Right now in the world of democratic/liberal/progressive politics there’s a big huge debate raging. You see what happened is that we’ve examined the polling and realized that there is a gargantuan enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans that will almost certainly result in Democrats being utterly clobbered in November.
So now of course you have a lot of people pointing fingers in trying to determine who is to blame for this measurable lack of enthusiasm.
Some are blaming Left wing commentators for complaining too much about the Obama administration creating an atmosphere of disenchantment and despair in their listeners and readers.
Others are blaming Left wing activists for setting too high and unrealistic expectations for what the Obama administration could accomplish.
Others are the Obama administration for not fulfilling the promises they made to the people which makes voters more cynical.
Others are blaming Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration for not really causing any major change that directly effects individuals lives. The economy still sucks they say, so that’s why people are unenthusiastic.
Still others are blaming the Obama administration for just not fighting hard enough. The argument there is that they have been accepting and allowing right wing frames to dominate the media landscape making Democrats feel outnumbered and as if they have no voice.
Still others are blaming the Republicans and the Tea Party for creating and spreading a bunch of false narratives, ridiculous controversies, and lies. False scandals like acorn, climate gate, Van Jones, the 9/11 Mosque, and Shirley Sherrod depress the Democratic base whether they believe them or not because they feel as if they are under assault.
And still others just blame the people who aren’t showing up at the polls for being a bunch of stupid lazy whiny babies.
Now of all of those, I think blaming the people is the most absurd. People have lives. Sometimes their lives are hard. Sometimes they aren’t paying attention. And sometimes they don’t vote. That doesn’t make them “whiny” or “lazy” it just means they aren’t as deeply devoted or dedicated to politics as the class of political elites who follow every eb and tide of the political landscape.
But all the rest of those explanations? They could all be a little bit true. The truth is, nobody KNOWS why so many Democrats are not enthusiastic about elections. There could be a lot of reasons. There could be a lot of DIFFERENT reasons for different people. We don’t’ have any good polling that shows exactly why the majority of unenthusiastic democrats are unenthusiastic. So lacking any factual basis to decide, we’re engaging in pure speculation just in order to make ourselves feel better and to strike at whichever faction we feel deserves our ire.
Meanwhile the Historians will tell you that this situation isn’t really all that unusual. That it’s always generally the case that the opposition party is more enthusiastic after the first two years of a President’s term and they always gain seats. So one wonders whether there should be any freak out at all by the political analyst intelligentsia.
But what I found particularly interesting though is that nearly everyone on the left of any level of influence no matter who they happen to blame for the enthusiasm gap has closed ranks under the single proposition that asserts:
“You should ALWAYS vote”
Now it’s understandable why every political pundit and politician who wants their side to win would want their audience to always vote no matter what. It entirely makes sense for them to make it seem like a fundamental moral wrong NOT to vote and say to people that “if you don’t vote, you’re just working for the bad guys!” But the reality of politics is far more complex than that.
What I would say, a much more reasonable proposition, is that you should always vote unless you have a really good reason not to vote. So are there any such good reasons? Especially now, when the Tea Party is so strong and pervasive. Could there ever be a rational argument for not voting?
I’d say, YES. But you’d have to have laid the ground work well in advance. Just not voting yourself because you don’t like whatever certain politicians are doing or because they didn’t pass whatever pet peeve piece of legislation you wanted to get passed is DUMB. It doesn’t bring you any closer to getting your legislation passed and it cedes your fate with regard to all other issues to the whim of the masses. Now if you’re fine with that and don’t care and think the will of the masses, corporate funded or no, is just dandy for you then fine. Go ahead and not vote. But in all other cases, you should probably choose to vote for the lesser of the two evils. Or barring that, if you don’t have strong opinions, at least vote for the person who you think is smartest and most open minded and most moral and would make the best leader for the country. Or vote for the person you think you could maybe change the mind of on the issue you think is most important.
