This is a diary with questions – not answers. Far be it for me, a Canadian with no right to vote in US elections, to determine what my neighbours to the south should do in November when they go to the polls -especially when I don’t know the ins and outs of supporting individual candidates that you know far more about than I do.
Because of that, I’m looking at the broader picture.
Over at my blog I just wrote two posts about the Bush administration’s attacks on the freedom of the press. That, coupled with a lack of congressional oversight of the president, leaves me deeply disturbed – especially considering the long erosion of civil rights in your country under an administration that exists soley for its own power; an administration so corrupt that America will suffer decades in order to heal the rifts created by a destructive political machine that has so venomously divided your country in the name of “war” and that has lied repeatedly to make that situation a harsh reality.
America – the ideal – is in danger.
Now, my main question is this: what ought to be the determining factor in how people on the left vote this November?
I have long been opposed to people like kos who claim that the only consideration ought to be winning. And now I find myself asking if I was wrong. (This is not intended to be a diary about him. This is about strategy.)
I am an ideological liberal, but I am also a practical idealist. There are some ideals I absolutely refuse to surrender and I would not expect others to do so either.
But… and that is a huge word in this current political atmosphere, how can those ideals and the reality of a country in danger be meshed and resolved in order to attain Democratic control in congress? That control is absolutely essential if your country is to begin to heal. And, for those of you whose allegiances live with other parties, such as the Greens, the sad reality for you is that the Democrats are the only party that has any sort of realistic chance of overturning Bush’s policies and holding him to account.
It’s a very uncomfortable place for many Americans who want to remain true to their ideals to face. The Democrats are not the left-wing representatives that so many would like them to be. They may, in fact, never be that. What remains then is to answer the question: how can the Bush administration best be held accountable? The only reasonable answer at this point to many is for Democratic candidates to win so they can use subpoena powers to investigate Bush.
So, you on the American left are stuck in a very difficult position. There have been many conversations in the blogosphere about whether a pro-life Democrat should be supported; about whether a longshot (netroots-supported) Democrat even has a chance to unseat a Republican; about the best strategy to follow. (And, yes, Lieberman has to go – no doubt about that since he would just put up obstacles to hold Bush accountable for anything).
I’m not sure I’ve been able to get the pulse of where my American friends are at. That’s why I’ve written this.
Do you reject ‘winning for the sake of winning’, preferring to stick to your purely ideological guns? And, is that a realistic strategy? (I’m just asking. You have the information to be the judges.)
Should winning be the sole focus? Can the Democrats win and stick to their quasi left-wing (centrist) ideology? Or, is it enough that more seats are won solely to have the power to investigate Bush?
These are hard questions and, yes, they’ve been debated endlessly. In the end though, what is the consensus? Are people like kos 100% wrong or can a reasonable compromise be found that will satisfy most everyone?
This is an absolutely crucial election. Give Bush two more years of unchecked power and who knows where your country is headed?
What is your main concern and how do you, personally resolve it?
Thank you.
Update: I forgot that I can add a poll here, so here it is:
I’m sort of stuck with one foot in each camp. I’d like to vote my conscience, but if the candidate isn’t viable I’ll vote purely to put a Dem in office (or remove a repub)and hope to work on passing liberal issues from there.
I’m with you… although I voted my conscience in the 2000 elections with Nader (boy, was that a mistake) since I live in TX and it was a foregone conclusion.
Now, I’m beginning to yearn for greater grassroots participation. I have a lot less faith in the party system
Meantime, I’ll go stock up on noseplugs for the Nov. elections.
Vote my conscience in primaries, but hold my nose and vote for whoever has a D after their name in the general.
Good to see you catnip.
I suppose I should have made a distinction between the primaries and the general election. I hadn’t thought of that.
During the last Canadian election, I didn’t decide who to vote for until two weeks before the election. The Liberals had made a huge political mess with the Sponsorship scandal but I finally cast my vote for them because I thought they should be held accountable for cleaning it up – with their new leader, Paul Martin, who had promised to do so.
In the scheme of things however, because I live in Alberta and knew that no Liberal would win in my Conservative held riding, my vote was more of a show of protest than anything against the (asshole) Conservative candidate – just to show him that we’re not all a bunch of right-wing sheep out here.
My ideals are now actually more in line with the NDP and I blasted the Liberals following their recent vote on continuing the Afghanistan war mission. So, I know these matters are complicated.
On principle, I’d agree with ejmw – go with your principles (heart) in the primary and with your head in the general.
But one qualifying question from me. I’m not so sure that the premise that if D’s win, Bush will be investigated. I guess that’s how low my opinion of our current D leaders has gone. I know some will try, but I’m not sure much will come of it.
is that Conyers would be in line to chair the House Judiciary. That would be huge.
