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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDemocrats need to start turning out the vote in off year elections…
Bring it to bear as we do during the presidential season.
I have no idea why we make it so difficult on ourselves, by not turning out the vote. Allowing the right to gain an advantage in off years, allowing them to take both state houses, legislatures and Congress only gives them the tactical high ground.
Our turn-out for 2016 may allow us to regain the Senate as well as keep the White House, but we have to reiterate that those are not the only important elections. Every election is important.
Unless we act accordingly, our absence in off-years will only let the wingers fill the vacuum.
Frankly, I'm sick and tired of being treated like a political minority, especially when we always tell ourselves that we are actually the majority.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)Maybe better candidates, who act like Democrats, and not like Republicans from a few decades back?
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Gee, I wonder how we could do that...
I know, beat up the liberals, hippies are always in season.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)This week for example I was an actual, literal single issue voter. One question on my ballot. No candidates. So your comment does not even apply to all elections.
I offer then that it helps a lot to make it easier to vote. The States that have better turnout have better voting systems and laws. Some have same day registration, some vote by mail, some have automatic registration at DMV, while others have long lines, short hours, video machines, voter ID checks and a single voting day. I get my ballot for two weeks.
Look it up. States with higher turnout have easier voting. They also tend to have better and more Democratic governments.
Also good candidates, good propositions to draw voter interest, but more participation also causes better candidates and better initiatives. An alert electorate raises the game.
meow2u3
(24,899 posts)This way, voters would have a choice between a Democrat and a Democrat who might as well be a repuke. Given that choice, the voters will pick the Democrat* every time.
*[font size="1"]A Democrat who actually ACTS like a Democrat instead of repuke lite.[/font]
randys1
(16,286 posts)and stopping Black from voting in bigger numbers than now
When teaparty starts making it illegal to say out loud you are Gay, then and only then the base will pay more attention.
It would help to get people out if everywhere you looked you didnt see some person saying how both parties are the same
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Among other things, LGBT, African Americans and women not only vote more regularly but more Democratically than your own segment as it is. We are paying attention.
SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)angrychair
(9,598 posts)We need a canidiate and a cause that goes a different direction, if my choices are light grey and dark grey, what the hell do I care who wins.
If I tell people I need your taxes dollars for this thing or that thing and it never happens or takes years and more tax dollars and the benefit is not as visible anymore, it makes me less inclined to believe you next time you need my money or effort.
Our candidates have to matter. They have to be different. We need to refocus our efforts at the town, county and state levels.
All politics is local
Win the hearts and minds at a town, county and state level, you win them at a federal level. Talk to people, listen to people and be accountable to people.
I am a progressive. Ask me why.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,439 posts)all that complicated. Traditional Democrats don't turn out in midterms, and there aren't enough of you self declared "progressives" to make a thimble full of difference. People can scream, jump up & down, gloat, whatever they choose. But, as I said, it's not complicated.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Funny how that works.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,439 posts)U.S. Liberals at Record 24%, but Still Trail Conservatives
by Lydia Saad
Story Highlights
Conservatives remain largest ideological group, at 38%
Liberals up one point to 24%, the highest yet
Conservative-liberal gap now smallest in Gallup trends
PRINCETON, N.J. -- Conservatives continued to outnumber moderates and liberals in the U.S. population in 2014, as they have since 2009. However, their 14-percentage-point edge over liberals last year, 38% vs. 24%, is the smallest in Gallup's trends since 1992. The percentage of U.S. adults identifying themselves as politically conservative in 2014 was unchanged from 2013, as was the percentage of moderates, at 34%, while the percentage considering themselves liberal rose a percentage point for the third straight year.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/180452/liberals-record-trail-conservatives.aspx
So if Conservatives and Moderates outnumber Liberals, guess what happens? Go on, guess.
Prism
(5,815 posts)When Democrats lose, it's because progressives didn't show up. When Democrats win, it had nothing to do with progressives.
There's a common villain in there somewhere. Can't quite place it. Hmmm.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Since we all know the left votes in higher numbers than anyone to the right of them. Some here will purge the party and hurt our overall chances, but I never believed they had our parties best intentions at heart. Not once. It shows in everything they write.
Prism
(5,815 posts)They're kind of Party Is The Only Thing types, and they cheer our politicians like they're star quarterbacks. That's how we end up with shit like self-described liberals screaming at gay people for years. "Leave Obama alone! He's dreamy, and takes beach pictures!"
Sometimes you just want to shake someone.
angrychair
(9,598 posts)You stated "there aren't enough of you self declared "progressives" to make a thimble full of difference."
When your apparent candidate, HRC, has self-identified as "progressive" on several occasions including the first debate. Is she a progressive or not? If so, is she also unable to make a "thimble full of difference"?
When did being a liberal or a progressive make you a second class citizen on DU or in the Democratic Party?
