he will keep most protections for minorities in america. for disabled ppl and queers and all that. trump will get rid of any protections minorities thought we had and instead of just letting the genocide in gaza happen, he will help netanyahu dial it up to one fucking million even more than biden already has. so really what the big issue is in america is that we don't have a fucking democracy. we have a two party system that tricks people into thinking we truly only have two options, and when we do have other options (jill stein, cornel west, claudia de la cruz) major news media laughs in their fucking faces or never acknowledges their existence. and what's worse is that i fucking ahte everyone who told everyone around them to vote blue no matter who but i also understand because unless there is a massive change in the way the country works as a whole then it's true that the only choice we have is voting blue because what fucking else is there. and you know what scares me the fucking most. my family can't afford to lose disability pay. if i can't get a job there goes my college education. i already can't afford to live anywhere, food is off the charts expensive, and everything just keeps getting more and more expensive and no one is fucking listening to anyone when we the fucking people are saying we can't afford anything and the biden administration just keeps pushing how fucking incredible the economy is. my dad is making more than we ever have in our entire lives and we are still barely getting by. the future is fucking bleak guys.

anyways tld fucking r: we need to restructure the whole of society. vote in local elections. vote for senate. vote for the house. idk who to fucking vote for because the only votes that seem to count are the ones that the news talks about and the only two they talk about is the motherfucking two party system. NOT VOTING ISN'T A FUCKING POLITICAL STATEMENT. im so fucking sick of the two party system.

another tldr: i hate having no control over my life as someonewho isn't of voting age yet. im in college i work i could pay taxes i coul dlive on my own but i can't vote for fucking anything. go fuck yourself.

another tldr: everything is bleak as fuck and i don't want to live in a fascist state because shit already fucking sucks.

[reasoningdaily]

this is the link to the video

Green Party 2024 presidential candidate Cornel West responded to criticism from Democratic strategist David Axelrod that his candidacy could be a "spoiler" that helps former President Trump win during an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper.

"Brother David Axelrod looks at the world through the lens of the establishment. Well, of course, from the lens of the establishment, he is concerned about reproducing the establishment," West said.

Cooper suggested: "David Axelrod, he seems more interested in preventing former President Trump from getting re-elected more than I'd say recreating the establishment."

"No, I'm talking about the Democratic Party establishment though, brother. Axelrod, you see what I mean? You would agree. You're very much part of the Democratic Party establishment," West said.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: I want to ask you, Senator Manchin, up in New Hampshire tonight, he seems to be testing the waters there. He says the parties are too far to the left, and to the right. What do you think of his politics?

CORNEL WEST: Well, you know, I just read the pamphlet "Common Sense." And my God, they had the audacity to rename that after the great Thomas Payne's revolutionary pamphlet of January 10, 1976, that was critical of all forms of hierarchy in the name of the dignity of those last, don't call everyday people.

I don't think that the No Labels party with their hundred million dollars flowing already, fundamental focus on what I'm concerned about, which is the plight of poor and working people trying to come to terms with the cop cities. Why do the critiques of the cop cities trying to come to terms with striking workers, be there in Hollywood, be there on Amazon, be there at UPS, coming to terms with the eco side, with the fossil fuel companies, steel, corporate greed running out-of-control.

You know, we're at a moment now, my brother, where if we don't come to terms with this massive callousness and indifference to the plight of poor and working people, we're going to lose everything -- the planet, democracy, our qualitative relations with each other. That's how life and death like our situation is, my brother, very much so.

COOPER: You know, the concern, certainly. I mean, you've been asked this question a million times from a lot of Democrats and Republicans against Trump that a third party candidate like yourself could siphon votes away from President Biden. David Axelrod, recently tweeted, saying: "In 2016, the Green Party played an outsized role in the tipping of the election to Donald Trump. Now with Cornel West as their likely nominee, they could easily do it again. Risky Business."

Now, I know you've said you don't believe Jill Stein made that big a difference in the vote count in 2016. In Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, her votes did exceed Trump's margin over Clinton. So how do you answer that critique that you will be siphoning votes away and potentially leading to a Trump victory?

WEST: Well, a part of it is, it is that nearly 40 percent of our precious citizens every two and four years decide not to vote at all, and we know that the so-called spoilers, which is a category you can imagine, I don't accept at all, it was two-thirds of those who voted, it could be a Gary Johnson, assistant Jill Stein, brother Ralph Nader, whoever -- people say they would never vote for the two parties.

And I can understand those two parties become too corrupt. Their politicians are too conformist, too many of the policies themselves are just cowardly, will just say anything. What about truth? What about justice?

Truth and justice is bigger than all of us, bigger than every party, every race, every person. If you're concerned about truth and justice, then you can't be cowardly, complacent or conformist.

And especially if you're looking at the world through the lens of those who are incarcerated, those who are in ghettos and hoods and barrios.

Brother David Axelrod, he looks at the world through the lens of the establishment. Well, of course, from the lens of the establishment, he is concerned about reproducing the establishment. My God. My God. There is no doubt about that.

In the 1850s, both parties supported slavery, like he does with the Labor Department.

COOPER: But I think he is probably -- I think he seems more though -- I mean, you know, David Axelrod, he seems more interested in preventing former President Trump from getting re-elected more than I'd say recreating the establishment.

WEST: No, I'm talking about the Democratic Party establishment though, brother. Axelrod, you see what I mean? You would agree. You're very much part of the Democratic Party establishment.

COOPER: I mean, his interest -- and I don't want to speak for him, but you criticize the president.

WEST: Absolutely.

COOPER: You criticize President Biden saying recently that he contributed, in your words, I'm quoting, "contributed to a crime against humanity when he became the architect of the mass incarceration regime in the 1990s." You're referring to the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act that then Senator Biden sponsored.

You also said it is: "... very clear that his cognitive powers are in decline." You have had a remarkable career. You've championed those whose voices have been silenced all your life, we've had you on the program a ton of times talking about that.

You've never run a large bureaucracy or had any major governmental leadership role. Isn't that important to actually governing as president?

WEST: Oh, absolutely. I'd have to bring in people who are experienced, but the important thing is your vision and the lens through which you view the world. Policy is something that can be worked out in light of vision. If your vision is one of militarism abroad, then you're going to be preoccupied with wars and militaristic adventures. We've known Biden has got a long history, I don't think he has actually seen a war that he hadn't supported.

I think the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a crime against humanity. How many precious hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed based on a lie? Well, Biden was running interference in that regard.

I think mass incarceration in the United States in the last 40 years is a crime against humanity. I've taught in prison for 41 years. I've stayed in contact with the rich humanity of my brothers and sisters who have been incarcerated and many have done things they didn't and shouldn't have done. Many are there because they're innocent.

But the important thing is, it is sites -- they are sites of barbarity. We ought to be ashamed to live in a country when you look at the conditions of our brothers and sisters who are incarcerated.

It is not just the 1994 crime bill. You can go back to the Biden-[Strom Thurmond] bills of '84 and 86, and '91, and then '94. You see what I mean? So it's just a matter of trying to be truthful.

I'm not trying to trash brother Biden, I am really not. I'm trying to make him accountable for his actions in light of how the wretched of the earth are treated in this nation and around the world. And that's true for any politician, be it Obama, Biden, Clinton, Bush, Trump -- all of them have to be measured by the same standard of truth and justice.

