Tweet
(photo: jugbo / flickr)
It’s that time of election season when the mere thought of politics turns the stomach, and few of us can stand any more of the yammering that we call campaigns, so we turn to navel gazing. You probably saw Conor Friersdorf on “How shall I use my precious vote”, and the pontificating that followed. I think that blows out my earlier entry in that category, here. Matt Taibbi looks like a lock in the incompetent Democrats category and the role of the media in these stupid campaigns category. So, I going to enter the What Does It All Mean category.
The only reason to vote is that from the outset we agreed that consent of the governed is the essence of democracy. It was a long time ago indeed, before the Republicans made the filibuster an instrument of minority rule. The Democrats decided that they could safely be move right, just like the Republicans only less crazy, and began voting for just about anything their rich patrons wanted, from deregulation of the financial system to tax cuts for those who don’t need them to ending welfare as we know it.
Now we have the leader of the Democrats, Barack Obama, running on a platform just like the moderate version of Mitt Romney. For example, Obama says if elected, he’ll only tinker with Social Security, just like the moderate Mitt, instead of slashing it like the Tea Party Mitt. Tea Party Mitt wants to invade Syria and Iran. Moderate Mitt, like Obama, is apparently content to kill people with drones.
Moderate Mitt assumes that the Tea Party fanatics will vote for him even if he isn’t crazy enough for them, because he and his party have spent the last five years ferociously lying about Obama. So he panders to the low information voters and tribal Republicans with his version of Compassionate Conservatism. Maybe he’ll win with that combination. Are they really consenting to be governed by the insane economic policies both versions of Mitt Romney promise? Or are they just afraid of Obama?
Possibly enough low-information voters and moderate Republicans will vote for Obama because they are worried about the Tea Party Mitt, or they think Romney is a liar and an unprincipled selfish prig and that he despises them from the bottom of his plutocratic heart. Maybe that’s enough to get Obama re-elected. What kind of government are those people consenting to? For them, Obama’s the lesser of two evils. Maybe they’ll be happy to see his proposals defeated by divided government suffering from minority rule so that nothing gets done. Maybe they don’t know what else to do. That doesn’t sound like consent.
And what about the tribal democrats who are going to vote for Obama? There is no constituency in the Democratic party to cut Social Security. The vast majority of traditional Democrats realize that Social Security is the basis for their retirement and that of their parents. They want to preserve it for their children. Certainly no liberal is in favor of cutting Social Security or Medicare, and precious few are in favor of killing people with drones or locking up pot smokers or turning police departments into paramilitary operations, but tribal Democrats don’t seem interested in that kind of issue, let alone punishing Wall Street criminals. Obama just needs to top off with some of those low-information voters. He figures he’ll get their votes, and maybe he will.
In 2008, the left was energized. We saw ourselves as the base of the Democratic Party, and nearly every one of us gave money, and spent hours trying to convince anyone we met to vote for Obama, and generally succeeding. It didn’t take long before we realized that Obama accepted the principle that this is a center-right nation, and planned to govern from the center-right. Obama told the left to drop dead, and he continues to do so. He didn’t lift a finger to push any of our issues, especially my barebones demand that he enforce the criminal laws governing the financial sector. That left whatever is left of the left with no where to go. In 2010, there was no energy on the left, and the crazy right won back the House.
Obama assumes lefties will vote for him because he isn’t a soulless plutocrat who thinks half of the population is out to get his money. That’s the Democratic Party’s version of the crazies saying that Obama is an Islamo-Communist from Kenya. Obama doesn’t care how close the election is, and he doesn’t care if he has majorities in Congress. He just wants to squeak through. If we vote for him, what are we consenting to? He’ll see it as approval of his program of governing from the center-right.
This isn’t about consent at all. It sucks. It’s hard to work up the energy to curse, let alone to go to the trouble of voting.
67 Comments
Yes, it does.
I kinda thought the reason to vote was so I could bitch about our elected officials! If you don’t vote, don’t complain about the representation that ended up in power.
Kevin Baker has an article in Harper’s this month entitled “Why Vote? When Your Vote Counts for Nothing.” Baker is not talking what a tiny effect an individual citizen’s vote has upon election outcomes, or about voter suppression (certainly valid approaches), but about the fact that leaders of both parties year in and year out, are heading in directions that are diametrically opposed to the will of the people. It goes without saying that both parties are tools of the corporate sector, on eveerything from war to trade to the safety net to economics to civil rights and so on. But beyond that, on issue after specific issue, the public is very clear about what it wants elected officials to do, and NOT to do. Yet virtually across the board, D’s and R’s in office are doing the opposite.
