Democrats' Move to the Right Profoundly Affects our Young People and Our Future.

[Maedhros]

136. I see the lesser-of-two-evils voting strategy to be exactly what you describe.

I have a close friend with which I debate politics on a regular basis. He sees himself as a left-wing Liberal crusader, but his answer to every problem we're currently facing - expanding surveillance/police state, undeclared war operations across the globe, dismantling of the social safety net - is the same:

"Meh. Every Republic collapses into Empire. We can't stop it, we can only slow it down."

He votes a straight Democratic ticket, in every election, for no other reason than the seething hatred he holds for Republicans. He doesn't realize that the oligarchs have him by the balls. They're very good at stoking that hatred - look at any theoretically-liberal web site, and you'll find article after article detailing how some particularly heinous Republican threw some repulsive red meat to his base during a fundraiser. There is much less discussion of the actual problems we have to try and fix, and when those discussions DO arise the Blue Link Brigade descends to splatter it with sneering acrimony. Then, when the elections roll around we end up in the same position time and again, with only a false choice to make at the ballot box - a false choice that seems legitimate, because we are conditioned to hate the other guy.

None of that helps solve the problems. But voters are so demoralized, so convinced that progressive or liberal policies can't win that they don't even try.

The first step has got to be convincing Democratic candidates that they cannot abandon Democratic principles and get away with it. And that means not voting for them if they do.