Every so often, I see someone complain about how the Democrats are not giving them, or other Democrats something to vote for. I do not understand this, because I see evidence nearly every day that indicates that the Democrats have plenty to offer. Just as importantly, I see plenty of evidence that Republicans need to be removed from power.
We've seen the damage the Republicans are doing to this country. The Republicans in the House are making it impossible to govern the country by refusing to pay for anything that doesn't benefit their paymasters. We've seen them shut down the government to try to defund the ACA, with a number of them believing that defaulting on our obligations would be no big deal. In the end, their shutdown cost more money than if they had just let things run. The Republicans have refused to fund long term unemployment insurance, and cut a major chunk out of SNAP (the only good thing being the damage it has done to Wal-Mart).
We've seen the Roberts Court decide that white Catholic males should be in charge by any means necessary. If it means gutting voting rights for blacks, so be it. If it means cutting off contraceptives for women, not a problem. The only rights they expand are those where white men are the beneficiaries: Increase in contributions from corporations to campaigns, expanded rights to intimidate Americans through guns, and the right to interfere with the lives of women.
And these are only at the national level. Republicans in states are doing the same thing. The following is from http://prospect.org/... but it reads like it came from my state, Texas:
Voting rights have been a volatile issue in North Carolina, where Republicans recently took control of both the legislature and the governor’s office. Of all the far-reaching policy changes that have given rise to the state’s Moral Monday protest movement, none cuts deeper into the psyches of many progressives than the recent election-law overhaul. “I can’t believe we are seeing this day again,” says Rosanell Eaton, a 93-year-old African-American co-plaintiff, who recalls enduring a literacy test when she first registered to vote. “Dr. [Martin Luther] King would be having a fit.”
And why did Republicans do it:
The 49-page act, passed in July 2013, eviscerated a suite of recent reforms that had pumped up voter turnout in North Carolina.
There is only one reason for this: To reduce turnout among blacks, college students, and anyone else that might vote for Democrats.
So, I will tell you why you need to vote: You need to vote to prevent those that would steal this country from winning. You need to vote because until Democrats regain power in places like North Carolina, and until they gain power in places like Texas, you will have to make up for the voter that had their vote blocked by a law straight out of the 1950s. You need to vote because we have to remove those that are able to control women's bodies by somehow making corporations more important. You need to vote to remove those that would destroy unions and teachers and schools.
And you need to tell everyone else to vote. The other party has people turn out specifically because they want Democrats out of power. They don't want the change signaled by the first black president, and they won't want the change created by the next president. We have to out number them from now on.