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"The 'democracy gap' in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote, or listlessly vote for the 'least worst' every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the 'least worst' gets worse."
~Ralph Nader
~Noam Chomsky
3 comments:
I find the Nader quote interesting because in 2000 the votes for him essentially took away a landslide from Gore and GWBush then unfortunately "won" the election. It stinks that we have a two party system but ultimately, there are often individuals running for office who are so dangerous to the welfare of our citizens that we just can't afford to divide it between more than one. I wish I had a solution, because intellectually it makes sense but I wish Nader had thrown his support behind Gore in 2000 so we wouldn't have had that frightening 8 years...
More importantly though I think we need to get rid of the electoral college. Votes need to count in every state and being in Oregon, no one has even bothered visiting us.
I agree with Chomsky and comfort myself with the idea that the bottom line is there really is little difference in the two main parties. Look at how far right Obama has gone and I feel relatively sure if Romney should get in that he'll be a lot more moderate than he was when running. I also comfort myself with sugar, a toxin that poisons the body.
EcoGrrl, even though Nader may have taken votes from Gore, I believe that third party participation helped get Gore into the VP job in the first place. Back in the day, when Perot entered the race as an independent, he changed the whole political conversation. I believe Clinton was successful (and much more fiscally conservative) as a result. Watching part of one of the third party debates made me realize how many real issues are tiptoed around by the major parties out of fear of alienating some voters.
I agree that the electoral college is unfair - although having lived in "battleground" states during 2 elections, it's no fun. Every vote should count but they don't. Gore would have won - and Nader's influence would have been beneficial, as well.
Rubye, I think Romney would have actually been more moderate than he appeared but he thought he needed to court the far right to get the election - and that strategy failed. (Actually it's the state-level politicians who scare me because they're the ones passing laws that affect people on a personal level.) In the last election, in my conservative area, people considered themselves part of the "silent majority." Seems like they're more the vocal minority.
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