The Democratic Party is the best chance you got re Dobbs

[In It to Win It]

On a few previous threads regarding Dobbs and Roe, I posted basically saying that the blame rests at the feet of the voters. I felt this deserved its own thread. Additionally, I will also include the non-voters, the "abstainers", in that as well. This is not directed at the consistently voting solid blue wall like the folks here on DU, or myself, or people like my mother and aunts will let nothing stand in the way of making it to the polls for every election to ensure that they vote for a Democrat.

For the "purists" and for the ones that sit out because politicians are "useless", I need you to realize that for our brand of politics, the victories are in not moving backwards. Sure, Obama didn't give us universal healthcare or a public option and the bill we got included the participation of private sector greedy self-interested insurance companies but he got millions more people access to health insurance, and therefore healthcare, that they would not otherwise have. That was in no way a failure because we didn't get a public option or universal healthcare. The victory was in pushing the country forward, being better off today than we were yesterday inch by inch. Sure, we don't have a Democratic Senate that would nuke the filibuster to pass an abortion rights bill but we have a Senate who will confirm every pro-choice judge that our Democratic President nominates to the courts. Again, the victories are in not moving backwards. We don't have a Democratic President who will pass a Green New Deal (or a Congress who will give him that), but we have a Democratic President who won't let oil and gas companies drill every drop of oil they can find or lower environmental standards for the sake of cheap car fuel.

For each time you decided to sit out because the Democrats only gave you a fraction of what you wanted is the reason Roe was overturned.

For each time you wrote in some other candidate on your ballot because HRC or John Kerry (for the ones old enough to remember) didn't excite you is the reason Roe was overturned.

Each time we didn't win an election because the candidate didn't fill you with passion is the reason Roe was overturned

Each time you sat out an election because you thought a candidate wasn't going to progress the country is the reason Roe was overturned.

EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. it was a step toward overturning Roe.

Reagan winning was a step toward overturning Roe.
GHW Bush winning was a step toward overturning Roe.
Bush 43 "winning" Florida* by only 500+ was a step toward overturning Roe.
Trump winning was a step toward overturning Roe.

Each time we didn't elect enough pro-choice Democrats to Congress was a step toward overturning Roe.
Each time we lost a seat in either chamber of Congress was a step toward overturning Roe.

We didn't vote; we didn't turn out; we didn't do what we needed to do in critical elections over the last 50 years because each election counted.

Each time we lost was a step toward overturning Roe.

Two of these people were only in office for 1 term. JUST. ONE. TERM! And nearly half the court was appointed by someone who was President for just one term. It only took them one four-year term to turn back DECADES and GENERATIONS of work. If that's not an indication that every election matters, I don't know what is.

...and truthfully, this is about so much more than abortion rights. This also applies to climate change and the environment, healthcare, gun control and the social safety net.

It took one-term of the wrong President to strike down a 100-year old NY gun control law.
It just may take one-term of the wrong President to severely diminish the EPA's power to regulate carbon emissions, and frankly change the administrative state as we know it. We'll find out in the next few days.

Sitting out any election over the past decade (and perhaps longer than that) meant putting gun control laws at risk; putting climate change regulations at risk; putting the ACA at risk; putting abortion at risk. For example, sitting out or writing in some bogus 3rd party candidate in 2014 got us Neil Gorsuch, who is possibly about to gut the EPA, just as much as sitting out or writing in some bullshit candidate in 2016 did. Preserving what we built was the prize all along. It is always the prize. Building on top of we have is always the goal.

Each time we don't win, we take a step back. If you don't vote for a Democrat, your only other alternative is trying to tear down everything we built and prevent everything we want to build. Even voting for a so-called "do nothing Democrat", every piece of progress we worked for won't be rolled back. With the alternative, they will tear it all down. The win is in preserving what you built so far until you regain power or gain more power. That's the win.

If you want universal healthcare or a public option, working with the Democratic Party is the best chance you got.
If you want universal pre-K, working with the Democratic Party is the best chance you got.
If you want action on climate change, working with the Democratic Party is the best chance you got.
If you want an expansion of abortion rights, working with the Democratic Party is the best chance you got.
If you are apart of the LGBTQ+ community and you just want to live your life and be left alone, working with the Democratic Party is the best chance you got.
If you want to preserve voting rights, the Democratic Party is the best chance you got.

Because the other party damn sure ain't working with you on any of that. You won't even be welcomed into the room. With the Democratic Party, everyone won't agree with you but you will have a seat at the table. I know sometimes it feels like it's not enough and you want more but abandoning the Party will take you backwards.

The Democratic Party isn't perfect. Sometimes you can't please everybody. We agree most of the time but not all of the time. The Democratic Party is not entirely made up of the most liberal or progressive people. We have a coalition ranging from pro-life Democrats to pro-choice Democrats because governing is a team sport, every election counts, and the Democratic Party is the best chance we all got.

[dixiechiken1]

1. Well said and hear, hear!

[Ocelot II]

2. Bravo!

Also, fuck Ralph Nader, Susan Sarandon, Jill Stein, Tulsi Gabbard, the Bernie Bros and all the other ideological purists and pony-demanders who are still stuck in the '60s.

[fishwax]

3. I absolutely support electing democrats. I also think it's worth discussing whether the party and

the party leadership made the right choices at various stages of this fight that has been going on for decades. Voters who sat out deserved blame, to be sure. But if there were choices or strategies or tactics that were missteps, that's worth analyzing and addressing. Now, when that process is done honestly and openly, in a way might acknowledge, accommodate, or even absorb some anger and criticism, but which remains committed to productive engagement, then there is really no reason that such discussions should necessarily interfere with the electoral success of the party. Insisting that the party not be criticized, though, or attempting to squelch any discussions of ways the party and its leadership might have played this out better over the years, are likely to be counterproductive, in that they are likely to disengage more potential voters than they will actually engage. If we grant that sitting out elections or voting third party is always a stupid choice, then it necessarily follows that anything that causes a greater number of potential democratic voters to make that choice than the number of voters it brings to the polls is potentially a pretty bad move by the party. So I think we have to have a balance, but that can be pretty difficult to manage at times of intense feeling. Unfortunately, as a whole we didn't handle that well in the wake of the 2016 primary. A small percentage of Bernie supporters refused to support our nominee, and the country is the worse off for it. The Susan Sarandon's of this world should have a hard time looking at themselves in the mirror over this ruling. But we also had a small percentage of Hillary supporters (full disclosure: I loved both candidates for different reasons, but wound up voting for Clinton in my primary) who refused to distinguish between Bernie supporters and what we might call Bernie-bros, who insisted on continuing the primary and viewed any criticism of Clinton--or even any kind words towards Bernie--as an outrageous attack on the party and the candidate. And I think that sort of behavior, in its extremes, was likelier to alienate people from voting rather than to invite them to vote and therefore hurt our electoral chances in 2016. And I'd hate to see that pattern repeated in the buildup to this monumentally important election, when we need as many potential democratic voters as possible (including some of the ones who might direct some of their anger at the party right now) to vote in every election up and down the ballot and all across the land.

For the record, In It to Win It, I'm not suggesting that you were doing that, in this post or elsewhere. Just some thoughts on anger and blame in a day when, both at rallies and online, I've seen a lot of anger directed internally. In the moment, plenty of the anger is understandable, but in the long run we as a party/movement/constituency are going to have to channel, manage, and negotiate that anger as productively as possible.

[In It to Win It]

4. Loved your post. I agree.