One of the most depressing times in our political cycle, for me, is the last few months of a presidential election campaign. The primaries / caucuses are awful, but it’s at this point, post conventions, when you can count on hearing “it’s only in the last few weeks before the election that most people start paying attention.” And that’s depressing in itself, since it means what they’ll base their vote on might well be made for television convention entertainment spectacles and non-debate debates between the two corporate approved candidates. Of course, to an even bigger extent, the choice will be based on the “R” or the “D” attached to a candidate’s name. Nothing else really matters.
Add to that the ever-present “lesser of two evils” framing, and we get stuff like this. First, from a Democratic voter:
For my friends & family in OK/TX Reminder: Under @BarackObama, American oil production is at an eight-year high: http://OFA.BO/1NpKXr.
From Paul Krugman (emphasis added):
Let’s be realistic: the public doesn’t get Keynesian economics. The president could use the bully pulpit to try and change that, and I’ve been urging him to do that. But not two months before an election. …
It’s too bad we’re at this place, but we are, and it would be unrealistic and counterproductive to demand that Obama try to shift the national discussion that far right now.
Maybe right after the election? During the Inaugural address (if it’s Obama giving it, which I think it will be)? No wait, first we have to get new people in the Cabinet and other positions. And of course, with mid-terms just around the corner, Obama couldn’t possibly do anything “counterproductive,” could he?
From Glenn Greenwald:
Democrats Parade Osama bin Laden’s Corpse as their Proudest Achievement …
Almost every time Bin Laden’s scalp was paraded around (the Convention) on its pike … the crowd of progressives, liberals and party faithful erupted into a prolonged ‘USA. USA’ chant.
From Sarah Seltzer:
… it was particularly brilliant of Gawker’s John Cook and team to ask the following question of a number of Democratic operatives and luminaries and plain old delegates as they walked around the convention center in Charlotte: ‘Would you trust Mitt Romney with a kill list?’ Indeed. Would we trust him with the extrajudicial killing of citizens in which our current president has engaged?
People really, really, really want to be lied to. And most progressive and liberal pundits are either so brain dead stupid they don’t remember the lies of the 08 convention and how Dems and Obama actually governed or are corrupt.
Evil? Or Stupid?
A question not just for Republicans any more.
If bin Laden had been killed and General Motors bailed out under the Bush (or any Republican) administration, and then if “bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive” was used by the Republican candidate, many Democrats would be screaming about how awful it was, not cheering and chanting “USA!” If a Republican was boasting about increasing domestic oil production more than any other president (and giving the go ahead for deep sea drilling only six months after the Gulf of Mexico disaster, and laying pipelines to carry “Tar Sand” petroleum from Canada to the Texas coast, to further boost the “domestic production”), many Democrats would at least express some concerns.
More thoughts tomorrow. For now, this sums things up. Unfortunately. Vast Left:
No status quo was harmed in this election.
(Oligarchy sticker via If Still Voting Dem Rep)
hehe-heh… That last quote is a keeper!
I love that one, too
And how exactly do you think voters should make their point? ?et involved and make changes from within? A good example is the teabaggers….no matter what bilge they like to spew about being independent they are a wholly owned subsidiary of the repugnantklan party and the changes they have effected no matter how horrific have been done from inside the repugnantklan party.
OR vote third party OR not vote to make a point.
Once again I am not happy with everything that has been done by this administration. But when I consider the far ranging and REST OF MY LIFETIME horrific changes a Mitt da Twit and Lyin Ryan maladministration would result in I can not in good conscience do any thing BUT vote Dem this election and continue to try to change the party from within.
I hear people say we would survive a Mitt da Twit and Lyin Ryan Presidency….I wonder if the women who died from botched back alley abortions before Roe v Wade would agree…because you can bet the entire farm if Mitt and Ayn get in the Supreme Court will be stuffed with more Scalias and Thomases and you can kiss reproductive choice goodbye.
That’s certainly a valid argument, no doubt about it.
There are many others who disagree with you and it is after all THEIR vote.
Hey Sec. As always, your perspective appreciated and respected.
And as always, I think working both from within and outside the two party system is needed. Working for a “third” party; working for campaign and election reform; working to get rid of the Electoral College; voting down ticket for candidates who best represent your views (including “third” party), and then continuing to work to support and hold them accountable; voting selectively, only in races where you can find a candidate near enough to your positions; working on the campaigns of those you decide are worth that kind of time and effort; getting involved with organizations and activists who are working on issues important to you; not voting if you can find no candidate you can support, but actively working in whatever ways are best for you toward helping create a bigger-than-two-party system that allows and even encourages and supports candidates for whom you can vote; resist the “we can’t do anything until after this current most important election of our lifetime,” and, of course, “lesser of two evils” arguments, which never end.
No doubt there are many other ways for voters to “make their point.”
The only way to hold a politician accountable is to withhold your vote from that person.