Imagine progressives boycotting a national election.

[Vattel]

I'm not talking about a few individuals picking up their marbles and going home. I'm talking about a unified, organized boycott by progressives with the explicit aim of moving the Democratic Party in a more progressive direction by sending a clear message: if you are not progressive, you don't get our votes.

Objection 1: But then even progressive Democrats won't get elected.
Reply: The boycott could be organbized to target only non-progressives, or only non-progressives seeking re-election.

Objection 2: But there's so much at stake in a national election, and the Republicans are so much worse than the Democrats.
Reply: This is a serious objection. There is a trade-off here, incurring short-term costs in the form of lost elections for the sake of long-term improvement in the Democratic Party.

Objection 3: It would be better to use persuasion, or campaign contributions, or protests and demonstrations to influence the Democratic Party.
Reply: Persuasion is of little use given how broken our public discourse is, we don't have enough money to compete with non-progressives on that playing field, and demonstrations are rarely effective anymore.

Objection 4: The Democratic Party would just respond by moving to the right a bit to pick up more of the votes of moderate conservatives.
Reply: Ouch. Another serious objection. Would that be the likely outcome? I just don't know.

Objection 5: There are too few of us to make a difference.
Reply: I can't answer that because I really have no idea what percentage of Democrats are alienated progressives. But if the Presidential election of 2000 is an indication, in a close election there is at least a potential for progressives making a difference.

Objection 6: Exactly! The votes for Nader gave us Bush, worst President ever!
Reply: That is damn scary, but see reply to objection 2.

[Captain Hilts]

1. Republicans count on Dems not voting. Look at what happened in VA. nt

[Vattel]

3. see reply to objection 2

[laughingliberal]

28. I'm beginning to think Democrats count on Democrats not voting. nt

I see the effort to suppress the liberal vote coming straight out of the administration. I think they intend to continue governing from the right and having more Republicans in the House and Senate plays into that agenda. Gives them an excuse to not pass any progressive policies and blame the Republicans.

[Robb]

2. Let me stop you at Number 2.

The "short term costs in the form of lost elections" part. The "short term" is anything but; you'll recall re-election rates in Congress have been, and always will be, high. 94% in the House and 83% in the Senate in '08.

In 2008. Think about that for a second.

It is difficult to unseat someone in either party; incumbents fare well. Losing a seat usually means losing it until someone retires or dies.

[Vattel]

4. good point

the trade-off would have to take that into account

[NJmaverick]

5. I would like to point out that Bush/Cheney used the power of the White House

and their Justice Department to eliminate fair elections. Victories had to be over whelming under their watch or they would steal them.

[derby378]

6. When the state Democratic convention ends...

...you've got to dance with them what brung ya. But that doesn't mean you have to stop leaning on them. In fact, I'm counting on all of us to lean on our Democratic candidates heavily in 2010.

[lunatica]

7. When people refused to vote in California Schwatzenegger's fans voted him in

If only three people show up to vote they decide the fate of the nation.

[T Wolf]

8. Sometimes, when "progress" is at a dead-end, it is NECESSARY to backtrack and detour to

get around the obstacle blocking the road.

The current Dems are a huge pothole, totally blocking any movement in that direction. IMO, it is necessary to do whatever is necessary to get around it. If that involves backing up and taking a different road, so be it. We certainly will NEVER get there by trying to drive over the pothole.

On the other hand, many seem to prefer the reality of getting gang-raped by 10 instead of 20 cretins. Sorry, but I cannot vote for rape-by-the-ten simply because it is not a bad as rape-by-the-twenty.

[StarfarerBill]

9. I think voting for candidates of progressive parties (Socialist, Green, etc.) would be preferable...

...to sitting out a national election altogether. Unless a boycott is backed up with a massive, unambiguous campaign explaining why progressives are sitting out, the rest of the electorate and the pols still might not get the message; voting for third-party progressives is a clearer signal, as well as possibly getting actual leftists into office.

[Vattel]

12. What I had in mind was a very well-publicized boycott

to send an unambiguous message to the Democratic Party. Thanks for making me realize I should clarify that.