Now if you can’t come up with any difference of opinion in any of those factors or on any policy grounds both at a party level and an individual candidate level, then maybe you don’t vote for either candidate or vote for a write in candidate. But even THEN you should probably still go to the polls. Why? Because nearly every state has significant ballot initiatives that could have a huge impact on how you will have to live your life and how your fellow citizens will have to lead their lives. You should probably go vote JUST for that if for no other reason.
OK, so if you’re just by yourself you should almost certainly do everything within your reasonable power to vote if you care at all about the political future of your society. So why did I say there are circumstances when it might make sense NOT to vote? Well because, sometimes you need to make a decision whether or not to vote not based solely on your own judgment but as a GROUP.
This is how the political game is played. Every single issue imaginable has groups advocated and agitating on all sides of the issues. Whether it be Election Reform or Gay Marriage or Pro Life or Environmental Justice or Health Care Reform there are groups out there tryign to push their bills through Congress. The problem is, most of these groups have very little influence. But that’s not always because they couldn’t have influence, it’s often because they utterly cede their ability to influence politics by being bullied into supporting whichever party they think of as being “better” on the issue.
What that means is that when Pro-Public Option advocates were agitating for the Public Option the Obama administration gave lip service to caring about their concerns but in the end they decided that ensuring that the hospitals and doctors and insurance companies didn’t pour money into the Republican Party and kept pouring money into their party coffers was far more important to them than pleasing the Public Option supporters. Similarly they didn’t want to alienate the Blue Dog Democrats or the Republicans in Congress they might have to work with in the future. At the same time though they had to play both sides of the game a little cuz they didn’t want to piss off the Liberals too much. So they kept saying they wanted a Public Option if it was possible but at the same time they kept downplaying its significance to alienate and weaken its supporters. And they keep doing that to this day.
Now some Liberals are, understandably in my opinion, pissed off by this. It’s not so much that they think the Public Option was the one and only important thing in health care or that it was impossible to pass a good bill that lacked one (though some probably thought the latter), but it’s more how the administration totally treated them like shit about it. It’s how the administration belittled them and talked to them like they are childish babies for wanted, what most think is a substantive reasonable health care reform proposal.
But here’s the thing, whether or not you think the Public Option was a great idea, here’s why it never had very much of a chance. The Democratic administration had zero reason to support it. The ONLY people who would be angry if no Public Option were in the bill were the very people who were never in a million years going to support a Republican candidate. The fact is the Republican party has for generations been totally against “public option” type concepts and have painted them as the evil devil that is destroying our very society. The Liberals who wanted a public option had nowhere to go but to support Democrats. And so they would.
But of course, they didn’t have nowhere to go. They could also stay home.
Now staying home can be a strong political statement if done by a large enough group in tandem. It can easily swing an election. But most importantly though it creates a STRONG incentive for both political parties to take heed of them and cater to them. If the election block is organized coherent and exact and precise in their arguments they can totally use the threat of not voting in order to influence greater consideration of their ideas.
Imagine, for example if, at the very beginning of the process, every single Single Payer or Public Option supporter swore not to vote for any Democratic candidate anywhere in the country in the general election unless they had a seat at the table during the Health Care Bill and they got a vote on the Public Option before the bill got passed.
That’s not an unreasonable demand. That’s a fair and rational demand. It doesn’t say they need the bill to be passed exactly the way they want it to be. It doesn’t say they even require that the Public Option be IN the bill. All it says is that they want a say in how the bill is crafted and they want people on the record as to where they stand on the public option so that they know who to support and who not to support in the elections. That doesn’t mean they’ll get the Public Option. Chances are it would still get voting down. Chances are some of the 51 members of the Senate who said they supported the Public Option were lying. But at least then, we’d know WHO was lying.
But here’s the thing. If they had done that, they might have gotten their demands. But also, they might not have. And here’s where the no voting thing comes in. If you’re going to make a demand like that, an ultimatum as it were, you’d better be willing and able to follow through with it no matter what. Cuz if you don’t then both political parties will not take you seriously. They’ll see you as a joke who when push comes to shove can easily be manipulated and compelled and scared into to voting for the right party anyway. And if THAT’S the case, why should they ever listen to you again?
