I Will Not Support Hillary Clinton for President
molly ivins' essay is *exactly* what i think about the next election. while i wouldn't mind a woman running in the race, i'll marry and have 10 babies before i give one more dollar to the dnc and hillary.
i think it's time for people of color and women in the party to stand up and say 'we're leaving your big tent because it's bullshit and you haven't listened to us in years.' without us, they lose. (and we've lived through two terms of BushCo. so i think we can survive another idiot republican president if we had to.)
where to go if not to the dems? hmm. not the GOP. there's gotta be somewhere else.
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but aren't they crazy?
(and i'm being slightly facetious.)
The problem w/ the American electoral system (winner takes all) is that a vote for a minority party is effectively a vote for the major party that you like the least. That is a fact of life in America. If you don't like it, the solution is to work for electoral reform, NOT to vote for a minority party. Until we adopt some sort of parlimentary system, or at least an electoral system that works similarly (i.e., casting votes for parties rather than candidates) a vote for a minority party candidate will continue to be worse than wasted.
Alternately, one can work to form a new majority party. That hasn't been done in over a hundred years, but I'm sure feeling like the time is right. Where is the party that stands for social justice AND personal responsibility. Where is the party that stands for a balance between self-reliance and community spirit, by both individuals AND corporations? Where is the party that stands for global cooperation rather than global domination? It is a mystery to me why not one of the professional politicians out there isn't busy forming this party right now.
"The problem w/ the American electoral system (winner takes all) is that a vote for a minority party is effectively a vote for the major party that you like the least."
Well, that depends on where you live. Ding and I both live in Illinois. More than likely a Democrat will win this state, at least in the next Presidential election, regardless of the party for which we vote. So in that sense our votes are meaningless anyway.
WJ: Exactly. That's the problem w/ a winner-take-all system. In more modern democracies than ours, people vote for parties. If your party gets 20% of the votes, then your party gets 20% of the seats. Further, since the party names the people who fill those seats, those representatives actually have to vote the party platform. Imagine what it would be like to have representatives who actually have to vote they way that they said they would when they were running for election! Further, this makes representatives much less susceptible to lobbying, because they owe their jobs to the party, not campaign contributions from lobbyists.
But what am I thinking. Everybody knows that America is the best country on the planet, so we don't need to change a thing.
but i just feel so effing helpless.
i cannot STAND the democratic party now. they haven't learned any lessons at all from the past two elections. they're still gaming the process, trying to appeal to the dishwater gray middle, and pushing us further right in the process while we're waiting for a party who can DO something instead of gearing up for elections every 4 years.
i feel like they've trapped us right in the middle between their fucked up ambition and our desire for real progressive change.
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