Image Transcription:
A tweet from the George Takei Twitter account which states:
"A Democrat was in the White House when my family was sent to the internment camps in 1941. It was an egregious violation of our human and civil rights.
It would have been understandable if people like me said they’d never vote for a Democrat again, given what had been done to us.
But being a liberal, being a progressive, means being able to look past my own grievances and concerns and think of the greater good. It means working from within the Democratic party to make it better, even when it has betrayed its values.
I went on to campaign for Adlai Stevenson when I became an adult. I marched for civil rights and had the honor of meeting Dr. Martin Luther King. I fought for redress for my community and have spent my life ensuring that America understood that we could not betray our Constitution in such a way ever again.
Bill Clinton broke my heart when he signed DOMA into law. It was a slap in the face to the LGBTQ community. And I knew that we still had much work to do. But I voted for him again in 1996 despite my misgivings, because the alternative was far worse. And my obligation as a citizen was to help choose the best leader for it, not to check out by not voting out of anger or protest.
There is no leader who will make the decision you want her or him to make 100 percent of the time. Your vote is a tool of hope for a better world. Use it wisely, for it is precious. Use it for others, for they are in need of your support, too."
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The last paragraph I find particularly powerful and something more people really should take into account.
Just for clarity, I'm actually from the UK, but we also have FPTP voting and a number of similar issues. The Democrats would (for many issues) be considered right wing in the UK though... The really difference though is we actually have minor parties that can leech power from the big parties (see Brexit for a side effect of that).
I agree with this actually. The electoral process is horrible and needs reform. We just disagree on how to hopefully eventually achieve said reform
Gonna combine the rest here, because I think the crux of the issue is this. I believe that not voting leads to the Democrats shifting right, feeling no need to chase the "lost votes" that are too "radical" to ever convince. They're too focused at trying to take votes from the Republicans to care about those further left.
Your (simplified) argument, if I'm correct, is that by not voting you present a base of people that are currently untapped, and hope to encourage the democrats to move towards you in order to convince you to vote for them again.
It's effectively the same argument I used to claim that voting for the dems would encourage the republicans to shift left, but you're trying to shift the dems further left instead.
My concern is I think I agree with you regarding how the dems are chasing the republicans to the right, but trying to think about this now (after a few drinks) I still think not voting is worse than voting. The not voting method seems to rely on things getting worse before they get better. i.e. you shift far enough right that there's a big chunk of people not voting on the left that you can grab up in one fell swoop with a big policy change
Hmmm... I'll have to think on this further, because you do raise interesting points to consider. So for now instead I would like to say thanks for replying in full and in detail. It's rare to see people engage this way.
That's the thing, I love arguing politics. It just gets frustrating when people come into it in bad faith rather than openly considering new perspectives and talking through the logic.
And anyway, I'm only threatening not to vote. Whether or not I actually do is separate from the effect of my ultimatum to the party.
If the Democrats believe that they need to shape up to earn the votes of people like me, then in a year's time we might be lucky enough to have Democrats worth voting for on the ballot.
It's pretty much the best move I could come up with given that I'm not rich enough to buy influence.