The Question of the Democrats

I am trying to figure out how to regard the Democratic Party. That is a tough question in itself because it is not a uniform entity. I may regard Chuck Schumer different from how I regard Elizabeth Warren. But among left-wing opposition to Drumpf there is a vast chasm over what the Democratic Party is and what role they should play in opposing Drumpf. I know people who share fairly similar values... they favor environmental protections, strong social safety nets, equal rights for women and racial minorities, that kind of stuff, but they have dramatically different regards for the Democratic Party. Some view the party as fighting the good fight, a collection of politicians who have an array of different responsibilities, powers, and who are forced the juggle competing interests and do the best they can given institutional limitations. Others see them as just another version of the "bad guys," a slightly "kinder, gentler" imperial force, although some aren't even that forgiving, some call them just as bad... maybe even worse cause they put a phony face on equally vicious policies.

The question manifests in so many different ways. I discussed it in a post about Cory Booker. It arose in discussions of how to treat Drumpf's cabinet nominees, where many people complained that the Democrats were not being oppositional enough, while others pointed out that the opposition raised was rather unusual for recent history. Cabinet nominees generally receive little more than a rubber stamp. The question rages in election years, especially presidential election years. There is still an argument over whether Ralph Nader cost Al Gore an election victory in 2000, and a similar resentment is brewing over 2016 and Hillary Clinton's loss. Both losses are blamed on people who voted for third party candidates or who stayed home, failing to protect us from a victory for the "worse" candidate (George W. Bush in 2000 and Drumpf in 2016).

There is a belief among left-wing critics that not enough changes under Democratic governance, or they compromise or are too weak or don't care about left-wing values, they are often criticized as "Republican Lite," I know at least a few people who go so far as to say there is zero difference between Democrats and Republicans, "two sides of the same coin," the argument goes.

Defenders of the Democratic Party will quickly point to what they see as positive changes from Democratic policy, such as the Affordabale Care Act (ACA/Obamacare), protections for the rights of LGBTQ people, Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, positive actions towards combatting climate change, etc.

I think it is a much more challenging debate than many people recognize, and at times I feel capable of switching consciousness from one side to the other. Right now as I think about the war in Yemen, I see that a recent disastrous U.S. Navy Seal raid which killed about 20+ civilians (including 9 children) there was approved by Drumpf after Obama refused to order it due to risks. It seems easy to put the blood on Drumpf's hands given that contrast. Yet it was the Obama administration which has sold millions, possibly billions, of dollars in arms to Saudi Arabia, perpetuating the war there which is now killing, displacing, or putting at risk of famine and major health crisis millions of Yemenis.

I can be a Democratic Party sympathizer when I think about electoral strategy. I believe we still need to vote for them because they do make a difference. It may be marginal, but people's lives hang on those margins.

But I feel like leftists who oppose voting for Democrats raise important points. Consider that Obama deported almost 3 million people during his presidency. Maybe a GOP administration would've deported more people, but for those 3 million deported, either administration is unacceptable. The Democrat sympathizers don't have a sufficient answer for what to do for those 3 million people, how do we make systemic change to help them. I argue with my sister a lot and she is a rabid defender of the Democrats, and her argument amounts to "change happens slowly, there is no other way, we have to accept what we can get." Well, that leaves those 3 million deported with nowhere to go. It leaves millions of Yemenis dead, sick, or starving. It leaves those who still couldn't afford healthcare under Obamacare in the lurch. It is easy for those of us in a privileged position to be content with incremental progress when we are not sick, Yemeni, or living undocumented in America.

"The system" leaves those marginalized people behind and thus it needs to be brought down and a new system built. If the tens of millions of people who vote Democrat would get on board with more dramatic change, it could happen.

Or could it? I am trying to imagine the Democratic counter-argument. Well, yeah, that would be nice, but the left-wing movement hasn't reached those tens of millions of Democratic voters. They're not all living with the awareness we on the far left are, so we have to keep doing the hard work of building our movement and, in the meantime, recognize where we are at and act accordingly (strategically) and vote Democrat when it is the only way to prevent worse outcomes for people who would be negatively impacted by the Republicans being in power instead.

These are banal thoughts on profound questions/problems. It is a question I will try to explore in various ways as I proceed with this diary and life under Drumpf.