Five years ago, a friend was running to be a judge in Westchester County, New York, and I signed on to help her campaign. She was running as a Democrat in a blue county in a blue state, yet the local Democratic leaders feared she would lose.
Why? It was an off, off year election. It wasn’t a presidential year, it wasn’t a year that the governor was being voted on, and no one was voting for US Senators or US House Congressional representatives.
My friend may have only been running for judge on NY state’s lowest court, but it was still an important election to win for the progressive cause. Low court judges make the initial decisions to be appealed and create the fodder for later appeal and higher court judges.
So why was there a worry she’d lose, I asked? Simple, it was explained, Republicans come out every year and vote, but Democrats don’t.
In the end she won. She had to spend $100,000 of her own money, and worked every weekend going to any event in the county she could find to meet voters and ask them to go to the polls and vote for her. She barely squeaked by, however, in a blue county and a blue state against a Republican voter who didn’t spend a dime and never left his house.
Until last year, I also lived in a blue town in a blue state that overwhelming went Democratic in every presidential election by over 70%, yet the town boards were dominated by tax cutting/budget slashing Republicans.
How was that? Well the town managed to have its elections in off-off years when less then 30% of the town’s electorate would come out to vote, and that 30% was overwhelmingly Republican. .
The school Moms would go out to coffee on election day, and sit around complaining about cuts to the school budget, but couldn’t find the time to go over to the schools, walk in and simply pull a lever for the people who wouldn’t cut their kid’s sports or music programs.
Republicans know this and use this to further entrench themselves. They managed to get control of the majority of statehouses where they then gerrymandered both state and Federal voting districts to keep themselves in control of the statehouses, and keep the House of Representatives in GOP hands
Right-wing media has done a great job at finding single issues to enrage voters and then creating “excuses” so that they can overlook the realities that their single mindedness wrought. Anti-abortion zealot? It doesn’t matter that the party you vote for puts semi-automatic guns into the hands of people so mentally unstable they then kill masses of people, because, you see, it’s the PEOPLE who kill not the guns. They then nod in agreement and march to the polls and pull the lever for whoever has the R next to their name so that babies don’t get killed by progressive whores who can’t keep their legs together.
Are you into guns? Well then the Republicans are for you. They’ll give you unfettered access to whatever guns you want with no restrictions. What’s this about raising the deficit by trillions and giving you a few paltry dollars back? Don’t you just know that it’s the crazy media spouting FAKE NEWS? Don’t listen to them, listen to us and go to the polls and pull that lever with the R next to it or else the Dumocrats will take your guns away.
Are you a small businessman? The Republican party says they’ll give you tax breaks and get rid of those awful regulations and things like the minimum wage so that you can run your business and make America great. So what that your daughter can’t now afford to go to college because all the tax breaks given to big corporations means there’s no money to fund her education, or that you won’t be able to afford a nursing home when you need one unless you spend yourself into poverty? This is America, not some Socialist state. So go to the polls and pull that lever with the R next to it, or else you may have to pay your 4 employees an extra $.10 an hour.
Republicans now dominate the Federal government and most of the state houses in this country. They are passing more and more restrictive laws on abortion, allowing unfettered access to guns, and stripping away benefits that benefit the poor and the middle classes.
I sit here wondering how this can be happening. How are statehouses, the Congress, the Senate and the Presidency filled with Republicans?
The answer is pretty clear. Progressives are losing the battle for our country because of laziness and Diva Democrats. Progressives can’t be bothered to go to the polls and vote consistently for Democrat, or won’t because the candidate on the ticket isn’t “pure” enough of a progressive for them.
You know what the basic difference is between a progressive Democrat and crazy right-winger is? That crazy right-winger votes, and votes consistently for Republicans. He or she votes in primaries, in off-off year elections and even holds his or her nose and votes for candidates they would otherwise despise just because they don’t want some “libtard” to win.
Progressives would rather see someone who they agree with on 75% of the issues lose, then get up off their asses or hold their noses and vote for them. That is the reason why they are losing the war.
The true purpose of Fox News and the right-wing media, is to create an army of Democrat hating zealots who march to the polls and vote consistently for Republican candidates who take our country further and further away from the progressive ideals we cherish. The strategy has worked spectacularly, and we progressives let it happen because we failed to counter-act their votes with our own.
That consistent turn out of right-wing voters provides political cover for conservative politicians. They know they can take what are otherwise unpopular voting decisions, like on guns, because conservative voters have their backs. Conservative politicians can take stances unpopular in the polls because conservative voters will still come out and vote for them, while the majority of those who disagree with their votes don’t bother to go to the polls.
Progressive politicians do not have that cover even in extremely progressive states. It’s why Democratic politicians ran from gun control. If they voted for gun control, the NRA made sure the gun crazies came out and voted against them. The folks for gun control didn’t make it a priority to go to the polls and vote for them.
Evangelicals didn’t like Donald Trump, but they held their noses and voted for him. What did they get? A conservative Supreme Court justice who will vote to overrule Roe v. Wade, put religion in schools, allow service providers to discriminate against LBGTs
What did progressives who refused to vote for Hillary get? A potential 20-week ban on abortion, loss of access to free birth control through their insurance, and a myriad of other restrictions on abortion on the state level. We also got a DOJ fighting on behalf of those who discriminate against LBGTs, state-level marijuana legalizations, huge tax cuts benefiting the super wealthy, and the dismantling of Obamacare.
Good going progressives. You held strong to your ideals by not voting and lost what you were fighting for. You actually played straight into the Republican’s hands. The GOP strategy has always been two pronged. One to get their voters out and voting, and two to depress the turnout of Democrats by convincing progressives that the Democratic candidate isn’t “pure” enough to deserve your vote.
There is no reason why even the reddest of states can’t be turned blue if people would just get out and vote consistently, and convince other like-minded people to do the same. Even in presidential years, turn out is pretty abysmal. According to the United States Election Project in 2016 just 59.7% of the electorate turned out. I.e., nearly 40% of the electorate didn’t bother to show up.
Specifically, in Alabama just 60.2% turned out to vote. So 39.8% didn’t go to the polls. According to Politico 2,078,165 voted in the 2016 presidential election, and Trump won by 588,841 votes. However, 1,373,936 voters didn’t bother to vote. If 45% of those non-voters could have been persuaded to go the polls and vote for Clinton, the state would have gone blue. You needed even fewer of those non-voters to show up if the people voting for Stein and Johnson voted for Clinton instead.
I’m not claiming by any means that it could happen, or that it will happen anytime soon. The potential, however, is there if progressives would just vote and then work to get other like-minded people voting as well. Progressives need to get their own army of voting zealots together and voting consistently to turn the tide. It won’t be easy, they have to first overcome the obstacles that the GOP has used to entrench themselves in power, but if enough people turn out and vote and continue to vote, it can be done.
So, if there is indeed a Blue Wave in November 2018 and the Democrats win victories across the board, its still not over. It will be no time for Progressives to rest on their laurels. You still have to get up off your fucking asses and vote in 2019, 2020, 2021 and each and every year thereafter if you want change in this country to happen, and happen in the progressive direction.
Oh, and by the way, change is slow and incremental. Don’t go take your voting ball home when you don’t get what you want after one election cycle. The anti-abortionists know that. They have been going out diligently for over 50 years and have been rewarded slowly and surely with small changes towards their ultimate goal. So no, you won’t get socialized medicine in 5 years, but if politicians know you have their backs, and feel comfortable that fighting for it won’t be a political liability, you might get it in 15-20 years.