Good piece, Mac.
I can still work up some energy to cuss, but I admit, it’s dwindling by the week. :o)
Here’s how bad it is for me:
I’m a soccer junkie, and I can’t even pull for our national teams. When the U.S. U-17 girls were playing in the World Cup in Azerbaijan and recently went out on goal difference, I couldn’t help looking at those beautiful, well-fed, superb athletes crying after their exit, and thinking about how, just over two weeks ago, 8 Afghan women and young girls were killed in one of Obama’s air strikes (can’t remember if it was a drone or not, not that it matters…)
Our amurkan exceptionalism is nothing but a blight on the rest of the world.
Apparently you don’t know your Liberals very well masaccio at least on the Drone issue 65% support killing Amerikan citizens if Zero brands them terrorists.
I’m not convinced that Liberals really care that much about the other issues you list especially those Liberals in congress and it was mostly Liberal Democrat Mayors who viciously suppressed the Occupy Movement.
Claiming that you have to vote in a corrupt system or you can’t complain about the corrupt system is patronizing Liberal hogwash.
On the contrary, it’s an excellent reason to vote. Just not for White Romney or Blackface Romney.
“Votes for others” is our only official way to register our discontent with the two Republican candidates that Wall Street has selected for us. I’d avoid Virgil Goode, Gary Johnson or Rocky Anderson, as their economics are either worse than or not particular better than the Romneys’ (although Johnson and Anderson are much better on civil liberties and similar issues), but that still leaves Stewart Alexander, Jill Stein, Roseanne Barr, or a write-in of your choice.
Likewise, there may be minor-party candidates down-ticket who need you to provide them with a platform; the more votes a minor party gets this time, the better chance it has of defying the ballot-access fascists in the future. (I wouldn’t vote for any candidate willing to share a ticket with [and effectively endorse] either of the Romneys, of course.)
Giving the Romneys a monopoly on voting is almost as bad as voting for one of the Romneys would be. JMO.
Not voting is also expressing a choice. Check out Emma Goldman’s quote in.re. the ineffectiveness of voting and note the year. George Carlin and Gore Vidal also did their best to inform the people as to the corporate control of our government and the illusion of democracy in the US.
I’m with you on that. Not voting is pretty poor as far as protesting goes. Both Fascist parties are happy to have people not voting, it has worked out well for them and means they have to pander to fewer people.
Now if 95% of the public were voting, and 40% were for 3rd party candidates .. well that would be raising the veil of the man behind the curtain.
Yep
Gee, why don’t we deny both Obama-ney and Rom-bama the immunity of the office of the POTUS?
You can also make the argument that, small as one person’s vote or $10 donation or 5 hours work getting out the vote may be, it makes much more of a difference to the campaign of a third-party candidate who agrees with you than it would toward electing a Dem or Rep who disagrees with you.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/funnyquotes/a/george-carlin.htm
You can listen to the whole entirely on point rant on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk And let’s be done with this you-have-no-right-to-complain nonsense.
This weekend:
Excellent piece. I agree 100%.
Here in Texas, a very red state, we can vote third party to show our displeasure. For all disenchanted persons in red states I strongly suggest you too vote third party, Jill Stein for president.
Yes, I’ve read that Anderson’s economic prescriptions are Obamanomics lite. No thanks. Office holders like that turn into full blown neolibs the instant their election is confirmed.
No, no and no. Wayout, it’s not hogwash. It’s horseshit.
Very clever response to the lame patronizers of the Liberal Class.
Not voting individually is not an actual tactic to change anything while Boycotting elections en masse is a tactic that could remove the consent to be governed by a corrupt system.
>>
AZ has ‘none of the above’ on the ballot & that was recently challenged but upheld by a local court ..
join the NOTA – none of the above movement
Whomever said, ” whenever I get the urge to exercise I quickly lay down until it goes away ” describes this election cycle perfectly. I find your point well stated and undeniably true. However, at the local and regional level things are different. If you live in San Francisco, Seattle or______(insert region here)you can make things in our political economy remarkably more reality-based. And, a damn site better for your fellow travelers. The down ticket is the reason to cast that ballot this year. Save your neighbors, your community, your city and your regional biosphere from the worst abuses of this mess. If nothing else it bugs the shit out of those red, as in blood, state denizens insane. And, that’s not a bad thing at all.
that should read “and drives them insane “. My bad.
Good cite. Obvious response: if you vote for the “lesser of evils” then you ARE being clear – clear that you support the status quo. If you want to be clear you don’t, vote third party. Not voting means you throw away what little power you do have and the bad guys can work less hard to persuade a smaller number to pull the lever for a “lesser”. There’s an online quiz that identifies which candidate best reflects your views. In our house, it turned out to be Jill Stein, not Anderson.