[jessicalangeslefttit]

trump voters voted for trump

In the United States of America, the winner-take-all nature of the Electoral College means that there are going to be two viable candidates. In virtually every instance where there have been more than two candidates who actually stand a chance, the third (and possibly fourth and fifth) candidate has served to damage the chances of one of the other two.

Such notable instances include 1992, where Ross Perot, a wealthy independent candidate, ran on a platform of populism and economic conservatism, peeling off huge numbers of voters from the incumbent Republican President George HW Bush, ultimately finishing with 18% of the national popular vote. Despite this, he did not win a single electoral vote. All he did was destroy George HW Bush’s chance.

Likewise, in 2000, the Green Party nominee Ralph Nader ran against both Al Gore and George Bush. Bush would, after a long fight, be awarded Florida’s twenty-five electoral votes, and the Presidency, by order of the Supreme Court by a total of 537 votes, while Ralph Nader received 97,488 votes in the state, meaning that had less than a thousand Nader votes swallowed their pride and voted for Al Gore, he would have won Florida, and the Presidency, therefore likely preventing 9/11, the War on Terror, the 2008 financial crisis, and, by extension, the circumstances leading to the election of Donald Trump.

Speaking of the election of Donald Trump, Jill Stein, who is a known associate of Vladimir Putin’s, was the Green Party nominee in 2012 and 2016. Let’s look at the total votes received by Miss Stein in three states in 2016– Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. 

In Wisconsin, Stein received 31,072 votes. Donald Trump carried the state by 22,748 votes. In Michigan, Stein received 51,463 votes. Donald Trump carried the state by 10,695 votes. In Pennsylvania, Stein received 49,941 votes. Donald Trump carried the state by 44,292 votes. The three states together add up to forty-six electoral votes, which when added to the 232 electoral votes carried by Hillary Clinton, creates a total of 278 electoral votes, eight more than is needed to win the Presidency, meaning that had Jill Stein voters in these three states voted for Hillary Clinton, she would President of the United States today.

The numbers do not lie. So-called “progressives” who valued their precious moral stand more than human lives did sufficient damage to Hillary Clinton that Donald Trump became President. This directly led to the deaths of potentially as many as 300,000 Americans, the stringent and spanning violation of human rights of immigrants and asylum seekers, the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Accords, the appointment of an accused rapist to the United States Supreme Court, and countless other atrocities by Donald Trump. 

The rule of law and the strength of American democracy have been pushed to their breaking point by Donald Trump, it was “progressives” who got us here. It is people who knew that they would be safe if Donald Trump won who voted for Jill Stein and enabled this Presidency. It was third-party voters who gave Trump the edge in Florida and Arizona as well. 

Fuck third parties, and fuck you if you think it’s acceptable to vote for them. If you voted for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, you voted for Trump. It’s that fucking simple. Now sit in your guilt and choke on it.

[foreverlogical]

Hillary Clinton said that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is being groomed by Moscow to run as a third-party spoiler candidate in 2020 to help President Trump win reelection.

The former secretary of state pushed the theory on Campaign HQ podcast hosted by David Plouffe, President Barack Obama’s campaign manager in 2008.

Plouffe and Clinton discussed hurdles the Democratic nominee would face and compared the 2020 race to Clinton’s loss to Trump in 2016. Plouffe asked Clinton about the part third-party candidates, such as Jill Stein of the Green Party, played in 2016, allowing Trump to secure key states.

"They are also going to do third party again," Clinton, 71, said. "I'm not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate," Clinton said, referring to Gabbard, without mentioning the Hawaii representative by name.

"She is a favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far. That's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she is also a Russian asset.

Gabbard, 38, has represented Hawaii in the House of Representatives since 2013. A major in the Hawaii Army National Guard, she served in a field medical unit in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and was deployed to Kuwait from 2008 to 2009. This summer, she spent two weeks in Indonesia on a military training exercise.

In Tuesday's Democratic debate, Gabbard accused the New York Times of calling her a "Russian asset."

The newspaper published an Oct. 12 news article about Gabbard stating, "She is injecting a bit of chaos into her own party’s primary race, threatening to boycott that debate to protest what she sees as a 'rigging' of the 2020 election. That’s left some Democrats wondering what, exactly, she is up to in the race, while others worry about supportive signs from online bot activity and the Russian news media."

Gabbard said on the debate stage, "The New York Times and CNN have also smeared veterans like myself for calling for an end to this regime change war [in Syria]. Just two days ago, the New York Times put out an article saying that I’m a Russian asset and an Assad apologist and all these different smears."

In 2016, Gabbard supported Bernie Sanders over Clinton. But she congratulated Clinton on becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, saying, "She becomes the first woman to lead a major political party into the general election. Say what you will about her, let's give credit where it due. This is one tough, smart woman. Most might wilt under the fire and criticism she's endured."

Gabbard faces a 2020 primary challenge for her House seat from Democratic state Sen. Kai Kahele.

[New: 'If the nesting doll fits': Clinton aide defiant on Tulsi Gabbard 'Russian asset' claim]

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

The 2020 presidential election just got its first notable third-party challenger. Last Tuesday, Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, who left the Republican Party nine months ago and became an independent, announced he would run for president as a Libertarian. And while we won’t know whether Amash wins his new party’s nomination until later this month, here’s what we do know about third-party candidacies more broadly and what that could mean for President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden in the general election.

First, it’s unlikely Amash wins much of the vote in November. Take what happened in 2016. Third-party candidates won 6 percent of the vote, which was the largest share of the vote since Ross Perot ran for a second time in 1996, but it was still just 6 percent. As you can see in the chart below, third-party candidates don’t tend to win that much support. Our system just isn’t set up for successful third-party presidential bids.

However, that doesn’t mean Amash (or other third-party contenders) won’t matter in November. In this era of close elections, small shifts in the margins can matter a great deal to the final result, and third-party contenders can play a part in that. Amash’s candidacy, in particular, could affect the margins in some key battleground states, including his home state of Michigan, which was pivotal to Trump’s victory four years ago. Consider what happened in 2016: In 11 states, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson’s raw vote total exceeded the vote margin separating Trump and Hillary Clinton. Now, that doesn’t mean Johnson necessarily changed who won in each of those states, but he and other third-party contenders (like Jill Stein of the Green Party) may have helped shape the outcome, especially in the three states that proved decisive in the Electoral College: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

So who might Amash’s candidacy hurt more in 2020 — Biden or Trump? This is a hard question to answer, but there are some reasons as to why an Amash bid might hurt Trump more than Biden. Estimates vary for how many Americans are “libertarian” — perhaps anywhere from 4 percent to 22 percent of the public — though most voters back one of the two major parties, so we’re not talking about a huge portion of the electorate. That said, there is evidence that more libertarian-minded voters are more likely to vote Republican than Democratic, which could cost Trump at the ballot box.

What’s more, a relatively high-profile Libertarian nominee like Amash could be more successful in attracting some GOP-leaning voters away from Trump. This group might include the small slice of conservative and/or Republican voters — including some “Never Trumpers” — who may be uncomfortable with Trump or even dislike the president. These voters in particular might like Amash because of his conservative record, support for limited government and long-standing opposition to Trump — for instance, he was the only non-Democrat to vote for Trump’s impeachment in the House.