Tarheel_Dem
(31,439 posts)that there are more moderates and conservatives than there are liberals. I keep hearing that people are tired of "light grey and dark grey", but it appears the country ain't all that crazy about chartreuse either.
angrychair
(9,598 posts)I'll see your numbers and counter with my own from Pew Research that say Democrats and left-leaning moderates are the majority:
The share of independents in the public, which long ago surpassed the percentages of either Democrats or Republicans, continues to increase. Based on 2014 data, 39% identify as independents, 32% as Democrats and 23% as Republicans. This is the highest percentage of independents in more than 75 years of public opinion polling. (For a timeline of party affiliation among the public since 1939, see this interactive feature.)
When the partisan leanings of independents are taken into account, 48% either identify as Democrats or lean Democratic; 39% identify as Republicans or lean Republican. The gap in leaned party affiliation has held fairly steady since 2009, when Democrats held a 13-point advantage (50% to 37%).
Link: http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/a-deep-dive-into-party-affiliation/
So, while it may be the optimistic viewpoint, I am more inclined to believe that Dems are the majority in our country.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,439 posts)made up of varying degrees of conservative to liberal ideologies, so I'm not sure what you're going on about. Yesterday's election wasn't a battle of Democrats vs. Democrats. It was Democrats vs. Republicans. And "optimistic" is one word for it.
angrychair
(9,598 posts)Why is "liberal" or "progressive" such a dirty word for you? They are terms used by Democratic Party candidates, HRC and Bernie and O'Malley and our president, to describe themselves.
Secondly, Democrats are Democrats. Splitting hairs is not in our best interest.
You draw lines of distinction a way that make me think you don't like the people that identify with those terms. The problem is not mine.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,439 posts)angrychair
(9,598 posts)Is a euphemism. I will assume that your question is rhetorical.
You have gone to great lengths to disparage the value and influence of progressives and liberals within the Democratic Party on two different threads now.
You stated "there aren't enough of you self declared "progressives" to make a thimble full of difference." The tone and intent is clearly intended to be condescending and belittling of a group that all major Democratic presidential candidates and our current president, identify with. Again, the problem is not mine.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,439 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)Unfortunately, since the blowback there took out precisely the farthest-right Democrats, it became self-perpetuating, and it worries me.
Remember: in 2006 Jim Webb was recruited by Howard Dean and promoted by MoveOn. That's unimaginable now, because the party has been moving to the left. As we move to the left, we lose two moderate voters for every liberal voter we pick up. It shows. It's why Obama pretty deliberately ran a non-ideological campaign.
Rex
(65,616 posts)But don't let facts bother you much.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)By a long shot.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)Again, kewl story bro.
haele
(13,352 posts)Who gathers together in active mobs, feeding each other's fear into a rage to destroy "the enemy"? Conservatives, radicals, and the sociopaths that know that the easy way to power is to prey on people who want to keep the status quo. It's different, it doesn't follow the rules, Mommy, Daddy - make it go away!
Conservatives will vote against something or someone at a higher rate than they will vote for something or someone. Conservatives have a small, orderly world with set social and economic roles, and they will vote to keep it that way, even if it hurts them and takes away a possible future as part of a larger world. Their desire for order are more important than their actual needs to survive.
Progressives and most non-radicals tend to vote for things that please or positively affect them, that fall in line with their aspirations. They look for something to support.
If a person or subject doesn't interest them, they won't expend the energy to support it.
In effect, Progressives and non-radicals look to their needs and what they think would fulfill those needs to survive over what it would take effect an atmosphere of order where they can navigate between the desires of the more conservative voting base for order and "the now", and their (the progressives) understanding of the necessity to adapt and progress for the wellbeing of the future.
Unlike Nadar and his opinions in 2000 that America had to hit bottom before it would rebound and become less corporately conservative, I fear the naïve idea that the general population will "wake up" to the fact that they were bought and sold by those wallowing in the love-pits of money and power totally discounts the reality of a general population that has listened too long to the siren song of "you can have it all - and you deserve it". American access to education, thoughtful discussion, truth in advertising and media is less available to people in general (especially working people who don't have time for more than a few sound-bites as they go about the business of surviving) than it was in the New Deal era of the middle class expansion. In many ways, the way journalism has become increasingly opinion driven, it's very easy for people who don't want to face a big real world to retreat into a comfortable smaller world that's basically an echo chamber. They want to create their own reality.
So unless there's a reason for those lotus eaters to leave that modicum of comfort, unless there's an obvious attack on the reality they prefer, they're not going to take the time and effort to go out and at least try to ensure that the political sink-hole that is opening up to swallow their reality and livelihoods with fees, removal of the rights, regulations and community infrastructure programs that they weren't aware actually protected them from grifters, libertarian sociopaths, and the petty bourgeois rentier class that, like the lilies in the fields, didn't actually work. I work with people like that. Perfectly willing to go about their own business under the status quo thinking "well, it isn't that bad because I and my friends haven't been inconvenienced...If it gets really bad, then I'll vote". By then, it would be too late for many problems.
Me, I vote, even if I have to hold my nose and pick the lesser of two weasels. I don't trust the electorate as far as I can throw them, and don't like to leave all of my future in their hands just because I'm not at least 75% behind what or who is on the ballot.
I like to be able to at least be making a protest vote, with the idea that I could be the difference between ensuring that the sludge doesn't seep out of the sewers too much to clean up if a few actual progressives or progressive policies start being put in place.
Haele