This year I’m voting third party down-ballot too. Have better chance of getting the attention of a Senate candidate than a Presidential one if more votes than expected go to his green opponent.
Yes, it may be time well spent picking over the so-called down ballot candidates and ballot issues. In some areas. I can imagine places where even that exercise would be time wasted. And that’s not to mention the places where just being allowed to vote will be a huge hassle.
Someone did point out that many of the disenfranchised will be seniors, who are more likely Republican. I hope the Law of Unintended Consequences bites hard.
“… Governments are instituted among Men, drawing their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Those words were true when they were written and they remain true today AND tomorrow.
The issue is nothing less than the legitimacy of the current government.
Thank you, masaccio, for putting the truth before us in a manner which may be readily understood.
Whether the people choose to understand this truth is among the most serious questions which a society may face.
Recommended to the conscience, the understanding, and the principles of all of the the people …
DW
One of my biggest bitches with the Liberal Class is their patronizing attitudes, exemplified by the repeated phrase “low information voters” whilst displaying their own amygdala driven tribalism. Brainless lot and snotty, to boot.
George was a treasure.
(My Democractic Senator, to whom I contributed $450.00 in 2006, never managed to respond to a single email or phone call from me with anything other than a robo-response. And voted yes on numerous items anathema to me.)
Voting for a Third Party candidate in our corrupt system may make some feel better and even superior but it will never change the system. The illusion of Democracy in Amerika was strong but is fading fast.
When the votes are tabulated in Spain and the Leader is selected we will continue our slide into Fascism no matter who you voted for.
Am with fritter @9. Don’t understand how not voting works. The elites will always show up to vote themselves back in. The smaller the voter pool, the more easily it is controlled.
I do not consent to cuts in Social Security or Medicare. I will vote 3rd party for President and Senate and for Democrats down ballot.
Ross Perot made a difference just 20 years ago. We need more than 19%, but it is a heckva start. We just need a left-leaner to scare/move them leftward, instead of rightward.
There is much in what you say, wayoutwest, and this post by Greg Palast, which is front-paged right now, spells some of it out:
http://my.firedoglake.com/gregpalast/2012/10/12/its-magic-prestidigitation-and-other-ways-to-steal-and-election/#comment-15
However, the people are not yet understanding enough of their plight and the deceits which have made mock of democracy, in sufficient numbers, to rise to considered and concerted action.
DW
Like many you are still stuck in the delusion that partisan politics and some Glorious Leader will save us, we are beyond that dream. After Perot helped elect Clinton the PTB made sure that no Third Party would ever challenge the status quo again.
Yes, in my state the Statehouse Dems are pretty good. In 2006, all the Dem canvassers were out begging us to go to polls to vote for Statehouse Dems even though they acknowledged we were mad as heck at the war – mongering Washington Republicans in Dem clothing. It worked. I’ve voted in every off-year election since and have started interacting with them more.
Please don’t speak for what I believe. I acknowledge the fact the two major parties are essentially the same. I think it could be argued that Clinton’s neo-liberalism and the whole Dem right-ward move was started with Clinton’s recognition that he wouldn’t have been elected without Perot, and subsequent decision to move right to get those votes again in 1996. 20 years of that is hard to reverse, but theoretically a left candidate that prevented a Democratic win would start a move back. I do agree that the determined exclusion of the third parties from ballots and debates is a big hurdle. But surely an easier one to clear than revolution.
I think it still helps to keep ALEC out of the legislature. Your senator sounds like mine. I must get 10 requests a day for money for President and Congress and none of them are even remotely responsive to my voting issues.
Rayne left about a year ago and I miss her. She is very active in local politics, formed her own Democratic local and got the county Dems to approve it. But her comment about progressive candidates she’s backed and elected was revealing: once they get into office, they become unavailable and inaccessible. It’s as if they depart for another country and are never heard from until the next election. KarenM, who is PA, concurred.
Back in the 80s, I read a complaint from a political donor that $50,000 didn’t get you access anymore. At the state level! He and his wife were big check donors, but they were no longer considered face time donors. Interesting.
The stakes have risen beyond most peoples’ imagining. And the inducements to walk the party line are overwhelming. Government office is another country and I don’t know if people really understand to what extent. The Black Hole of government office.
Stein may get 3% of the popular vote which will have little or no effect on the election. As far as moving any of these clowns only money and power does that and it’s always to the neoliberal service of Capital.
Believing that we can move this system with votes is selling false hope as the last 40yrs has proven.