Still, an Amash bid could still present problems for Biden, too. If 2020 is a referendum election on Trump’s presidency, Biden may not want another well-known candidate in the race to give potential anti-Trump voters a different choice. Polls have long shown that a majority of voters prefer an alternative candidate to Trump, but that doesn’t mean that alternative has to be Biden. So it’s possible that Amash could win over some of these voters, lowering Biden’s ceiling and narrowing the race between the major-party nominees. Trump seems to have adopted this view, responding to Amash’s announcement by egging on the congressman and comparing him to Stein, who some on the left think spoiled the election for Clinton in 2016.

And looking at the Electoral College, Amash’s impact could be most deeply felt in Michigan, where he could actually win enough votes to influence the outcome. We would expect Amash to win a larger share of the vote in his home state, considering Johnson did his best in 2016 in New Mexico, where he’d been a two-term GOP governor, winning 9 percent of the vote. Amash, unlike Johnson, hasn’t held a statewide office, but he probably would still have an advantage in the western part of Michigan, which he’s represented in the House for nearly 10 years. That could get in the way of Democrats’ hopes of making gains in traditionally Republican Kent County — Amash’s base and home to Grand Rapids — because of its sizable share of college-educated voters. While Biden has led most early Michigan polls, Amash could complicate the race there.

But it’s also possible that 2020 might just not be that good of an environment for third-party candidates. One reason for this comes down to a familiar feature of American politics: partisan polarization. Take 2016. On the one hand, it probably should have been a better year for third-party candidates, as political science research shows that third-party support is often strongest when partisans dislike their parties’ nominees but don’t want to cross over and vote for the other major party. But as we saw in 2016, two historically unpopular nominees weren’t enough to dampen support among partisan voters and create a meaningful movement around an alternative. And some of this may be due to negative partisanship — or voters staying fully loyal to their party rather than casting a protest vote because they loathe the idea of the other party winning more.

It’s also possible that there just isn’t enough overlap between the two parties in 2020. The parties are ideologically distinct and very attuned to their activists on cultural and social issues as well as economic ones, meaning there is less opportunity for a third-party candidate to make a dent in the electorate. For instance, one reason Perot emerged in the 1990s as such a strong alternative is both Republicans and Democrats were still struggling over the role economic and identity issues would play in their respective parties, with Republicans split between traditional (George H.W. Bush) and culturally conservative (Pat Buchanan) camps. Democrats were also split, searching for their ideological identity after 12 years out of the White House, ultimately turning to the center with the nomination of Bill Clinton. These are the kinds of conditions that often make a third-party bid successful, but they also require some fluidity in the party system that might not be there today.

Ultimately, the evidence is mixed about whether an Amash run on the Libertarian ticket would make much of an impact on the general election outcome. And it remains to be seen whether Amash has the potential to become the next Perot, or whether his candidacy will look more like that of Johnson or Ralph Nader. One thing shared across many of these third-party bids is this, though: They didn’t go well for the incumbent party in the White House.

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

yet another reason why we can’t let it go

This reality show nightmare we wake up in every day happened because of a pile-up of multiple injustices, failures, and outright institutional crises. There were a lot of things that we couldn’t have seen coming (Russian interference, Comey), couldn’t have predicted how bad they would be (sexism, press failures), or couldn’t have stopped once the election was in full swing (voter suppression, Electoral College).

One of the few things we could’ve seen coming and, as voters and activists, could’ve stopped, was the sheer political clusterfuck.

To look at just what was in our control, strip out all the names and the specific identifying injustices. Candidates A, B, C, blah blah.

A well-liked two-term Democratic president is about to leave office after a presidency which is widely regarded as successful. Intuitively, you might expect that this success would give the president’s party an advantage. But “fundamentals,” the statistical models that predict how a given election will turn out regardless of the specific candidates, show that it’s difficult for an incumbent party to keep the White House for a third term. 

It’s an uphill climb for Candidate A, but our hero is up for the task. Before serving as a high-profile member of the current administration, Candidate A had a long record of public service, including a distinguished career in the Senate. A is an earnest policy geek who takes pride in finding practical ways to improve on long-term challenges, and a fundamentally decent person who understands and takes seriously the challenges of the presidency – exactly the kind of person you want in the Oval Office.

Candidate B is a near-neophyte with a sketchy past who’s spent their life coasting on inherited wealth and prestige, a thundering moron whose pathological incuriousness allows them to lie shamelessly and constantly. Somehow B performs as a moderate Republican, despite a troubling reliance on religious extremists and advisers with dangerous foreign policy views. B is so patently unfit for the office, it’s hard to believe they might actually win.

It’s quite the contrast, but seventies hold-over left-wing crank Candidate C quickly loses interest in airing their more trenchant criticisms of money in politics, preferring to run around telling impressionable young voters that there’s no difference between the parties and complaining about how unfair the election was because the special interests had structured the debates against them, blah blah zzzzzz. This schtick is so unfair to A and helpful to B that those special interests – who are actually aligned with B, because both sides are not actually the same – start buying ads for C in order to weaken A’s support with their party’s base.  

Candidate C will peel off some votes in critical swing states, but the real damage they do is harder to quantify. Their rhetoric about the corrupt political duopoly poisons the well, turning idealistic young voters into disengaged cynics. It also creates kind of a philosophical permission structure for people who can’t be bothered to understand the issues or appreciate the stakes – if they’re all the same and it doesn’t matter, why bother with your civic responsibilities?

That wouldn’t matter much, since left-wing criticisms of the status quo rarely make it out of academic circles – except nobody, but nobody, loves ignoring the issues and denying the stakes more than the mainstream press. Policy journalism is hard. Passive-voice declarations about how “people” find one candidate more charismatic than the other are easy. 

Instead the meta-narrative becomes about “authenticity” which, because it is not actually a thing, is so conveniently intangible that it can be unmoored from truth entirely. B, unburdened by intellect or moral character, speaks in comically oversimplified terms which felt true because they plugged into deeply biased unconscious expectations, and is thus considered “authentic.” A, a highly intelligent person who is either unwilling or unable to mislead voters about the complexity of the world and the sometimes unsatisfying ways to improve it, is labeled “untrustworthy.” Petty sniping about A’s clothing or body language drowns out basic fact-checking. 

In gleeful agreement with the “centrist” (functionally conservative) media are left-wing performance artists like Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon who spend months screeching at anyone in earshot about how both! Are! The! Same! Only! C! Can! Save! Us! They rationalize this by loudly proclaiming A’s inevitability – which, if they really thought both sides were the same, wouldn’t matter to them. They also insist that B is so awful, a B presidency will break the system, whereas an A presidency would not – which, again, means they are not the same. (“Waiter, we’ll take cake or a shit sandwich. Doesn’t matter to us…..No, no, it’s fine, he’ll bring us the cake, and anyway, only eating shit will make this place get better cake…...Ugh, I didn’t want to eat shit! Why did you order shit, you fucking NEOLIBERAL WHOR– hey, where are you going?”)

