General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: So... cuts to unemployment aid and food stamps [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)We on DU show up. It isn't those of us considered to be on the left of the party (we used to be in the center. I haven't changed my stances. The Democratic Party has shifted to the right, way to the right.) who fail to vote.
It's the people who feel left out and abandoned by the lurch to the right of the leadership of the Democratic Party. I register voters. I table. I talk to my neighbors. I stand in front of grocery stores.
You cannot get working people who feel they have been dismissed by our political parties -- both of our political parties -- to get out and vote because THE MESSAGE FROM THE LEADERS OF BOTH PARTIES TO THEM IS -- YOU DON'T MATTER -- YOU WAGES DON[T MATTER -- YOUR HUNGER DOESN[T MATTER -- YOUR DEBTS DON'T MATTER -- THAT FORECLOSURE A FEW YEARS AGO DOESN'T MATTER -- YOUR KIDS' EDUCATION DOESN'T MATTER -- THE HOMELESS PEOPLE WALKING THE STREETS IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD DON'T MATTER -- NOTHING MATTERS EXCEPT PASSING THE BILLS OUR CORPORATE DONORS WRITE FOR US.
And that is why we can't get voters out hard as we try. Too often, our Democratic politicians are not advocating for our dispossessed and struggling voters. They are advocating for their corporate sponsor.
The TPP is a case in point. As is the fact that we don't have a single payer health insurance system in the US or at least a public option. As is the privatization of our schools. As is cuts to food stamps, a barely poverty level minimum wage, threats to Social Security and Medicare, poor regulation of inexcusably dangerous industrial negligence, continued dependence on fossil fuels in spite of the evidence supporting climate change that may mean the deaths of many in our population, the killing of the oceans and fish withing them, constant war, and so many other really vital issues that it is impossible to list them all.
"if people bothered to show up" is shifting the blame to people whose interests are not represented even when they do show up.
The grassroots cannot change this system. We are asking the leadership of the Democratic Party to change their system within the party to make it more responsive to the left-out and forgotten in America.