[Peace-discuss] Punish the Democrats?
Ron Szoke
r-szoke at illinois.edu
Mon Oct 18 16:50:48 CDT 2010
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/101510.html
The 'Teach-the-Dems-a-Lesson' Myth
By Robert Parry (A Special Report)
October 15, 2010
If my e-mail inbox is any indication, many American progressives plan
to use the Nov. 2 election as an opportunity to “teach the Democrats a
lesson” by either not voting or casting ballots for third parties, even if
this contributes to the expected Republican (and Tea Party) landslide.
The thinking seems to be that the loss of the congressional majorities
will punish the Democrats for accepting half-measures and compromises
on issues from health care and financial reform to job stimulus and war.
The Left’s hope apparently is that the chastened Democrats will then
shift toward more progressive positions and be more assertive.
However, modern American political history tells us that this strategy
never works. After the four key elections in which many progressives
abandoned the governing Democrats – in 1968, 1980, 1994 and 2000 –
not only did Republicans take U.S. politics further to the right, but the
surviving Democrats tacked more to the center and grew more timid.
All four elections also were marred by GOP dirty tricks that drew little or
no reaction from either the governing Democrats or the progressives,
emboldening the slash-and-burn Republicans to operate in an ever
more audacious style.
Tragically, too, the Left’s sideline-sitting contributed to the unnecessary
deaths of millions of people in wars from Vietnam and Central America
to Iraq and Afghanistan. Arguably even worse, U.S. inaction on global
warming – a neglect surely to be continued if Republicans and Tea
Partiers are victorious in Election 2010 – may doom the future of a
livable planet.
In other words, the “teach-the-Dems-a-lesson” strategy not only
doesn’t work, it’s extremely dangerous.
. . .
<much more>
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