As A gamely tries to explain the issues to the public, tap dance for the press, and chase the left’s elusive goalposts without alienating moderates, Republican officials in swing states suppress the votes of minorities and other likely Democratic voters in numbers greater than the expected margin of victory.

The election ends up closer than anyone thought it should be. The networks say that B has squeaked out a lead in the key states, and A quickly concedes out of respect for the peaceful transition of power, despite having gotten more actual votes. This ties A’s hands as a steady stream of information about irregularities in key counties makes the reported results look more and more suspect. Perhaps if A had a little more goodwill from the left, or at least wasn’t being actively undermined by their own side, they could’ve really fought back, but as is customary, the Democratic circular firing squad is lined up at dawn the next day. By the time it gets to the Supreme Court –

Oh, did you think this was about last year? Silly goose! I’m talking about the 2000 election. But I understand the mix-up.

That’s why we can’t fucking let it go. 

I understand the temptation to treat Hillary Clinton as some kind of political Typhoid Mary. If people can say that SHE was so uniquely terrible because of that TOTALLY DESERVED chorus of complaint (so unlikeable! So bland and convictionless!) from the corporate media and the self-righteous purity pony left…..well, they’d still sound like kooky truthers denying the mountains of evidence about Russian interference, FBI-fetishizing conservatives exonerating Comey the Keystone Kop for his coup d’état, or just assholes too sexist to acknowledge even the most glaring sexism, but they can at least tell themselves they didn’t do anything wrong. That’s harder to sustain when you realize those same complaints were made by the same groups of people (sometimes the same individuals) about an entirely different person. Not just any person, either, but an actual movie star who does more for climate justice before he gets out of bed in the morning than Ralph Nader, Jill Stein, and Bernie Sanders will do in their whole lives.

Similarly, it’s easier to fight about MESSAGING than it is to deal with voter suppression, or to make people give a shit about making the Electoral College less unfair before people vote. And, well, there’s a pretty rotten incentive structure for everyone who either has or wants a platform in either the mainstream media or progressive niche outlets. It’s high effort and low reward to draw attention to the systemic problems which might remind the gatekeepers of how they acted before the election; it’s easier and savvier to validate the more comfortable narrative.

The consequences for ignoring this stuff in 2000 could hardly have been more severe - and yet, by 2016, they were. This is well past “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” If you were old enough to vote in 2016, this happened in your lifetime. One critical reason that the Sanders campaign needed younger millennials is that EVERYONE OVER THIRTY REMEMBERS HOW THIS STORY ENDED THE FIRST TIME. 

There’s a lot of reasons it’s important for Hillary Clinton to write her damn book, and one of them is: Al Gore didn’t, and here we are.

[forsetti]

On Progressive Politics: Bad Teammates

Political ideas that have no real shot at being implemented are worthless. This doesn't mean grand, idealistic policies shouldn't be discussed and worked towards.  What it does mean is they need to be treated for what they are-wishful things that need to be worked towards often one step, one inch at a time with the realization due to uncontrollable variables and circumstances, the ideal may never be attained. When I was much, much younger, I wanted to play professional basketball. It was my dream.  It was my passion.  I practiced 4-6 hours every single day, 365 days a year from the time I was twelve until I was nineteen.  I turned out to be a pretty good basketball player. Unfortunately, there were thousands of others my age who were much better than me who got college scholarships.  No matter how much I wanted it or how hard I worked, playing in the NBA wasn't a realistic dream.  However, I was able to use this dream to make myself, a musically gifted, non-athletic kid, a pretty good basketball player who could hold my own with a lot of college players.  As much as I wanted to play pro, let alone college ball, I am not disappointed that I didn't reach my goal because I know I got the absolute most out of my talents as was possible.  I moved the bar as far forwards as was possible.

If I would have had the mindset of many progressives, I would have quit playing ball in middle school and/or would be bitching and moaning today about how I was denied my dream.  It doesn't matter how unrealistic the dream.  It doesn't matter the context or circumstances or limitations, if the ideal cannot be reached and reached RIGHT NOW, it is okay to give up, make bad choices, pout, whine... anything other than doing whatever you can to make the most out of the hand you've been dealt (yes I know I'm mixing basketball and poker metaphors.)

Progressivism is about striving towards ideals.  The very definition of 'progress' is: forward or onward movement toward a destination. Notice the definition isn't: reaching a specific destination. It is moving forward, towards a desired destination.  Sometimes political progress is quick and large but it is mostly slow and small.  As long as progress is being made that is what really matters.  Even when progress is set back, it is important to look at the big picture and not a single snapshot of a particular moment in time.  Think about how many political setbacks happened before women got the right to vote, before the Civil Rights Act was passed, before the Obergefell versus Hodges decision granted gays the right to marry.  If people gave up because things weren't progressing like they wanted or because of setbacks, none of these progressive causes would have happened.

Working towards and seeing the big picture is what real progressives do. They don't get too down after a setback and certainly don't give up. They don't abandon the process and apparatus that was responsible for past progress.  They sure as fuck don't attack the people who have dedicated their lives, given their hearts, sometimes even given their blood for progress because whatever their dreams happen to haven't been reached.  A true progressive honors those how fought the battles before them picks up the battle where it was left off and fights on regardless of the stage of the battle.  They also aggressively defend ground already won through the sacrifices and hard work of others.

I cannot even begin to count the number of people I know who claim they are dyed-in-the-wool progressives who spent the last year violating every single quality it takes to be progressive.  I witnessed them attack progressives like Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, John Lewis, Barack Obama... people who have spent a lot of time and energy fighting for progressive values.  I listened to them go through mental and linguistic gymnastics that would make a Cirque du Soleil performer blush in order to rationalize their atrocious positions and strategies.  I watched them be more than willing to allow decades of hard-earned progress on women's rights, gay rights, civil rights, voting rights, the environment... be cast aside because they felt progress wasn't happening fast enough and in the EXACT ways they wanted it.   Context didn't matter.  How government actually works didn't matter.  History didn't matter.  Nothing mattered to the bitchy progressives who didn't get the ponies they didn't do a damn thing to earn but demanded they get.  The fruits of the participation trophy generation are rancid, poisonous, and unbelievably stupid. People whose total political effort is being a keyboard commando on social media are churning out ill-conceived and re-damn-fucking-diculous things they know nothing about to the point where the theory an infinite number of monkeys typing will replicate the works of Shakespeare has been disproved.  They don't turn out Shakespeare.  They turn out hot takes.

If you don't understand this, don't want to understand it or deny it, I really cannot consider you a progressive. At best, you are “progressive-lite.” You might talk the progressive talk but you aren't walking the progressive walk.  Staying home during elections will NEVER FUCKING EVER move things forward.  Voting for third-party candidates who have zero chance of winning and even if they did have no political clout will NEVER FUCKING EVER move things forwards. Every single person who believes not voting or voting third-party will lead to progress, let alone significant progress is either grossly misinformed, completely ignorant or arrogantly stubborn. What they aren't is progressive.

