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We need to support our Dems, even if they aren't listening to us. The reason? Because choosing a third-party candidate in any race that matters is effectively voting for the Republican or, at the very least, stealing a vote from the Democratic candidate in the race.
We're caught between a rock and a hard place here and I think they realized it before WE did. The party doesn't have to listen to its base. The Senators and Representatives don't have to listen to the party's base. Because we have no viable options other than to support them even if that support isn't mutual.
We send them money, we vote for them, and we even work to get them elected. And in return we're marginalized, referred to as the "fringe" and blocked out of participating in any meaningful way with regards to policy decisions.
The alternative, of course, is to tolerate more Republican mechanizations.
I'm still amazed that people assume that the majority of people don't vote because of apathy. We're not the only ones who see this. I talk to people all the time who aren't politically stupid. They just don't see any meaningful difference between the parties. Oh, WE recognize the differences easily enough, but we're in the minority. People who are busy living their lives and aren't political wonks like ourselves catch this and that on the news, or in the newspapers, and think to themselves that, as far as they can tell, NO ONE is looking out for them.
It's hard for the average working American who's neck-deep in debt to imagine that some rich guy or gal has anything in common with him or her.
Most Americans don't really consider the repercussions of political decisions until they face the consequences of them. Many young women don't consider the ramifications of anti-choice legislation and court decisions until they are blocked from making the choice at all. Most Americans don't consider the consequences of the Republican War Without End until they're waving goodbye to a loved one who may not ever come back. (My wife's nephew is flying out Monday to Iraq).
What they see is that they're paying a buttload in taxes and getting almost nothing for their troubles. Nothing tangible, anyway. They don't feel they're being represented. Hell, most of US don't really feel like we're being represented, and we know the score. Imagine what it's like to be generally in the dark, or reliant on the corporate media to tell you.
I surprise one of my co-workers all too often. She's 20, and her parents are religious Republicans. She's generally ignorant, and admits it. But she's far from stupid. I'll mention something that's happening behind the scenes and she'll ask me, "how do you know that?" I just smile. We've already discussed the corporate media and its celebrity gossip fascination. She understands that there's no real news there.
A LOT of people see that. If she, a young woman from a religious family with political ideologies complete different from mine, can see how they're manipulating everything, I would imagine that most people her age can see the same thing.
We're in the trenches, fighting the good fight. Writing our Senators and Representatives, joining protest marches, working to see good candidates elected (I wish Darcy Burner was in my district. If she was, I'd be working for her campaign).
When Cindy Sheehan stands up and bashes the Democratic Party and our representatives in both houses of Congress, a lot of us flinch. But she's not speaking into a vacuum. A LOT of people are disaffected by what they see as the Democratic Party's failure to speak for us. WE are, when it comes right down to it. Well, most of us, anyway.
But we have few options. Support and vote for Democrats, vote for third-party candidates and give energy to the Republicans, or simply throw up our hands and walk away.
It's all a matter of figuring out which option is the least painful.
A rock and a hard place indeed.
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