ectoblog.com

a reasoned criticism from the Left.

“Well this gravy train is fucking over. Take your liberal-bashing, federal-tax-leaching, confederate-flag-waving, holier-than-thou, hypocritical bullshit and shove it up your ass.”

Not only Nader, but anyone who voted for a 3rd party candidate: I apologize. I apologize because, in 2000, I remember pitying you bastards who woke up on election Tuesday and thought “Today I’m going to throw my vote away.”

That’s what I thought you thought. The stupefying innocence of a vote for someone who wasn’t the Democratic candidate was breathtaking to me. The cavalier way I thought you flushed your vote down the toilet, when so much was at stake, when instead you could have—if you’d just used your head—voted for the anti-Bush, was remarkable. I know; I remarked on it for several years.

Things have changed. Last week, I could’ve voted for anyone my little heart desired, and the outcome would’ve been exactly the same. So I’m embarrassed that I ever thought of you as naive. Who was I kidding, anyway? Last week, I could’ve voted for the Michelin Man and gotten exactly the same results.

I’m not being facetious at all, although it sounds like I’m bordering on it.

Epiphanies don’t happen very often for me. This latest one will require me to never vote pragmatically again.

Because, you know, pragmatism isn’t worth it, if you lose anyway.

I had a good feeling about this one, but I had a good feeling about Dukakis, too, right up to the point where he was pulverized by the Willie Horton ad.

I fantasized about seeing Kerry’s craggy face staring out of my television for four years, like a 21st century Lincoln. Instead, he goes into my political curio cabinet, alongside my Dukakis bauble, my Gore figurine, my Mondale bauble, and my ERA trinket.

The best thing to hope for is that W tries to heal some open wounds, and I have no hope for that. The second best thing to hope for is a Watergate redux, and I have slim hope for that, since there is no seventies-era Washington Post left to follow a story to its miserable end. Is there a paper left that hasn’t put its balls in a safety deposit box? I don’t think so.

The last, best hope is that the bastards won’t have enough time to dismantle the country before I die of old age. Just give me 40 or 50 years, is all. C’mon! Baby needs a new pair of shoes.

It’s a day later, and the scar tissue is forming.

I honestly don’t know whether I’d be able to vote for a candidate who comes from the New Middle. I imagine him to be someone who says that prayer in school is a good thing, that late-term abortion when the woman’s life is at stake is a bad thing, and that homosexual marriage is a bad thing, but I also imagine his thinking that conservation is a good thing, that a fair taxation system is a good thing, that universal healthcare is a good thing, and that the environment is something to take care of instead of something to shit upon.

I suspect that such a person doesn’t exist. I mean, if he’s capable of the meanness embodied by discrimination, he should be incapable of giving a shit about the environment. In the real world, Mr Hydes never harbor inner Dr Jeckylls waiting to burst forth.

So, notwithstanding what I said in the last post, I think that the only path left for liberals is to keep doing what we’re doing. We need to believe what we believe. We need to defend the powerless. We need to rail against the bastards who are raping the environment. We need to keep doing all those sappy things the cons ridicule us for. We need to make certain that the conservatives know we’re still here, and that we’re watching them. And somewhere down the road, maybe, they’ll fuck up to a degree that will scare some of those who voted for them.

We could be permanently marginalized by acting in accordance with our ideals, but I’ll be damned if I drift toward the New Middle just so that we have a chance of regaining a little power. Who knows; maybe state and world events will channel public discourse in such a way that the middle comes back to us instead of the other way around.

But I’m banking on the conservatives to fuck up. The hubris shooting through the hallways of the white house right now must be incredible. I’m sure they feel they can do no wrong; like Nixon in ‘72.

To digest the fact that we had the largest voter turnout in 30 years and still lost the popular vote, we have to assume that the sixties are well and truly dead. Democrats can no longer wring their hands and say “If only we had gotten the silent majority to vote, we would have turned the rascals out.” Well, the silent majority finally did vote. Turns out they’re republicans.

Kerry did as well as he possibly could, given that he stuck to his idealistic guns.

A democratic win, the way the US is shaped now, can only be achieved by either a republican blunder on the order of Watergate, or by a nomination of a pragmatic democratic candidate. A successful candidate will have to be one who is ‘for’ conservative issues that are cost-free, eg: late-term abortion ban, same-sex marriage ban. The repubs get a lot of mileage by weighing in ‘for’ issues that don’t cost money. They attract a huge amount of votes by pressing these hot buttons. They get elected, then put these things aside and get down to their real business, which is to hand over the economy to the rich.

The next democratic nominee, to win, will have to be ‘for’ these cost-free issues, so he can get elected, put them aside, and get down to our real business, which is to keep the rich from getting richer at the expense of everyone else.

That’s pragmatism. That’s how Clinton won.

Democrats will have to decide between pragmatism and idealism to avoid being steam-rolled in 2008. If we stick to our idealistic guns, we will be permanently marginalized.

The fact is that the US is a conservative, ignorant, God-fearing nation of frightened sheep yearning for John Wayne to lead his platoon up that mountain and kill those japs that have been plaguing us through the first reel.

That’s a fact. The republicans understand that, and have used it to their advantage.

In this election, many Naderites opted for pragmatism by switching to Kerry. It would’ve worked in 2000, but yesterday it wasn’t enough; the fulcrum of pragmatism has shifted farther to the right since 9/11. If we, as liberals, want to participate in national politics in 2008, or at any time in the future, we will have to back a candidate who leans right on the moral—but cost-free—issues, in order to stop the hemorrhaging on all the other fronts that concern us, like the environment and the economy. I will not enjoy casting a vote for someone who pays lip service to the denial of rights to women and gays, but I will, hoping that that’s all it is—lip service.

With the huge turnout, and failing some stupendous administration blunder, pragmatism is the only bullet left in the barrel. We’ll probably find out whether that bullet’s a dud in 2008. If it is, the final option is either make the best of it, or leave.

I plan on being in a position to exercise that option.

The pic came from here, which may or may not be where it originated.