I’m not so sure that the premise that if D’s win, Bush will be investigated.
That was certainly in the back of my mind. Do you think there would be enough public pressure on them to do so if they actually could?
I’m just going from a gut reaction here and I do think that Conyers as chair of Judiciary would be fantastic, but I think the general public has absorbed all of the outrageous things Bush has done and might see investigations as Dem’s digging up old stuff. The US public KNOWS that we are torturing and eavesdropping, they KNOW that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld lied to get us to go to war and they have not demanded accountablity. And certainly the Dems have not demanded accountability. So it seems that all of this has been absorbed into the “business as usual” politics. The bar has been lowered – I just hope and pray that its not permanent.
I’m going to stick as closely with my principles as possible. Somebody has to hold on to one end of the continuim so it doesn’t keep shifting. I know many will follow the path of practicality and hope to correct the course later on. I don’t believe that is realistic, but even if it is, I feel called to serve as a trail marker. Everyone has to do what they think is best.
You don’t understand: In America we have computers to do are voting for us. It saves us all that worry about how the results will turn out.
“dangerous times” does not begin to describe it.
In the last few years and greatly accelerated by what I concluded nine-eleven is really about, I have come to think of our democracy as a farce, a distraction. I know that when I take so much time struggling with something and my conclusions settle in my mind so solidly and completely that I am right. What frightens me most is that I have become so sure about this. What frightens me is not to be alone with this conviction. Convictions I can only reach utterly insular. It’s that I’m not sure how much room I still have to be myself, how much energy I now have to spend to hide myself my otherness my uniqueness. Instead of just exploiting and enjoying these things. So I need to have this over with. I want to burn the house down so we can start anew. If that means voting for the Devil I will do it.
every time even if it means voting for a non-Dem minority candidate, or not voting. I’m too old and ugly to be brought into the win at all costs stuff. Been there, done it and seen what it results in.
I’ve decided I will not vote for candidates who don’t support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. On social issues, they’d better support abortion rights and universal health care. Whoever I’d consider would have to take the issue of global warming seriously, and propose to do something about it.
If more people stuck to their principles, we’d have more politicians representing those principles.
This is a really difficult decision, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and I don’t see how we’re going to get accountability for Bush in DC without a Democratic congress. So I see myself as donning protective gear as necessary and voting “D.” That has the advantage of beginning the movement of the conversation back to the left, and from there we can continue to drag it further in that direction.
You have to stop the bleeding before you can do corrective surgery on the patient.
Good to see you here, catnip.
Compromise if you must but the long term strategy should be principle. Only a clear statement of goals will bring consistent success. Because the federal Dems have lost their way in this regard, recent elections have been difficult. Democrats have had far greater success at the state level.
So much is going to hell at at one time, I think for a lot of us, we need to look at the elections as a combination of emergency triage and long-term therapy…. Having a Democratic majority in Congress (either or both houses) would give the party control of the committees and a much larger chunk of the agenda. How much they would actually DO with that, given what’s been accomplished in the past even when they DID have the majorities, is not certain. There are a handful of voices, however, like Conyers — who would be given a better chance of being heard. On the federal level, we’re definitely looking at triage… but just to staunch the worst of the bleeding will be more than we seem able to do right now. But if a new (D) majority is not that different than the current (R) one, will that do anyone any good?
Does that mean we hold our noses and vote for the person with the (D) after his or her name, even when we despise the candidate and everything they stand for? That’s one of those difficult questions… and there really isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of answer.
My fragile hope, for what it’s worth, is that we give each other the benefit of the doubt… and freedom of choice… on that issue, especially as the state primaries go by and the November elections approach. Especially in states where quite frankly the final choice sucks. Some will vote the (D) ticket no matter what, because the chance of getting the majority is more important to them than the views of any single candidate… and some will abstain or vote for a candidate with no hope of winning, because they refuse on strong personal principles to support the party’s candidate and want to send that message to the party in the only real way they can at that point. It’s a very emotionally charged issue, and a very personal choice. Each of us can only vote based on our own conscience… our own hopes, convictions, experiences, principles and gut feelings. I just hope we can let each other do the same.
I think you have to place your questions in a context. So, I’ve commented some of your remarks in bold to refer to them here.
Your diary began with 1) above. If you believe that, as I’m inclined to do as well, then you must place your questions in that context. For example, taking 1) above as essential, you should ask yourself how accurate your assumption in 2) is where you state: “Democratic control in congress? That control is absolutely essential if your country is to begin to heal”–
I am not at all convinced that Democratic party control of either the White House, Congress or both at once shall actually help ensure that the country begins a healing process–or that this is what is most needed now.