[slackmaster]

10. Imagine conservatives sweeping that same election

:eyes:

[gcomeau]

11. No. Just... no.

Objection 2: But there's so much at stake in a national election, and the Republicans are so much worse than the Democrats.
Reply: This is a serious objection. There is a trade-off here, incurring short-term costs in the form of lost elections for the sake of long-term improvement in the Democratic Party.

You make an unwarranted and frankly ridiculous assumption here. That what you say the positive trade-off of the action would be would actually occur. There is no chance in hell an election boycott by progressives results in a "long term improvement" of the Democratic party.

Let me paint a different picture for you. Republicans SLAUGHTER Democrats at the polls. Progressives go "ha,ha... you democrats better start nominating our preferred candidates". Meanwhile every single other person in the entire country? They're following the much more obvious prevailing narrative of "Nation likes Republicans better than Democrats". "Conservatives win elections". "Liberal is a dirty word in politics, look what happened to all those peoplewith "D"s next to their names". And you can yell and scream about it only being because of your "boycott" od Democrats who weren't really Liberal/progressive all you want it won't change one damn thing.

The politics of the entire nation will swing drastically right, and conservatives rule the country until at least the middle of the damn century.

No thank you.

[Vattel]

16. I made no such assumption.

The longterm benefit is, as you suggest, an uncertain one. Of course, the short-term cost is less uncertain. It would only take one close election lost to a Republican due to the boycott for such a cost to be incurred. Notice too that the possible disaster you claim as a certain cost is actually highly uncertain.

[gcomeau]

26. It is nowhere near uncertain.

It is practically guaranteed. Nobody here should be so completely naive about how politicians and the media would react to an electoral slaughter by the GOP as to believe that the reaction to it is going to be "move in the opposite direction from the people who are destroying you in the polls, obviously that's what the nation wants!"

If the Republicans suddenly storm out and absolutely annihilate the Democrats in an election there will be exactly one national narrative that emerges as a result, and it will not even remotely resemble "The Democratic Party needs to become more Liberal". There is a snowball's chance in hell of your desired outcome occuring as a result of your proposed action.

[Vattel]

31. Keep in mind,

I'm imagining a formal, organized, well-publicized boycott. If it were in the news and large enough to make a difference in the actual results, the media might well adopt the narrative "Boycott sends message to Democrats: we want real change." Of course, with the media, one never knows for sure what the narrative will be.

[FiveGoodMen]

13. With regard to objection 4...

We need at least one decent party.

There's no hope of cleaning up the GOP. So that only leaves the Dems.

If the Democratic Party sees its base dissolving, it will either move to clean up its act (a good thing) or it will become even more pukish.

In the latter case, I think that the corps will note that the Dems can easily be beaten and just go back to funding the pukes. That will pull the rug out from under the Dems but possibly leave room for a viable third party.

If we don't do something different, our doom is assured.

Yours is a very interesting and worthwhile post.

[SpartanDem]

14. Didn't this line of thinking give us eight years of Bush

[w4rma]

15. Fuck that shit. (nt)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Well, working "from the inside" hasn't worked. If they want our votes, let them earn them.

They sure as hell aren't going to move left out of their own volition.

[cliffordu]

18. RE: Number two. Are you kidding??

In fact, Nevermind. Stay home. Who the fuck cares if people idiotic enough to think "incurring short-term costs in the form of lost elections for the sake of long-term improvement in the Democratic Party...."

vote or not.

You act like the rest of us need to be taught a lesson.

God damn, teh stupid is thick here sometimes.

[Kahuna]

23. They're too dumb to realize that they keep doing the same thing over

and over and things never change. What is it they say about doing the same thing over and over, while getting the same results? :banghead:

[Vattel]

29. Doing the same thing over and over?

I've never seen an organized boycott of an national election by progressives. And I should add that the aim of the boycott I have in mind would have to be very well-publicized.

[Kahuna]

38. That's because you're probably not old enough. nt

[Vattel]

24. If your reading comprehension were better,

you would have noticed that I do not even endorse the boycott I thought was worthy of discussion, because I do not present myself as having adequate replies to some of the objections I raised. You obviously think that the trade-off I mention in the reply to the second objection is not a good one. You may well be right, but an argument would be nice.