Making decisions based on the political system you WANT instead of the one that EXISTS is being a bad citizen and a horrible progressive.  We don't have a parliamentary system where minority parties can have an influence on policies through aligning themselves with other parties. Like it or not, we have a bicameral system where two major parties exist and fight for elections and policies.  WANTING this to not be the case will NEVER FUCKING EVER make it true.  Teddy Fucking Roosevelt was one of the most popular presidents in our history but when he ran as a third-party candidate in 1912, all he did was divide the Republican vote and hand the election to Woodrow Wilson in a landslide.  The only thing Ralph Nader and Jill Stein and their supporters every accomplished politically was to hand the presidency to George W. Bush and Donald Trump.  The only thing so-called “progressives” ever accomplished was allowing a demographically limited party of conservatives take over the majority of state governorships, state legislatures, Congress, and the White House. This is where I stand up, sarcastically slow clap, and say, “Bra-fuckin-o.”

You don't vote for a candidate for the system you want but for the one that exists.  To do otherwise is a sign of political ignorance and/or stunning selfishness.  This doesn't mean your voice shouldn't be heard.  There is a time and place for this-before and during the primaries.  Primaries are when everyone gets a seat at the table to express their opinion about who they want to represent them and why. However, once the primaries are over and a candidate has been selected, your individual voice takes a backseat to the wants and needs of the whole.  To be upset your preferred candidate didn't win the nomination is absolutely no reason to not vote or vote third-party.  You know who will NEVER FUCKING EVER move the progressive bar forward?  People you don't vote for and people who will never win and never have any power if they do.  You know who will NEVER FUCKING EVER move the progressive bar forward? Conservatives who win elections because too many “progressives” are politically naive, ignorant or stubborn. Arguing against this, throwing temper tantrums about it, wishing it would be different will NEVER FUCKING EVER make it not true.  What doing these will accomplish is keeping progress from happening and if done enough, will ensure past progress is lost.

This should be very easy to understand but the fact I have to constantly point it out to people who adamantly tell me they are “progressive,” is disheartening and tells me a lot about why we are in the current state we are in.  Conservatives are not the only ones who can't pass basic civics.  I expect conservatives to not give a damn about how government works because they believe the government is a bad idea except when it comes to having a military.  I sure as hell expect people who believe the government is not only important but necessary for the betterment of its citizens to have a third-grade level grasp from how government works and elections occur to how laws are made.  

Progressives keep telling me we need to be “united” against Trump and the Republican Party but many of the ones telling me this are the very same people whose direct actions are responsible for the situation we must all now “unite” in order to fight.  We are in this position because they failed to be good progressives and they refuse to admit their ignorance and culpability.  Instead, they are doubling down on their horrid political takes and strategies demanding the rest of us have to follow in order to have political success.  Mind you these are people who haven't won a damn thing, wield no political power, have never shown any ability to win county drain commissioner but the entire Democratic Party must yield to their political “expertise.” 

You know who did know how to win elections and hand conservatives their political asses?  Barack Obama.  With a working majority for less than a couple of months out of eight years, he was able to move the progressive bar forward a great deal.  Every Democratic President since FDR tried to get major health care reform passed.  They all failed.  He expanded LGBT rights, environmental rights, consumer's rights... and progressives rewarded his efforts by pouting and sitting out the 2010 midterms which led to a GOP takeover of the U.S. House and many traditional blue state governments.  It led to them doing the same in 2014, this time giving Republicans control of the U.S. Senate which ultimately ended up costing progressives a Supreme Court justice.  Instead of following Obama's lead and heeding his pleas, too many progressives decided they know better how to win elections and get progress accomplished.  So far, their record since 2010 is a whopping FUCK TON and zero.  Yet, despite showing absolutely no ability to win county animal control officer, this group of progressives are adamant they know better than President Obama.  It is unfuckingbelievable and insulting as hell. For all the excitement and energy many progressives exuded for Bernie Sanders, none of it has translated into any political wins.  Not for Bernie.  Not for Bernie supported candidates.  Not for Bernie-aligned candidates.  It's not like he is batting .500 or even .300.  So far this wing of progressivism hasn't gotten a single hit.  They are 0 for a lot.  There are ball and towel boys in Single-A with better hitting stats. Anyone willing to step away from their emotional attachment to Bernie should be able to see that his “movement” isn't a political movement, it is a cult of personality.  For whatever reasons, Bernie is able to attract a lot of attention and devotion.  Personally, I have no idea how or why but I don't deny it happens.  What is true is this devotion starts and ends with Bernie.  Neither he or his supporters have been able to generate any meaningful energy and votes for anyone other than Bernie.  That many progressives either don't or won't see this flaw is very troublesome to me.  What is even more troublesome is these very same “progressives” are blaming the progressives who have devoted their lives, efforts, and blood to get the progress made the past fifty years for our current situation.  Sorry, but the only response I will ever have to these people is, “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” There should be one and only one goal right now for anyone claiming to be a progressive-MAKE SURE CONSERVATIVES DON'T WIN ANY ELECTIONS FROM HOMECOMING KING/QUEEN TO THE PRESIDENCY.   ANYTHING less than this, ANYTHING that takes attention away from this, ANYTHING other than this should be completely ignored.  ANYONE who claims differently should be viewed suspiciously, their progressive cred seriously questioned, and progressive ID confiscated until further notice. For most of my adult life, Republicans have done everything they can to make government not function properly.  In many ways, they have succeeded.  However, the real damage they've done isn't to the government itself but to attitudes about government.  People are jaded and upset about how the government has failed them.  They don't blame those responsible for fucking up the system.  They blame everyone in the system.  The media is guilty of helping Republicans create this image.  When Republicans fail to do something that polls strongly, it is never portrayed as “Republicans failed to do_______.”  It is always, “Congress failed to do_______.”  This portrayal is mimicked by the public, including progressives, to the point where it becomes gospel and is the impetus for most of the “Democratic Party has abandoned___,” “Democrats have forgotten____” stupid fucking hot takes.   If progressives want a better, more functional government, all they need to do is make sure conservatives are the minority.  If they want a very functional government, they need to make sure progressives have very large majorities.  In order to accomplish these things, progressives need to do the following: 1-Get out and vote in every election for the progressive who has the best chance of winning regardless of your personal feelings about the candidate(s). 2-Never allow conservatives the opportunity to undo progress already fought for and won. 3-Learn how government actually works. 4-Stop parroting right-wing talking points about anything but especially about fellow progressives. 5-Understand voting is a personal responsibility but with societal consequences (it isn't about you.) 6-Come to terms with the fact our entire system of government was intentionally built to prevent quick, massive changes in policies. 7-Learn how to place blame where it belongs. 8-Realize progress can't be judged by looking at a single moment in time but rather by seeing long-term trends. 9-Understand we have a bicameral system and the only way progress be achieved is through one of the two parties. 10-Stop placing purity tests on candidates, especially ones in districts, areas, states...whose elections won't impact you. 11-Remember the worst progressive is always preferable to the best conservative by a wide margin. 12-Quit using terms like “establishment,” “pragmatism,” and “cooperation” as pejoratives. 13-Realize fake news isn't just something conservatives fall prey to. 14-Stop claiming that addressing economic issues will resolve racial ones. 15-Be a true ally of those are members of your base, especially people who are most vulnerable to conservative policies. To me, this list is pretty self-explanatory, commonsensical, and easy to do.  Because I view it this way, I am having a real difficult time dealing with people who claim to want and value the same things I do, who argue and fight against this especially when the stakes are so high and the damage done by allowing conservatives to have power so devastating to the very things they claim are important to them.  I'm having a really hard time being lectured about politics and political strategy by people whose entire political experience is bitching about it on social media.  I'm having a hard time listening to people with no sense of self-reflection bitch about consequences that came about because of their action/inaction.  I'm having a hard time listening to people tell me they are progressive but seem willing and sometimes eager to allow past progress to be rolled back.  I'm having a hard time watching the hard work of progressives past be cast aside so easily by conservatives while so-called progressives myopically demand their pet progress be immediately addressed.   I am having a really difficult time listening to people who told me for months that using the undoing of The Affordable Care Act, the seating of a conservative Supreme Court Justice, the allowing of the Dakota pipeline, the unraveling of Dodd-Frank, the screwing of Dreamers... as reasons to oppose Trump and vote for Hillary, turn around and bitch nonstop as these easily preventable consequences are becoming realities.  Maybe a bigger person can overlook this.  I'm not that person.  I'm fifty-six years old.  My entire life has been dedicated to doing whatever I can to help this country live up to its ideals of justice and equality.  In my lifetime, I've gone from watching Civil Rights activists beaten and firehosed to the election of the first black president.  I've gone from it being illegal for whites to marry blacks to gay marriage being the law of the land.  I've gone from women not being able to have their own credit card to earning the most votes, by 3 million, in a presidential election.  As great as all these progressive things and more have been, they could easily have been more if progressives had an ounce of fucking common sense and political acumen.  Come back full circle to basketball, being a progress is like being on a team with the best coach and the best players but too many of the players are prone to unforced turnovers and are more concerned with their personal stats than the team's accomplishments.  I hated having this type of player on my team.   I still do.