The answer is. They won’t. They’ll ignore you and your issue and do whatever THEY think is right regardless of what you want. And they’ll justify it by saying to themselves that they are giving you want you REALLY want in that patronizing way as if they know better than you stupid normal person could ever possibly know about policy.
So under those circumstances, if I were say the leader of a pro-Public Option group, and the Obama administration or any other Democratic administration just totally ignored my demands, by signatures, and my petitions even though I explicitly stated that IF you do this, THEN we will not vote for you at all, well then I’d go for broke in not voting. Heck I’d have phone banks calling people to stay home. I’d do everything in my power to make it clear that we are not voting and that THIS is the reason. I’d have my constituents calling Senators and Representatives just to express to them how we REFUSE to vote unless you hold a vote on a Public Option RIGHT NOW.
And similarly we would also hold a donations strike and an advertisement strike. So no bumper stickers from us. No $5 paypals to any candidate. Even the candidates we LIKE.
How much you want to bet in that game of chicken who will blink first? Politicians need their job. First and foremost they want to be elected. Sure they’ll be PISSED at us. In fact I’m sure they’d call us all kinds of nasty names and try to shame us into voting. But we’d stay firm until and unless we got our policy aim.
That’s just one election though. And while everyone will tell you that 2 years can ruin the country that’s just nonsense. The following election we would again support whichever candidate both talks the best talk and walks the best walk. BUT… if the party screws them again and again disrespects the advocates after the first statement and belittles them, well then now it’s time to play REAL hard ball. That means not just not voting, but DELIBERATELY running third party candidates against them in every state you possibly can. Or if that is impossible then yes, holding our noses and doing a protest vote for the OTHER guy, no matter how bad that person seems.
That last would be tricky. You’d have to carefully vet each race and decide where you can make the biggest statement whilst not turning the country over to the most dangerously anti-your agenda candidates out there. But not all Republicans are equal. And I’m sure there are some who could be supported who BELIEVE in Health Care reform at least as much as the Democrats and are not entirely opposed to using Government to help bring about a more equitable health care system. If you can find those candidates who you feel you can talk to, why not support them over the Democratic candidates who have shown zero desire to listen? That’s just good tactics.
But on the other side we’d also have to have a BIG carrot. So IF the Democrats do what we want or even if the Republicans do an about face and support our position or if a third party signs on to our position when the other two won’t, well then we’d go for broke in the OPPOSITE direction. We’d use all our people power going door to door, phone call after phone call, running ads, signs, and doing everything possible to get out the vote for whichever candidate that happens to be. The group would have to demonstrate that they are either a huge asset or a huge detriment that cannot be simply ignored come election time.
So under those circumstances I think it might make sense to not vote or even to vote against your interests if you are doing it strategically as part of a large group of activists trying to bring about REAL change. There is simply no reason to give up “not voting” as part of your arsenal in advance for some ridiculous concept of the moral necessity of voting. Of course not voting shouldn’t be your only weapon. Nor should it be the one you immediately jump on right away. But it IS a possible strategy that COULD compel real change when all else fails.
Still you have other weapons in your arsenal you should probably turn toward first. Petitions, Phone-a-thons, and of course supporting Primary opponents are essential weapons in your arsenal as well. It just depends on the circumstances which strategy is best. And sometimes, because the “not voting” is considered sooo taboo and soooo off-limits if you have enough people engaging in that strategy openly and clearly it can have an even bigger impact the first time you try it. No WAY should you give up that weapon in advance. It has far too much potential.
Now I imagined this strategy with regard to an abstract issue like the Public Option but it has even more potential as a powerful tool in the hands of very large already well organized constituents of the Democratic party. For example, imagine if Unions demanded a vote on Card Check or else they would tell all their constituents not to vote? Surely that would put the fear of God into the Democratic Party. What if the Hispanic Community demanded consideration of the DREAM Act or Environmentalists demanded some kind of Environmental Regulation before they would consider giving them their vote. Such types of tough unyielding politics would create a massive earthquake in the political landscape. Democrats need every one of those constituents in order to further any of their agenda.