Obama did us one great favor by exposing how truly corrupt our leaders are.
$50,000.00 at the State level? And that was pre Citizen’s United?
Agree on O’Bomber. Maybe voting (real) third party in lower level races is more effective. (In my state we have no Rethug running for Senate, just a Rethug in Independent garb. Have to do your homework on those “third party” down – ballot candidates so you don’t get tricked.)
Absolutely on ALEC.
Let’s get 2 things straight: Clinton would have won the 1992 and 1996 elections if Perot was not on those ballots. There has been lots of research on this. Don’t buy into the Bob Dole line about 57% of the people voted against Clinton. That feeds The Establishment and they’re obese as it is. Just look at what was passed and/or attempted in Bill’s first 2 yrs. The tax increase to almost 40% and healthcare 001. One can argue about the Dems all week but you can not argue about Economics and Keynes in our present boom and bust, war-time all the time, system. And, that’s all we got right now. Just sayin.
I always print out articles on why I can’t support them and enclose it in the postpaid envelope. For instance I got an appeal from the DCCC and Schumer today and printed out stuff about Schumer saying how willing the Dems are to make entitlement cuts, sent that and said contribute when Schumer asks? Hell no!
But yes worth voting in the down-ballot races and for the few people who are really trying like say Sherrod Brown or Lloyd Doggett – they keep on trying and I do too.
For President, I’ll vote for Stein but I actually think any third-party candidate gets over the main message that the two real candidates are horrible.
Willing to entertain being wrong, but it’s hard to believe Perot didn’t take away most from Bush. And is it not conceivable Clinton believed it? Not sure your point about first two years? Are you saying he was a progressive? If so, possibly he did what he could and then thought he had to tack to right for re-election…
Before they got wise and stopped sending them, I’d scrawl some version of “hell, no” and mail them back using their postage paid envelope. Petty payback but it felt good.
I think that’s right.
Yes. That was in PA, which is a big state, but nonetheless………..
Jim Z, that is a great article. I’ve always liked Harpers and Bacon, and this is in the great Lewis Lapham tradition, in somewhat more readable prose.
Except for the last two paragraphs, I agree whole-heartedly with Bacon.
I’m a little PUI here on a Friday night, so I won’t engage anyone for the now.
Just want to say, great post, M. Very much recc’d.
My plan exactly. Getting a lot of grief from some friends and Mr. Rev. But can’t cast vote for pres. Who does not believe in accountability or the rule of law. Can’t vote for dem senator who votes against choice and birth control. Will vote for guy trying to unseat Gerlach, though it’s an uphill battle and will vote for local guy running against incumbent cretin.
It pains me greatly–and angers me that the pres. and senator really don’t give a sh*t about the people who got them elected in the first place. Well they can’t take my vote for granted this time assuming that they a the lesser of the evils. Evil is evil. Period.
I’ve noticed throughout this campaign that Obama hasn’t said a WORD about Congress: hasn’t asked for “more and better Democrats” [yeah, yeah, I know], hasn’t said a WORD. I think that jives with his also not giving ANY DNC funds to Congressional Dems, but keeping all the $$$ for himself.
If Obama is re-elected, any Dems that do make it through have every right to hate him. I’d like to see them oppose his rotten policies as well.
Now there’s a bumper sticker!!!
Might take the slow-witted a while to “get” it, but those of us who’ve had it up to here with “lesser of two evils” will surely love it.
I live in a swing state, Iowa, and will happily vote for Jill Stein, and would encourage all those third party voters in my situation to do likewise. I have never understood the vote-for-third-party only if it’s “safe” to do so. Safe for what?
Indeed, pineywoodsfats, if voting is not an act of conscience, when conscience is necessary, if voting is not an act of consideration when the understanding of what SOCIETY needs and deserves, in terms of securing the well-being and true security of the many, if voting is not an act of awareness and and full, meaningful participation, as free human beings, in the process of determining our own destiny and and securing the best possible future for ALL of society and the nation, as a rational and reasonable nation AMONG nations … then what is it?
If it is NONE of these things, then it is a meaningless ritual designed and promulgated to benefit a cynical few, a empty, contrived gesture of misplaced trust and an act of self and social betrayal, a sham, and an hypocrisy whose sole and pathetic purpose is merely and simply to convince the voter that she or he is “involved” and that their voice “matters” … when it clearly and obviously does not.
DW
Some may say, “People died for our right to vote”.
It does NOT matter what those who have gone before have done.
Now is our time and our world, what matters is what WE do.
