On American Politics: It’s All About Power
“It’s all about power baby.”
Dirty Little Secrets-My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult
For reasons that completely escape me, progressives have been unwilling to learn the most basic political lessons over the past few decades. They have been more than willing to allow conservatives to not just get power but sit by as decades of progressive policies are steadily rolled back. They seem more content attacking people who are their allies than they are Republicans. They often are too willing to pass along false information, bad history, even conspiracy theories about the Democratic Party and Democrats. They mistakenly think their emotional involvement about particular issues and politics in general means they are correct and knowledgeable about both. For many, political compromise is viewed as a betrayal and nothing will be accepted that isn’t absolute, perfect adherence to whatever their political purity test de jour* happens to be (*not applicable to any politician they are currently passionate about.) These behaviors, and a whole lot more are why I get so frustrated with progressive politics and why progressives continue to lose elections even though they have the demographic advantage in many places.
Politics is about power. It is this fucking simple. Without it, all of your great, wonderful ideas aren’t worth a damn. How do you get political power? By winning elections at the local, state, and federal levels. How do you win elections? You don’t win them by staying home and not voting. You don’t win them with “protest votes.” You don’t win them by voting for third-party candidates who have no chance of winning. You win elections by voting in every election for the candidate who has the best chance of winning who stands for your values more than the other candidate with the best chance of winning. Period. Full-fucking-stop. Any strategy, any thoughts, any opinion about American politics that doesn’t have this as its underlying principle is not only seriously flawed, it is a cancer that needs to be eradicated.
As simple as this concept is, it seems very difficult and problematic for many progressives to grasp. Conservatives understand this really well. It is the reason they have been able to steadily take control of governorships, state legislatures, many of the courts around the country, the House, the Senate, and the White House. Republicans don’t have the demographic numbers to be in control of much outside of very red states. Yet, they do and it is ALL because progressives haven’t learned what it takes to win elections-get power.
A lot of progressives are under the belief what has held back progressives from winning elections are bad candidates. “If Democrats would put up better candidates, then they’d win more elections.” What this really translates to is, “I won’t get off my privileged ass and support or vote for someone who doesn’t meet my purity test, regardless of the possible outcome. Then, I’ll bitch and moan about how progress isn’t being made and it’s all because of something else, someone else, but never me and my idiotic approach to politics.”
Whenever I point out this truth, the purity progressives get their self-woven, natural fiber panties in a bunch. They whine about how anything and everything other than themselves is to blame for the current political climate. They have this stance because they don’t understand American politics, at all. Like it or not, American politics is a two-party system. You have two choices. If you choose to not select one of them or choose to select a third option, you are just as responsible for the current state of politics in America as the people who voted Republican.
Imagine you are in a room with no windows that has a single ceiling light wired to a single on/off switch. If you choose to not flick the switch on because your preference is a dimmer switch, you have chosen to be in the dark. If you choose to jiggle the doorknob in hopes of opening the door to let in light, because you don’t like the binary option of the light switch, you have chosen to be in the dark. It doesn’t matter how passionate you feel about the type of light switch or the number of options you think should be available if you do anything other than actively turn the switch to the on position, you are in the fucking dark and it is completely by your own choice. You can sit in the dark bitching about how unfair it is you are dark and why the room isn’t wired differently all you want but none of it is going to change the reality that you are in the dark because of your choices.
Because conservatives largely come from fundamentalist backgrounds built on binary choices-God/Devil, good/bad, men/women, right/wrong… they not only understand how the American political system works, they dutifully play their part to successful results. It doesn’t matter to them that a particular candidate in a particular election isn’t their ideal. To them, there are only two choices-the person with an ‘R’ after their name and the enemy. This is why they have no problem voting for a three-time married, serial adulterer with five children from three different women, who brags about sexually assaulting women, and can’t even pronounce “second Corinthians” correctly. When put into a room with an on/off light switch, they didn’t hesitate for a second about what to do in order to light up their conservative world.
This complete and utter understanding, whether conscious or unconscious, by conservatives, is why they control the majority of political power in this country even though they are a third of the population. Sure, they have purity tests but when push comes to shove, if the final options are a Democrat and a Republican, they will ALWAYS, en masse, vote for the Republican. We can debate the merits of their reasons and approach until the free-range, organically-fed cows come home but this is how politics were intentionally designed and how they have worked in America since its inception.
This binary view of politics is not only what has allowed Republicans to consolidate power the past few decades but do so in spite of a shrinking demographic. Because they have been so loyal to the party they identify with, because they know that if they don’t vote for the Republican candidate, the ENEMY might win. Until progressives adopt this exact voting strategy for a decade or more, they will continue to lose elections they should win. They will continue to watch as conservatives win elections and roll back decades of hard-fought progressive policies. They will continue to blame anything and anyone other than themselves for the consequences of their failure to understand the situation and act accordingly.
