Change or Die, or like an Amoeba, split
In 1992, before I really knew much about Bill Clinton, I wrote “none of the above” on my primary ballot. The precinct chair, who I’ve known for years (and whom I shall not name) grabbed me by the arm on the way out the door.
“You can’t vote none of the above.”
“You can’t read my ballot,” I told her. She still insisted I couldn’t vote none of the above, and I informed her of her legal obligations. She would have to toss it in the box of challenged votes, where it would lay, uncounted, unless the final precinct vote was tied or challenged.
I know because I worked with ACORN (yes, the bad ACORN who got a bad rap and was never prosecuted for any crime) when the Mondale machine tried to turn Rainbow coalition voters away at the polls in Michigan in 1984. I represented Jackson as a precinct delegate at the county convention in 1988.
In November, at the polls, the party posted a sign: “You can't vote ‘None of the above.’” They were wrong, of course. I could vote for anyone I damn well pleased. I voted “none of the above” rather than vote for Kerry in 2004, and e-mailed every Democratic Senator (as well as my Congressman Lloyd Doggett) to tell them why. I was tired of the party ignoring being a party of exclusion, just like Republicans.
The party was right to support Clinton, wrong to let Republicans dissemble and present themselves as the defenders of the white working class when they obstructed legislation to improve their lives and incomes at every turn. Even Hillary, who never visited blue-collar voting regions, never stressed the state of the economy belongs to the banks, not trade, and that belongs to the GOP.
But Bernie and the truly progressive wing of the party have a tough time co-existing with the multicultural left. Progressives are fundamentally blue collar too, and embracing the beauty of color and gender diversity is not a blue-collar virtue. How quickly we forget Bernie’s insistence, almost until late spring, that “all lives matter.”
All lives do matter, but when people of white color,[1] like me, say it, we usually mean some lives don’t matter quite so much as others.
On top of that, the Democratic Party, above all, wants to continue to outspend the Republicans. Ban Citizens United? Hell, no. Then they’d have no excuse to spend hand over fist.
Money making machines don’t die. They merely change form. The Democratic Party may die, but it’s corpse won’t rot, it will transmogrify into something new. Not necessarily something better.
Bernie’s supporters have been calling for him to split away from the party. It may not happen now; the Dems are too busy licking their wounds and retreating from the Big Bad Trump. With a common enemy in sight, they’ll remain united for the near future. As united as a Republican Party dancing on the grave of the so-called dead Democrats.
But if you look at the corpse, you might see something pulsing under the skin. And if you look at the GOP, you can see a fight just waiting to break out.
If I were the heads of the Green and Libertarian parties, [2] I’d be laying out the traps, because those bubbles should burst around the time of the next election. Possibly just after the results pour in November 2018. Perhaps they can be in line to catch the run-off and, from what they trap, build two new viable parties.
They may have to give them more marketable names, like American and Liberty parties. But it’s time to break the stranglehold the two-party monopoly holds upon our employees. After all, they’ve stopped listening to us. This just might be their wake up call.
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[1] Which means, technically, we are black, brown, yellow and red skinned at the same time because white is the presence of all color. Unfortunately, I’m one of the few white people I know who embraces my mutlitonality.
[2] Provided you could find heads, which seem to disappear and reappear from election to election.