[progressivemillennial]

The Mirror Game, Or, I Don’t Blame You

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the most to blame of all?

I had scrapped writing this essay thrice since I first sat down to write it in December because I foolishly continued to think we’d been done talking about who to blame for Hillary Clinton’s loss.  So here we are: people are still having conversations on social media about this subject, the media still writes and talks about it, and Congress still yacks about it.  We have Congressional hearings all about Russia and a special counsel, Robert Mueller, investigating multiple aspects of the election and Donald Trump’s business ties to Russia.  I’m sure you still see these fights or conversations happening from time to time.  This is the conversation that never ends, and for a critical reason: we still find ourselves forming the narrative of the 2016 American Presidential Election.  Whoever “wins” at forming the narrative will for the foreseeable future dictate how we discuss the 2016 election.  For example, when you think about the 2000 election, ask yourself why Al Gore lost.  Who or what comes to mind first? Ralph Nader, perhaps?  If so, that’s not a coincidence.

As we begin, I have a small favor to humbly ask: go find a mirror. Look straight into your reflected eyes.  Raise either of your hands and point your index finger towards your image in the mirror.  Finally, capture this image in your mind’s eye and hold it in your memory for later.  Good?  Thank you!  I appreciate you playing along.  The conclusion to the game will be revealed later. The idea of scapegoating especially fascinated me towards the end of this election, before which I contended satirically that a whole host of people and entities would be scapegoated if Hillary Clinton, the inevitable candidate, lost. 

Popular Scapegoats From the Last Nine Months

1. Bernie Sanders: I admittedly was naive enough to think that Bernie would avoid blame since he campaigned for Hillary upon his defeat in the primary.  Wrong!  Don Lemon of CNN argued that Bernie Sanders and his supporters “in the beginning, before” damaged Hillary Clinton, enough for her to lose.  This kind of logic suggests that no one should have run against Hillary Clinton; although, to many Americans, this kind of coronation process does not seem democratic.

2. Gary Johnson and Jill Stein: MSNBC made it pretty clear that if third party voters had voted for Hillary Clinton, she would have won the presidency. Rachel Maddow later tweeted that if certain percentages of Stein and Johnson supporters had voted for Clinton in key states, Clinton would have won.  As we found in 2000, third party candidates make for easy, simple scapegoats.  So do their supporters.

3. Jim Comey: The Director of the FBI has been loved and hated by Democrats over the past year.  When he announced that the FBI would not recommend charges against Clinton, Democrats were ecstatic.  Tim Kaine, Clinton’s running mate, called him “a wonderful and tough career public servant.”  After his own “October surprise,” Comey drew the ire from most Democrats and would probably top the list of scapegoats had it not been for the Russian interference scandal that continues to this day.

4. The Media: Clinton aides thought that, in addition to Comey, the media was most to blame for the loss.  Clinton supporters even now can be seen referencing “her emails” as a reference to the media’s coverage of the email and server scandal.  President Obama in December said that the media was more to blame than Russia for Clinton’s loss.  Neither Clinton nor Trump nor Sanders supporters thought the media gave their candidate a fair shake.  The media also gave Trump billions of dollars of free media.  The media is an easy fall guy.

5. Fake News and Facebook: Facebook took a lot of heat originally for hosting fake news on its site before the election.  While the accusations against Facebook specifically have faded quite a bit, the term fake news unfortunately lives on, and it has been co-opted by Donald Trump.  The narrative of fake news impacting the election results took off so quickly that Stanford University released a study on January 18 on fake news and social media.

6. White People: White people were far more likely to vote for Trump than people of color, and I say white people because the majority of white women joined the majority of white men in voting for Trump.  This is not surprising since Donald Trump appealed mainly to white people.  What do you have to lose, it turns out, did not resonate with voters of color. 

7. Millennials: Younger voters took a Clinton win for granted, so more voted for third parties.  They didn’t show up for her the way they did for Obama.  They were bitter about Bernie and couldn’t let go.  They didn’t vote at all because they couldn’t vote for the lesser of two evils.  Bernie was too harsh on Clinton, so millennials couldn’t vote for her.  The supposedly idealistic and naive millennials have been blamed quite a bit for Trump.

8. Sexism and Racism: It would seem pretty silly to argue that sexism didn’t have anything to do with the outcome of the election, although the opinion column cited here makes such an attempt.  The column appeared in The Hill and was written, no less, by a woman.  Regardless, many wrote and continue to write about sexism and misogyny and its role in the election.  As for racism, you can likely recall Van Jones declaring the election a whitelash back in November on CNN.  I mean, I’m not saying he’s wrong, but I am saying we had a black president for not-one-but-two-terms, so there are limits to this argument.

9. Wikileaks: Wikileaks revealed a number of inconvenient truths about the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton: that Donna Brazile on at least a few occasions gave questions in advance to the Hillary camp for upcoming engagements with Bernie Sanders, that the DNC clearly favored Hillary Clinton over other candidates including Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s dreams of open borders and free trade throughout the western hemisphere, Clinton having divergent public and private positions on issues, and more.  The information contained in these emails likely hurt her campaign and the Democratic Party.

10. Russia: The Google News search Russia election interference returns 278,000 results. The Google News search for Putin american election returns  5,280,000 results.  The Google News search Trump Russia investigation returns 8,130,000 results.  Needless to say, much has been written on the subject.  The FBI, CIA, NSA, and the Office of the DNI assessed with confidence that Russia attempted to influence the American election in favor of Donald Trump, which doesn’t sound like an unreasonable assessment at all.