The entire Amerian political structure is intentionally constructed to be a two-party system. Progressives can like this or not. They can accept this or not. They can do whatever the fuck you want with this fact but treating it as anything other than this is not a smart political strategy.
Any progressive who doesn’t think this is how progress is made needs to watch the Ken Burn documentary on the Roosevelts. They need to pay close attention to how the far-left at the time hated FDR, tried to primary him, were always bitching about how he “wasn’t progressive enough.” FDR didn’t implement the most progressive policies because of the far-left but in spite of them. He was able to accomplish what he did because he had massive majorities in Congress throughout his presidency. When you have more people who are your allies, it is a lot easier to get things done even when some of them don’t completely agree with what you are doing or how.
The last time Democrats had large majorities in Congress and held the White House was under LBJ. It is no coincidence this is the last time major progressive policies happened. Since LBJ, even if Democrats had control of both houses in Congress and the White House, the majorities were razor thin and with the filibuster in the Senate, a majority really isn’t meaningful without sixty votes. If you want a major progressive bill to get by the U.S. Senate you are going to need more than sixty Democratic Senators because a handful will not support it because of the makeup of their state/constituency.
This is why it is so important for progressives to not undermine Democratic candidates/legislators who are not as progressive as they want, especially if they are not from your state. Doug Jones from Alabama might not be the bluest of Senators but holy-fucking-hell, he is a million times more progressive than Roy Moore or any other conservative from Alabama. Yet, when Doug Jones was running and right after he was elected, the far-left did nothing but bitch about him and prop him up as an example of why the system is broken, why the “establishment” is the real problem. No, idiots! Progressives demanding across-the-board purity tests are the fucking problem. The far-left could run the most progressive candidate they can find in Alabama from now until the rising seas from climate change buries everything south of Montgomery and they will never win an election. If you can put two and two together and come up with something greater than three and less than five, this means in order to have a Democrat elected to the Senate from Alabama, they are going to be less to the left than you would like.
It never ceases to amaze me how many times I see comments from progressives on social media or in comment sections where they are outraged some Democratic candidate/legislator from some state/district not their own, isn’t supporting the “perfect progressive” agenda. They can say, “My bitching about Doug Jones from Alabama doesn’t impact anything because I don’t live in that state.” Yes, it does. When progressives outside a voting area complain about the candidates involved, it has two very tangible, very detrimental effects: 1-It can depress the vote in that area from progressives who live there because they are being bombarded with opinions from other progressives telling them their candidate sucks; 2-The media picks up on this and rolls out hot take after hot take about how Democrats are in disarray and don’t have a cogent strategy which becomes the accepted “truth” about the Democratic Party for a good chunk of Independent and Democratic voters.
There is a reason why Russian online trolls spent most of their time and energy during the 2016 election NOT promoting Republican candidates and positions but PRETENDING TO BE PROGRESSIVES ATTACKING OTHER PROGRESSIVES because they know not only the importance of depressing voter turnout but how progressives are so willing to turn on their own kind. This is why they targeted Democratic voters in swing states.
The irritating thing is, while this was happening, in real time, some of us were not only pointing out what was going on but the dangers of it only to be mocked, ridiculed, lectured ad nauseum by the “progressives” who were gobbling up the troll bait, hook, line, and fucking propaganda sinker. That this is what happened and went down irritates the fuck out of me. That these same “progressives” who were so easily duped and were a big part of the problem not only haven’t seemed to have learned a damn thing from the whole situation, they are adamant their shitty strategy and even shittier knowledge of politics are the Holy Fucking Grail of political power and prominence.
This is why, no matter how specific the Democratic Party is about what it stands for or how progressive the party platform is, the far-left, Independents, and the media constantly trot out idiotic claims like- “The Democratic Party doesn’t know what it stands for;” “The reason why progress isn’t being made is because of the establishment/corporatist Dems.” No. No. No. The reason why progress isn’t being made is because progressives don’t vote in every election, don’t vote for the Democratic candidate with the best chance of winning, don’t do what is necessary to defend progressive policies already won, don’t understand how the simple concept of Us versus Them in a two-party system really works.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. Recently, I had a back-and-forth about this topic online with someone who claims to be not only a progressive but one that really understands how American politics works. When I pointed out that Hillary’s campaign ran on the most progressive platform since FDR, their comeback was, “She only took this position because Bernie pushed her to the left and I doubt she would have followed through.”
