General Discussion
Showing Original Post only (View all)Here's why advocating third party votes for president annoys me. [View all]
No substantial progress ever came from the leaders. None of it. They always have to be dragged by the will of the people.
Real change is every day. It's issues. It's local and it's about bills and contacting legislators and spreading the word about those bills and issues. It's most definitely not about helping to elect a president who will make the job of bringing about significant change even HARDER.
Furthermore, you don't start building at the top, you lay the foundation first. The right didn't get where they are in 8 years, it took decades. Electing someone like Kucinich would be awesome, but they'd still have to work with congress to get anything done, and we see how much luck Kucinich has had on that front already.
The fact that candidates who we agree with have zero luck getting elected says to me that we have a whole hell of a lot of groundwork to do before we can expect to have an administration that is to any measurable degree left of center. Until we change the minds of the people casting the votes, we can rail forever against whatever candidates let us down, but it wont' change a thing. To bring about change we should be railing against counterproductive and harmful ideas, and advocating ones that help.
They have more money, but we have more people. It would be helpful IMO (and also less divisive) if we could stop focusing on candidates, and start engaging in the hard work the right wing engaged in for decades (and is still busy engaging in) in order to push their agenda forward. (This of course is not the case in primary elections, during which focusing on a candidate is of course the only reasonable course of action.)