Many people would urge that we (once again!) “heal” by turning away from dealing with the dangerous trends which have undone all real democratic self-government in the nation. That sort of healing I don’t think the nation can afford; and, if that is what giving the government to the current Democratic party would mean, then I’m opposed to that.
You may have in mind some Democratic Party of the past; one that no longer exists today.
Your claim in 3) is, of course, a piece of speculative forecasting and if followed, it is self-fulfilling. Of course: the party you give up on, the one you refuse to support, won’t win; the question remains: how valuable is your vote or the system in which you cast it if you take as a given that the party that best represents you, can’t win anyway and thus won’t get your vote?
On OTHER circumstances, I’d be completely prepared to reconsider the virtues of second-guessing electoral outcomes and preferring and supporting the so-called “best chance”, “most likely candidate” among those who are nearest my views, etc.
But, in THESE circumstances, I don’t view such strategies as producing healthy outcomes since the Democrats as they now are and as they operate are also a very real threat to any recovery of meaningful democratic institutions and the restoration of now completely lost civil liberties.
What worries me most is that once the general public reaches the conclusion that the available peaceful and legal political means for correction and for reform have all been subverted and corrupted, then there remains only one other avenue open to reverse open-ended political corruption and the practice of tyrannical rule.
When that point is reached in the public’s reasoning, then we’ll have even more hardships; though these may not be avoidable.
The only real avenue I see to forestall that kind of disintegration and political chaos is for those who are in positions of political responsibility and power to at last recognize the dangers they are courting by their extreme corruption or their abdication of their political responsibilities–their holding themselves and their peers politically and legally responsible for the harms already done to the nation and their insisting on taking the steps essential to correct and reverse those harms.
Such a change of course might regain the public’s battered trust; without it, I fear things are going to become very, very, bad.
Each election cycle in which these things are again ignored is another opportunity lost and another step closer to the unpredictable point at which the “tipping point” is reached and things are not practically reversible without catastrophic consequences ensuing.
I certainly understand that it’s the lesser of two evils (ie. supporting Democrats) that I’m talking about here. (Yes, that is Naderesque but, let’s face it, he does have a point).
There is no magic cure.
As for healing, the ideal – as it exists in the current context – is one that at least resembles democracy as opposed to the slippery slope into dictatorship the country is now on (and which some will say it’s already arrived at).
Each election cycle in which these things are again ignored is another opportunity lost and another step closer to the unpredictable point at which the “tipping point” is reached and things are not practically reversible without catastrophic consequences ensuing.
That’s the crux of the problem. If you go along with winning for the sake of winning, you may tacitly endorse ideological points of view that will be massively difficult to force the party to pull back from in the future.
As I said, this is a very difficult situation. And, as for politicians holding themselves or their peers accountable, unfortunately it seems that the only avenue to force change now is that of using legal means (as Specter is trying to do by suggesting that Bush be sued for his abusive use of signing statements).
I shouldn’t fill my mind with “what ifs”, but what if the Republicans retain control of congress? Where will the country be in 2008. I shudder to think about it.
In the end, I think the best strategy is probably just to focus on GOTV efforts so as many left-wing voters get to the polls as possible.
At this point, I would suggest that progressives living outside the US begin pressuring their own governments to, insofar as possible, begin disentangling their own economies and social structures from those of the United States. This needs to be a VERY high priority, because the United States IS going to hit the wall, economically and politically, and it’s going to be within the next few years…
Progressives within the US should be planning escape routes and making quiet preparations for departure; depending on whether the first part of the collapse is economic or political, we may have only a few hours to get out before the borders are sealed, or we may be caught in an economic whirlwind which will make October 1929 look like a casual stroll.
But at this point there’s not a goddam thing that can be done within the political process to stop this. Out of insatiable greed, unimaginable ignorance, and hubris beyond even the worst of the Greek tragedies, the train wreck that is the GOP has blocked, carefully and systematically, every single thing which might have avoided or mitigated the avalanche, and now the choices have come down to get clear or be buried.
What if there is no back door?
Then none of this matters much, does it?
I was wondering more along the lines that if there is no back door, then what does one do?
No idea.
Oh dang – that is too bad. 😉
Just as well. I don’t believe in magic. How about non-magic, realistic– “cures”, that isn’t the right word either–measures?
There is no “cure” for what ails us; only treatment which relieves the symptoms. Our illness is all bound up with our inherent nature: we’re fallible creatures. But we aren’t always this fallible, in these ways.
I don’t follow the reasoning here; our electoral system is in grave, grave doubt–that is, if one still entertains doubts about it. For others, lots of them, the doubt is past: our electoral system is now completely corrupted and unworthy of the slightest respect.
Thus, “get out the vote” is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Unfortunately, not all Americans or even all “progressive” Americans can realistically “abandon ship”.