But there is sort of a reasonableness caveat even to this tactical consideration. It entirely could be the case that even after making that ultimatum and even after deciding and swearing up and down that you’re going to mobilize a no-vote block… you might still have to change your mind and support the candidate that screwed you anyway. I mean obviously if you see the other party has gone to a crazy dark place and are on the verge of ushering in a new kind of terrifying fascism, well then at that time your petty differences with your party will HAVE to take a back burner. You have to be to some degree reasonable in this.
But at the same time you have to understand that parties CONSTANTLY try to paint the other side as the evil fascist nazi maoists. Just because people are saying that doesn’t really mean they’re anywhere close to that. Sometimes you have to be careful enough to see the forest through the trees. So yeah you might have to give your own party a set back in order to further your long term agenda just so long as you are sure that set back will not in actuality be the end of the world as we know it no matter how many people are telling you that it might be.
The other reasonableness consideration here is that constituent groups that have aligned goals need definitely to build coalitions so that they can coordinate their strategies. It would be EXCEEDINGLY counterproductive if EVERY constituent group of the Democratic party gave their demands as an ultimatum to their party and jumped ship if their party didn’t follow suit. Because in that situation, it just becomes, literally impossible for any party to fulfill all of those goals in just a 2 year time period no matter how determined and well meaning they are. So for that reason the strategists in these groups would need to carefully assess what’s most important now and what gives their overall movement the most long term strength and what the Democratic party seems to be draggin gt heir feat the most on and then sort of tag team issues. So first one idea would be for Environmentalists and Unions and Public Health Advocates and Gay Rights Advocates and Pro-Choice Advocates and Civil Rights Advocates and Civil Liberties Advocates and Immigration Reform Advocates all work together with one another to get the Democratic Party to pass one really easy thing that only one of their groups really cares about, say for example say Card Check which is really the issue that matters to unions. The others agree not to give any ultimatums on other issues but to support the Unions in this issue. Then the following two year legislature maybe everyone focuses all their effort on the Public Option and the next time on Environmental Reform, etc. etc.
Obviously you wouldn’t have to do one issue at a time, but you might have to put some on the back burner so that there isn’t any mass flight from the Democratic Party.
The other benefit of doing it as large coalitions is that if and when the Democratic party takes their constituents for granted there’s an even BIGGER hammer they get struck with as the entire coalition can strategically punish the party for its intransigence. What’s more, the bigger the coalition the more credible the threat. It’s much easier, say for example for a large coalition to credibly support primary challengers or third party candidates if it ever comes to that.
The problem with Ralph Nader’s presidential run in 2000 wasn’t that nobody should ever run a third party candidate. The problem is he had no sense of long term tactics or strategy. His running didn’t really affect the Progressive Movement or get any policy initiative passed. Similarly if Democrats all just randomly individually choose not to vote because they happen to not be “feeling it” this time around they’ll similarly accomplish nothing but to hand power over to the Republican party.
But that does NOT mean, contrary to what everyone is saying, that it is impossible for it to ever make sense not to vote or to vote for a third party candidate. Sometimes doing that makes PERFECT sense if doing so will impress upon the establishment how seriously you are treating the issues you care about and how far you are willing to go to see them through.
But having said that, right now I don’t see anyone who has laid any kind of serious groundwork for a “not voting” campaign based on any issue. So that means if people don’t vote, the establishment will simply through up their hands and shrug and have no idea why you didn’t vote. In fact, most likely they will attribute it to the crazy idea that the Democratic Party “went too far Left” because contrary to all reason that’s the prevailing opinion in Washington these days. Then you’re “not voting” will only result in handing power over to people who are working against your interests and at the same time pushing party that is supposedly on your side in the direction away from your interest. In other words it would be a total failure.
So in short. I understand why it might be tough. And I get wanting to send a message and why you might feel discouraged and all that. And under other circumstances I might even be wholly with you and on your side. But not under THESE circumstances. The plight we’re in right now.
So Vote you idiots. This politics stuff might be boring and annoying and infinitely frustrating and even a little scary. But it really matters. We can’t afford to have the silent majority “opt out” of the process without a good reason.