And it is a great disrespect to pretend that the efforts and the price, made and paid, by others is worth our engagement in supporting an obvious charade, in pretending that we honor the sacrifices of others when we have not stepped forward to demand that those sacrifices were not made in vain and shall not be trivialized as being all that is required.
If we are to truly honor those sacrifices and those who made them, then we must be prepared to rise to the current and equally important challenges.
We may well stand on the shoulders of others, as indeed we do, and we have the same obligation as they had, to build and to work, diligently and honestly, even if our “battlefield” be different and less well understood, to secure the meaning and the opportunity of a vote that IS a part of the democratic process, not as the only “role” that we play or embrace, but as the last step of a process … a process which we have, too long, not been permitted nor insisted must go first.
Voting cannot mean anything unless we insist that it does, and that can only come to be so if we invest the effort and, if need be, the sacrifice, of making it so.
DW
Right on! I witnessed this the other night when my “liberal” friends were saying that if Romney was elected we would be in Iran in a heartbeat. I had another “liberal” friend say that Obama’s economic philosophy was bottom up while Mitt’s was top down. Talk about “low information”!
That’s the big problem i.e. the last two paragraphs. Even Baker tries to herd us into the veal pen at the end of the piece. Very disappointing. Harper’s was kick ass with Roger Hodge and Ken Silverstein as editors. Now with Thomas Frank it is more middlin’, I’m sorry to say.
Nope. I agree with George Carlin, who explained that he never votes any more and that is why he has the right to complain:
“I don’t vote because I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain.
People like to twist that around, I know.
They say: “Well, if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain”; but where’s the logic in that?
If you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people and they get into office and screw everything up… well, you are responsible for what they have done.
You caused the problem; you voted them in; you have no right to complain.
I, on the other hand, who did not vote, who in fact did not even leave the house on election day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain as long as I want about the mess you created that I had nothing to do with.”
See: George Carlin Doesn’t vote – YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk
Maybe so, but it’s a statement. Why shouldn’t I vote for a candidate who represents my views? It’s a vote against the status quo–I’ve long since given up any illusion that it’s going to change anything, but as long as I can make it to the polls I will vote. I’ve always been stubborn.
The candidates to vary on their positions so the premise of the article is somewhat inaccurate. Of course, there are better positions than either of these candidates offer so the question should always be IMO what positions do you support. This article is a little on what IMO really matters.
On the economy it appears to me that Romney wants to raise the deficit further in order to bankrupt Medicare and SS. https://www.impartial-review.com/stories/romney-s-has-no-plans-to-reduce-deficit-big-plans-to-reduce-wages Obama says he wants tweak some Medicare and SS but is he really attempting to appeal to independent voters. Who knows?
On Health care, Mitt Romney wants to leave 72 million uninsured which translates to 36-72,000 more deaths per year due to lack of health insruance. https://www.impartial-review.com/stories/romney-unaware-his-health-care-plan-would-cause-36-000-72-000-more-deaths-per-year
Similar to Romneycare, Obamacare doesn’t address quality of care issues that I wrote about before at Firedoglake http://my.firedoglake.com/toddq/2012/08/18/lack-of-health-insurance-isnt-the-largest-killer-within-the-u-s-health-care-system/ that can kill as many as 400,000 per year but you do save at least 36,000 with Obamacare which also saves about 100 billion in the deficit https://www.impartial-review.com/stories/mitt-romney-s-thirteen-health-care-deceptions-from-the-debate
So you do have a poor choices but they are not equivalent. If you want to vote your values as Naomi Klein recommends, then you probably have to look elsewhere.
As message boards prove, nothing prevents anyone from complaining about the people in power, whether the complainer voted or not.
Nor should it.
that said, I vote to show approval or disapproval of a platform or, in the case of an incumbent, of job performance.
So, I am voting fo
That’s how my prior post should have ended.
You say “both Parties” as though there are only two. There are many.
About six Presidential candidates, other than the nominees of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, have even qualified for federal matching funds.
I respectfully suggest that third party votes for President get a lot of attention, though not the kind that Democratic politicians publicize.
Otherwise, the Democratic Party would not have worked so hard against Nader and Greens in terms of keeping off the ballot. I am not sure, but Nader may still be fighting court cases in some states.
And, the current administration’s FEC would not have held up matching federal campaign funds to Anderson, Stein, Roemer, et al. until well after early voting started.
Are you assuming that third party candidates are dishonest?
If yes, on what basis?
If not, what would be the reason to refrain from voting third party?
I agree.
I have come to believe that, both short term and long term, using my vote to approve of Obama’s first term and the disgusting direction of the Democratic Party in general would be the very worst vote I could cast from the left.