11. People Who Didn’t Vote:  Only 58% of eligible Americans voted in 2016. While it’s a bit arrogant to argue that had everyone voted, Hillary Clinton would have won, we should be careful not to blame literally everyone who didn’t vote for Donald Trump.  Some voters experienced issues getting to their voting place because the polling location is located inconveniently or due to a lack of transportation.  And voter suppression laws continue to successfully suppress the vote, particularly in minority communities. 

12. The Electoral College: In case you somehow missed it--and I’m not sure how one would achieve that feat even living under the world’s biggest rock--Hillary Clinton won more votes across the United States than Donald Trump.  In an alternate universe where the electoral college doesn’t exist, we cannot know who would have won a popular vote because both campaigns’ strategies would have been different.  But in this universe, big cities like Los Angeles and Chicago delivered Hillary Clinton a significant lead in total votes over Trump.

None of These Reasons Is Inherently Wrong

The beautiful thing about the 2016 election is that all of the reasons above could reasonably be argued for as a reason why Donald Trump won because the margins by which Hillary Clinton lost were so thin.  You don’t even need to try to quantify their effect; instead, you can simply think that if a sliver of white people are racist enough to vote against Clinton, that could swing the vote in Michigan or Wisconsin or Pennsylvania to Donald Trump.  Because more than a sliver of white people are racist, who could reasonably argue with you?

There are some individuals, groups, and causes that have mostly managed to escape the spotlight when it comes to the blame game, but the truth is: nearly everyone is responsible for the mess we’re in. 

The Democratic National Committee: Even Hillary Clinton blamed the DNC.  As she put it, “I mean, it was bankrupt. It was on the verge of insolvency. Its data was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong. ...  I had to inject money into it."  Maybe the DNC supported Clinton in the primary not because of her ideology or ability to win but because of her wealth.  And to be clear about supporting Clinton in the primary: when John Podesta was encouraged to ground Bernie “to a pulp” during the primary, he replied, “I agree with that in principle. Where would you stick the knife in?”  Most importantly, the DNC wanted to elevate candidates like Donald Trump.  They thought it was advantageous for Hillary to go up against one of them.  They got what they wanted, and they were wrong.

Superdelegates: Like it or not, superdelegates had a choice at the Democratic National Convention: they could vote for Hillary Clinton, who won the most votes in the primary but who was already unpopular and an establishment candidate in a change election, or they could vote for Bernie Sanders, who lost the primary but also was and is very popular and had a populist message that could have been effective against Donald Trump’s.  Polls at the time showed that he ran more strongly against Trump.  Superdelegates chose to vote for Clinton.  Perhaps they voted for the wrong candidate.   To be completely fair, I am not saying that Bernie would have certainly won.  We don’t know that, obviously, because we can’t prove a counterfactual. 

Winning After a Two Term President: Gore couldn’t do it, McCain couldn’t do it, Clinton couldn’t do it.  Since 1948, only Harry Truman and George H.W. Bush won the election after eight or more years of a presidency within their party, and Truman.  It’s very challenging for a candidate to win after their party’s president held the office for two previous terms, and there’s no shame in that.

Hillary Clinton and Her Campaign: Hillary Clinton did not run a perfect campaign, and she was not a great candidate.  John Podesta, her Campaign Manager, understood this, saying “we've taken on a lot of water that won't be easy to pump out of the boat. Most of that has to do with terrible decisions made pre-campaign, but a lot has to do with her instincts.”  She could have chosen a more progressive Vice President to woo skeptical voters on the left.  She could have not voted for the Iraq War, or pushed for war in Libya, or voted for the Patriot Act, or its reauthorization.  She could have not run with the “America’s already great” rhetoric when so many Americans are unhappy with the country and its politicians.  She neglected the Rust Belt.  Her ads lacked substance and policy, which were her strength.  Hillary is responsible, too.  But that’s not all.

One of the election’s greatest myths is the most common: that if you voted for Clinton, you could wash your hands clean and blame everyone else in righteous indignation. 

If, to you, Trump is Hitler, if he will bring about the apocalypse, if he will take away minority rights, tear down democracy, implement a fascist state, enable anti-semites, and all you did was vote for Hillary, then your bare minimal democratic participation does not match the level of urgency that the Trump presidency should evoke in you.  There’s a gap between your rhetoric and your actions.  You could have been calling voters, canvassing, marching before marching was fashionable, writing your local newspaper, participating in civil disobedience, and more.  Maybe not all of the above: everyone has different levels of time to commit to a cause and not everyone can afford to commit civil disobedience, but the end of America and the end of the world sounds like a reasonable cause to make time for, no?  Maybe you’re “less to blame.”  Good for you.  Trump is still the president.

And so, if you feel the need to blame others for the outcome of the election, recall the mirror game that we played at the outset of this piece.  Remember the image of you, looking squarely into your own eyes, pointing at yourself.  The next time you want to blame someone else for the election’s outcome, remember that image.  Unless you were a full time volunteer getting the vote out for Hillary--which is extremely unlikely based on probability, you are responsible, whether you are happy, unhappy or indifferent to the results.  Own it.

Insert quote here about age-old advice regarding what happens when one points finger in direction of others...

And know that I’m not pointing the finger at you.  Read the title again.  Who am I to point a finger?  I did very little to get Clinton elected.  In fact, I’ve basically been told that I enabled a Trump presidency, and that my conscience will have to deal with that.  But I absolutely am speaking to you.  We have hard work ahead of us.  

Self righteously pointing the finger at others may be easy and cathartic and require little thought, but it’s much more challenging to hold the Democratic Party responsible, to reflect on what more we could have done in the run-up to the election, to change, to get more involved, to change our behavior.

Peace and love, Tom President and Founder of Team Scapegoat

[doctrinendonuts-blog]

Yes, Pennsylvania. You are a bigot.

