I can testify with full confidence that democrats are strolling down Dumb American Voter Lane with just as much blind vigor as the GOP base voter they cannot tolerate. Personally, for the last decade I could cope with the generalized apathy of the democratic voter, but now… well, now democrats are just plain stupid.
(…that’s where this rant began, anyway. Where it ended, however, appears to be directed more at there being a split down the middle of the donkeys just as much as there is the elephants… I also enjoy checking analytics every now and again to see how many republicans search online for reasons, “Why are democrats so stupid?” [One would be surprised at the pure volume of people in this country who believe something and simultaneously have no idea why – and so search Google for justification – welcome to the modern age of politics.])
Don’t Vote Angry
The idiocy ruling both sides of the political aisle is primarily due to Americans’ tendency to get rowdy. We love a good rodeo, even if we’re the clowns stuck in a barrel. What’s clearly been forgotten, however, is what our grandmothers told us: don’t make important decisions when you’re angry.
A message to Bernie or Bust voters: it’s time to get over your yourselves just a wee bit and acknowledge that destroying your treehouse in order to make a point is probably a bad idea. Burning down the house is not a good action plan. Do we need change? Yes. But don’t kill the very foundation that affords you the ability to protest. Revolutions can only work in small populations with a citizenry possessing far, far fewer semi-automatic weapons. The United States is a giant nation; it doesn’t turn on a dime. Trying to do so makes it tip over. Smart change – lasting change – is what Bernie has been talking about for decades on left-wing radio and anywhere else that would give him a platform (long before any of the Bernie or Bust ideologues gave him the time of day).
Coincidentally, in 2016 this is just about the only area in which the voter base of both parties both congregate in harmony: anger. Trump voters are pissed, Bernie voters are pissed, and both seem willing to follow the lead of angry voters in Britain down the path to “AAAAHHHHHH!!!” after they finally wake up and realize what they’ve done.
There Are Two Democratic Parties.
Whereas the Republican Party has been forced to publicly air its party fracturing during every House vote, the same type of separation has been happening among the democrats for decades; just behind closed doors, under the rugs, and atop the hills of gated communities.
Beyond the Bernie or Bust, stubborn-arse voters, there is a growing social divide that has caused anger to grow on one side while complacency festers on the other. There are two very different parties within the whole: city and suburban. It’s the combination of anger and complacency that has caused the weakness in the chain: while one side cries, the other is totally incapable of understanding what’s wrong.
City democrats fight, take stands, and protest. Suburban democrats give money and experience democratic policy only as polite conversation at dinner parties. City democrats live the policies about which suburban democrats debate. City democrats experience while suburban democrats talk. An in general, city democrats lives have gotten more difficult while suburban have gotten easier (or at least not worse, which at many points in history is the most people can ask for).
Yes, this is a generalization (welcome to how humans think). There are plenty of complacent city democrats and hard-working suburban ones. But I live in both realms and the divide is very clear; it’s widened as Obama’s term progressed. The two don’t necessarily vote against one another as we see happen regularly in the Republican Party, but the lack of shared experience is enough to make passing policy and effectively advocating social change a greater challenge.
“I have lots of black friends” and Black Lives Matter will never see eye to eye. Therein hides the weakness of the whole. One can never understand social injustice from the comfort of a 3 bed-room with a pension. Empathy requires shared experience. Without it, sympathy is the most we can get, and sympathy doesn’t win elections.
So… why are democrats stupid?
Because we had it once (or we were close enough to see one another). Social divides and experiential differences are inherent in society. They’re OK and not evil. But Bernie isn’t wrong that the divide is too large. What he misses is that that distance makes the shouts from their side of the canyon too faint to hear by the other. Bernie or Bust can protest all the want, but it doesn’t help understanding; it doesn’t narrow experience gap enough to change sympathy to empathy. Nor does protest voting to wreck the county create empathy, it does the opposite.
Complacency also needs to make itself uncomfortable every now and again. It needs to feel what it’s like to live a life knowing that the American Dream is a hoax. It needs to meet the people who need democratic policy, not just the people who throw fundraisers for it.
Democrats are stupid because we have the best policy – the best morally and economically – yet we’ve somehow managed to lose touch and lose track and allow the loss of hope among our ranks.