Go ahead, think about this response because it a classic reason progressives suck at political strategy, winning elections, getting power. Bernie lost to Hillary by almost four million votes in the primaries. Yet, in spite of losing by a wide margin, his camp was given a number of seats on the platform committee. The platform was agreed to by all factions and rolled out. Yet, in spite of this very generous, very democratic situation and outcome, to the far-left it wasn’t good enough and couldn’t be trusted. Unless Bernie won and had the complete say over everything, whatever happened could be used to rationalize/justify not supporting Hillary (I’m using this example but it applies to a lot of elections the past 30+ years.) The whole “follow through” comment is telling, as well. You never know what a candidate will/can do until they get into office and you see the context in which they have to work. If Hillary would have won and the GOP had control of the House and Senate as they do now, the people who were wary of her “follow through” would be the first in line complaining how she didn’t do what they thought she wouldn’t do.
The reason I know this is how they would respond is that I watched them do this very thing with President Obama. THE BIGGEST REASON WE ARE IN THE MESS WE ARE IS BECAUSE TOO MANY PROGRESSIVES SAT OUT THE 2010 MIDTERMS ALLOWING THE TEA PARTY TO TAKE OVER THE U.S. HOUSE AND THE MAJORITY OF STATE GOVERNORSHIPS AND LEGISLATURES. Why did they do this? Because, in spite of not having majorities in both houses of Congress, he didn’t pass universal healthcare. Never mind he did something that every Democratic President since FDR had tried to do but failed (comprehensive health care reform,) the purity left was pissed. Never mind he only had 58 Democratic votes and even then not the entire time because of Al Franken’s contested election and the death of Ted Kennedy, the purity left demanded he attains the logically unattainable. I watched for eight years as the far-left complain, theorize, and make horrible decisions because President Obama didn’t give them the unicorns they ordered in the exact color they wanted and in the perfect manner they expected.
Unless these progressives can explain to me how he was supposed to get their perfect, progressive policies passed without even a perfunctory, working majority in the Senate, they can take their views of how politics does and should work and cram them up their purity asses. Progressives allowed the Tea Party to win elections because they were more concerned with throwing a hissy fit about something that NEVER, FUCKING EVER WAS GOING TO HAPPEN than they were about getting power and making real progress.
I live in a state where this hissy fit changed the political culture from very blue to very red and we’ve only descended further down the cesspool the past nine years. Every time some progressive whines about their chosen candidate not winning in the primaries, every time they bitch about how someone from some other state isn’t “progressive enough,” every time they roll out idiot descriptions like “corporatist Dem,” or “establishment,” I think about the tens of thousands of people in Flint who have been generationally changed by lead in their water because of Republican choices. I think of the hundreds of thousands of Dreamers who are suffering from anxiety and might be deported because of progressives piss poor priorities. Everything progressive claim to hold dearly is being bent over a log is getting the Ned Beatty from “Deliverance” treatment right now because of bad political strategy. Not bad candidates. Not the DNC. Not “the establishment.” All of this is happening because the concept of here are two choices, one that wants to fuck you over as hard and often as possible and take away everything you care about and another who really wants to help you as much as possible is too difficult to grasp for some reason.
Even after pointing all of this out, there are some progressives who are still adamant their strategy is the winning ticket. They believe that if they allow Republicans to continue to win and fuck the country over enough, at some point, America will reach rock bottom and come on bended knee to them to save it. Even if this view was true, this would mean the most vulnerable in society will be screwed six ways to Sunday, in order to prove a point. How many people denied health care is okay? How much worse can the environment be damaged to where it is justified? How many more people can be pushed out of voter registrations to where this is worth it? How much wealth is it okay to redistribute upwards in order to justify being a purist? How many voter, women, minority…rights is it okay to sacrifice for a mythological outcome? I have spent most my adult life studying, teaching, writing about ethics and not in a heavily alcohol-induced state while on painkillers can I come up with any moral justification for this mindset.
I don’t know how you can claim to be progressive and at the same time make choices that hurt the things you claim are most important to you. I can’t take seriously the political strategy views of progressives who are willing, even in the short-term, to sacrifice POC, the LGBT community, immigrants, women… for hypothetical, long-term gains. I don’t trust any progressive who tells me that the Democratic Party needs to shy away from identity politics. I have real problems with any progressive who uses terms like, “corporatist” and “establishment” when Republicans control the levers of power. I refuse to listen to the political strategy opinions of people whose election winning percentage record around the country is in the single digits. Pro Tip: If you aren’t successful at winning elections, don’t give advice about political strategy.