Yes, Pennsylvania: you are a bigot. Dear Progressives: I understand that you’re in shock, because I am too. My Nasty Women Vote sticker is stuffed in my desk; I can’t bring myself to let it go even though I know that Nasty Women are outnumbered. As an American, I want to learn my lesson, so I can stop the internal and national bleeding. As a teacher, I know the difference between learning and making an unsupported argument (note to students—your final exams will reflect this). It feels like progressives are doing the latter. I’m hearing: Democrats focused too much on people of color and LGBT people (who apparently don’t work?) and not enough on the “working class.” “Working-class” anger, not racism and sexism, explains Trump’s win. The Democratic Party should simultaneously tack to the Left and stop focusing on progressive values such as reproductive choice and racial justice. “Identity politics” is dead, except if your identity is white, male, resident of a former manufacturing region. If you’re in mourning for America’s Unclean Coal, the Democratic Party should listen. If you’re concerned about your mom being deported, about becoming a mother against your will, or about being arrested for using a bathroom, then please take a seat. Your needs lost us one too many elections already. Yeah, no. First, can we please stop saying Trump won because steel and coal lost? The death of steel and coal predates NAFTA, according to economists, historians, and Billy Joel’s classic 1982 classic “Allentown.” Second, Trump voters weren’t poor and many voted against their economic interests. Knowing this, we have two choices: we can assume they’re stupid, or you can believe something other than steel motivated them. The road to 11/8/16 isn’t lined with shuttered steel mills, but with closed minds. The sooner progressives get used to saying this out loud, the better. Remember when we elected our first black president and many voters lost their collective minds? Trumpism in the form of birtherism was born of an explosive, racist rage among people who saw Michelle Obama as an ape and Trayvon Martin as a thug. Meanwhile—and this hurts, because we love our President– the Obama Administration allowed Republicans to falsely paint him as a divisive, my-way-or-the-highway partisan even when his compromises were enraging liberals. The stimulus bill was almost 1/3 tax cuts the GOP wanted. Had the White House crowed about this compromise, they could have painted the GOP into a corner and killed their message he was a divisive partisan before it could take root. Instead, like Lucy with the football, the GOP got everything they wanted, rejected the bill on party-line vote in the House (three GOP senators voted for it), and won the message battle. Lucy got the football back with health care. Instead of a single-payer system, we got a compromise bill based on a Heritage Foundation model. Again, the Administration failed to convey that this was a compromise bill or sell its own policy to the people who would benefit—the same Trump voters who are about to lose their health care. This enabled the 2010 electoral “shellacking” for which our President graciously accepted some responsibility, though the Democratic voters who stayed home bear just as much. Obamacare and infrastructure investments benefited the very people whom the pundits now claim the Dems forgot in our misguided insistence on insisting transgender people are human beings. The truth is, Obama did good things for working-class people, including millions of Trump voters who rely on Medicaid expansion and health care exchanges. But white America didn’t believe it, for some reason. When the incumbent president’s signature accomplishment is unpopular, you’re going to pay for it at the polls, and Hillary Clinton probably did. In spite of Obama Derangement Syndrome, Secretary Clinton left office with a 64% approval rating— 14 points higher than the President’s. The GOP resumes its war on Clinton, spending millions of tax dollars to wound her. They find no wrongdoing. Nonetheless, by the time Senator Sanders the presidential race on April 30, 2015, Clinton’s approval is down to about 46%. And that’s when it got really ugly. Any progressive who tangled with the Bernie Bros (and then got called a c--- for using the term Bernie Bros, and then got called a c--- again for calling out sexism) can tell you—that primary damaged her. Do you remember? Sanders, not Trump, introduced the rigged system into the election cycle. Sanders painted Clinton as an establishment hack owned by Goldman Sachs and unaccountable to real people. “Weak” candidate Clinton wins the primary anyway, and not because it was rigged. Sanders refuses to acknowledge the math and then claims that superdelegates he’d previously railed against as part of the rigged system should actually rig the system for him precisely because he was successful in weakening her. By the time AP declared Clinton the presumptive nominee on June 6, she was 17 points underwater. Although it’s true the email investigation remained active during this time, her decline among Democrats points to something else going on. Her trend line and Sanders’ go in opposite directions. Meanwhile, the GOP nominates a candidate who on a wave of racism, harnessing the rage of voters who have been seething since a black president was elected. America clutches its collective pearls. Nate Silver says oopsie but doesn’t mention racism because why mention racism? Thanks to pressure from Sanders and his energized base, the Democratic Party assembles its most progressive platform ever. But like Lucy with the football, his revolutionaries still don’t want to play for their own team. Sanders doesn’t do much to change that. After promising to rally his troops around Clinton and stop the bleeding from the primaries, Sanders retreats to Vermont, where he buys a third home, and tweets about billionaires while his disappointed supporters fall for former Lexington Town Meeting Representative Jill Stein, who claims that Clinton is more dangerous than Trump. Then Russia joins the Trump campaign and the FBI helps out (because why should Hillary be able to waltz into the presidency just by beating the GOP and the left wing of her own party?). Our nation holds the first presidential election since a right-wing Supreme Court gutted the Voting rights Act. North Carolina Republicans brag about suppressing black votes, and the results prove they were right to brag. In spite of Russia, the FBI, recalcitrant left wingers, Obama Derangement Syndrome, and the Roberts Court, Clinton still wins close to 3 million more votes than Trump, yet loses the presidency. (Breathe. I’ll wait). It doesn’t take long for the far left to blame Democrats for failing to see the electorate through a class-driven lens. Bernie Sanders takes a dig at Clinton and her supporters, saying “It is not good enough for someone to say I’m a woman, vote for me.” He does not consider that Clinton’s gender caused anyone not to vote for her. In stating that “The working class of this country is being decimated. That’s why Donald Trump won,” he does not account for all of the working class people of color who voted against Trump. Or that the majority of Trump supporters believe President Obama is a Muslim. Our class-first revolutionary says “Identity politics” is a game for middle-aged women. And look where that got us. But funny thing about identity politics is – white people play too, and Trump’s America is proof positive. We have a rash of hate crimes. White nationalists are celebrating with good reason. David Duke has praised Team Trump, including an attorney general designee who once prosecuted voting rights workers (ominously, Trump claims three million “illegals” voted in 2016, foreshadowing federal voter suppression efforts led by AG Sessions). But pay no attention to the chorus of “heil Trumps” behind the screen. With the threat of a Muslim registry, mass deportations, the end of Roe, and renewed assaults on LGBT rights, it’s astonishing—and frankly embarrassing—that so many Democrats believe it’s time to focus on (a) wooing the free college, anti-Establishment (white) youth voters who just weren’t feeling Clinton and (b) charming the working-class whites who were insufficiently alarmed by the "build the wall" and "lock her up" tendencies of Trumpism to reject them. Yes, we need to have a good long talk with those young progressive voters, nine percent of whom voted third party in the face of the Trump threat to progressive priorities. But let’s not apologize for failing to give them the candidate of their dreams. I’m a college teacher, and it’s my job to tell young people when they’re full of shit. Here’s an idea that’s full of shit: it’s a candidate’s job to earn your very special vote, and if she fails to do so, none of the consequences are on you. This idea is the civic equivalent of standing over a drowning person, dangling a life preserver just out of reach, and saying “you didn’t say please.” Saying Hillary Clinton didn’t deserve your vote misses the point. The point is, America deserved better than Trump, and you knew that, and you didn’t step up. Yes, we need to talk to white Trump voters. But let’s not reassure them we don’t think they’re racists just because they voted for a KKK-endorsed candidate who promised to build a wall, register Muslims, and promote stop-and-frisk. To paraphrase Chris Rock, what does a person have to do to earn the term racist—shoot Medgar Evers? The fact is, many voters are racist. Some who acknowledge Trump is racist support him anyway. We’re not going to make this racism go away by pretending white people have a right to be told it doesn’t exist. And so, my dear progressives: I ask you to remember how comfortable we were with saying (accurately) that many Americans rejected President Obama because of racism. Do you? Good. So do I. Now it’s time to acknowledge that Trump benefitted from racism. Now close your eyes and remember how, when only one third of Americans supported marriage equality, we committed to change voters' minds because the long-shot cause of equality was a moral imperative. Do you? Good. So do I. Well, 62.5 million Americans just voted for a KKK-endorsed presidential candidate. We must again commit to change voters' minds, because the long-shot cause of equality is a moral imperative. So say it with me: Yes, Pennsylvania. You are a bigot. Was that so hard?