[cliffordu]

40. Your own words imply that you believe that Dems can win

any time we want to, as long as you are on board...So first, the "activists" stay home to punish the Democratic party until we learn our lesson and then wowsa, snap your little fingers and the Dems are the dominant party.

And you think this needs discussing?

Are you high?

The only thing bigger than your lack of understanding about elections, is your hubris.

Good luck with that.

[comrade snarky]

19. I'll pass on this plan

Due to it's high score on my "How happy will this make Karl Rove-O-Meeter".

Seriously, wrap this with a shiny bow and wait for his birthday.

You want to move the party to the left? Great, so do I but the least effective way I can come up to do it is to stay home and assume things will go my way. If you could even get an organized boycott to work the right wing will pounce on this as the death of the progressive movement and how do you think the media will play it? Given their history of honest reporting on progressive issues and all...

[SemiCharmedQuark]

20. "short term costs"? Sorry, but Bush's fuckups are not short term costs.

They will have far far far reaching consequences.

I wasn't old enough to vote in 2000, but I learned a lesson from it. Come voting day, I'll always be first in line.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

21. Ya, I remember 2000. n/t

[TornadoTN]

22. I don't know many traditional Dems that are really happy with things right now

Especially in the youth that were brought into the fold in the last 4 years. Maybe it's indicative of my geographic location, but I'm seeing a lot of people getting frustrated and apathetic, some of them are traditional Democrats who I wouldn't classify as "Progressive".

[LiberalAndProud]

25. It has been oft commented on here that Nixon would be a flaming liberal by today's standards.

We didn't come to this place overnight. It has been in motion since Jimmy Carter was in office. To expect that moving the country further to the right in order to make our point to the Dems just doesn't make sense to me.

Points two and four cannot be discounted.

I suspect that progressive Democrats did stay home when Gore was defeated. There were many who really meant to send a message with their Nader vote. So here we are, when Republicans are able to paint Obama as a "socialist" and "communist" exactly because the perception of right and left have been skewed.

Progressives will not serve their cause by dropping out of the process.

[Vattel]

27. I appreciate the worry

that the boycott would be self-defeating. I would like to point out, though, that the idea is not to "drop out of the process," but to effectively use the power we have in the process (our votes) to affect it. A well-publicized and well-organized boycott is not simply dropping out.

[LiberalAndProud]

30. I understand the strategy.

I think it's severely flawed. The media would have a field day -- Shall we call it the "Just Stay Home" political movement? Oh my, I shudder to think. Yes our country would tilt to the right again as we have before.

And when our children ask us what we did to prevent that slide? We can say, "We stayed home."

[Vattel]

33. I guess that argues for changing the strategy

to voting for third-party or independent candidates with the clear message that our votes are intended to change the Democratic Party.

[LiberalAndProud]

35. The trajectory the left has taken in recent years is the right one.

Support progressive candidates. Become progress candidates. If we expected instant results from our efforts these last few years, we have been disappointed. But the shift will happen. It will not happen overnight, but it will happen. People will respond. We have to be persistent. We have to be consistent. We have to keep moving the dialogue to the left. If nothing else, Obama was able to accomplish that to some degree in the last general election. We must take a long view, or we are lost.

The best strategy is to keep working. Hard.

[Vattel]

36. I think you are probably right.

Thanks for your comments.

[Kahuna]

39. ^Best post on this thread...

:applause:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

32. Venezuelan right-wingers tried that stunt, and see how much good it did them.

Essentially, they gave carte blanche for Chavez to do whatever the hell he wanted. A development that brought me no small degree of schadenfreudish satisfaction, if I may say so.

The same thing happening to Republicans is too scary to contemplate.

[Vattel]

34. Organized boycotts of elections in other countries

are hardly rare. It would be interesting to examine the over-all track-record. I guess it was a huge failure in Venezuela.

[Odin2005]

37. K&R. Politicians must EARN my vote.