If you think of yourself as progressive and are upset at me, too bad. I’ve been at this for almost four decades and watched the same pattern of behavior happen over and over and over and over again. I’ve fought for universal health care longer than most o the far-left has been alive. Change, serious, generational change only happens in America because of lots of hard, well thought out work, and having the political clout to get it passed. If you think you can magically bypass this, you are just as guilty of progress being held back as conservatives. Sorry if this leaves a bad taste in your mouth but it is the truth. America had a really good shot at some serious progress after the massive fuck up that was the George W. Bush administration. Unfortunately, too many progressives had a major hissy fit because President Obama didn’t give them everything they wanted right away, even though he never had a filibuster-proof Senate and was dealing with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Instead of understanding the situation and a basic grasp of a School House Rocks level of civics, a lot of progressives pouted stayed home during the 2010 midterms and allowed the Tea Party to fuck over the country in ways that are still going on today. When given the choice between Donald-Fucking-Trump and Hillary Clinton, many of these same progressives either replayed their stay-at-home role or voted for a third-party candidate. How is that piss poor choice turning out for your progressive ideals?
Even many of the progressives who voted for Hillary really didn’t help the situation. I can’t tell you how often I bring up the horrible political strategy on the left and someone will chime in with, “Look, I didn’t like Hillary but I still voted for her.” Well, la-di-fucking-da! You did the bare minimum and you want not just a cookie but some praise? Sorry, I’m all out of progressive, political participation trophies and orange slices for you. You mean you had to really think about and “hold your nose” to vote for the most qualified presidential candidate in history and the first woman? Really?! And, you want people to praise you for your effort? Fuck you! Knowing the choices, knowing the stakes, knowing history…you should have been eager to vote for her and should have been saying so to anyone and everyone who could hear for months. Your half-assed, “I didn’t want to but I voted for her,” attitude helped influence others whether you know it or want to admit it.
I don’t say these things to make progressives feel bad or piss them off. If this is what happens, that’s their problem, not mine. I say these things to help progressives really understand that being involved in politics is more than voting every four years in presidential elections. It is more than what you want and your priorities. It is more than purity tests. It is more than half-hearted efforts. It is more than razor-thin majorities. Politics is about engagement, sacrifice, compromise, constantly doing whatever it takes to move the needle forward, large majorities, supporting allies even when you don’t agree with everything they do. American politics is about slow, meaningful change.
Don’t “Civil Rights Act,” or “Gay Rights” at me either as examples of sudden political change. If you do, this shows you don’t know a damn thing about history. A lot of people think political change happens really quickly because they haven’t been paying attention to anything that didn’t happen thirty seconds ago. People were pushing for Civil Rights since the end of the fucking Civil War but sure, go ahead and believe it happened all in the matter of a few months in the early 60s. People were fighting for gay rights for decades before Obergefell versus Hodges made it the law of the land. Real political progress is like a very large balloon, a lot of time and effort goes into blowing it up and when it finally pops from years of effort, a significant number of people act as if it suddenly happened because they puffed a couple of breaths into it. Those last few breaths might have been the final thing that burst the “Progressive Dam,” but without the decades of blood, sweat, tears, life and limb from tens of thousands of progressives before you, that dam wasn’t going to burst despite your best effort. Show some appreciation and respect for those who came before you who most likely paid a much steeper price for their efforts towards progress than you can even begin to imagine. Don’t let their efforts go to waste because of your self-interests. Learn how American politics really works and play it the best you can, not the best you demand or the best you want, but the best you can.
Just because you think you are “woke” politically doesn’t mean anything without context, history, a workable strategy. Passion is important, wonderful, necessary… but passion by itself is not only meaningless, it is dangerous. Fascism relies on this kind of passion. I’m not saying being a passionate progressive is the same as being a fascist but being emotionally invested in something is just the first step in a long journey. This being said, there are a lot of similarities between the far-right and the far-left when it comes to purity tests, demonization of compromise, closed off belief systems… Just because your goals are better, doesn’t mean the paths to achieve them are not unethical, moronic, dangerous.
Until progressives learn these lessons, they will continue to fail to win elections they should win, they will continue to blame everything and everybody but themselves for their failures, they will be their own worst enemy in the fight for the progress they claim is most important to them. If progressives don’t believe me, just look at where progressive politics were in 2009, where it ended up in 2010 and where it is now. If they still don’t get it, here are a few names to consider: Neil Gorsuch, Betsy DeVos, John Bolton, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump, Rick Perry, Greg Pruitt… How is your half-assed support of Democrats working out for you? How does it feel for progressives to be responsible for the undermining of environmental rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights, banking regulations, taxes on the wealthy…? Maybe, just maybe, in the future, they will think about the big picture and not so much about their pet issues. Maybe they will finally figure out that American politics is about a choice between conservatism and progressivism. Maybe, just maybe they will realize that fighting against people who are their natural allies while the real enemy burns everything they love to the ground is really, really, really fucking stupid.
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