If you want to send Washington a message, go to your representatives website, and write them a letter. On the off chance somebody actually reads it, you will have done more to actually speak to them than any kind of boycott of voting actually would.
Ideally, we're supposed to send messages to Washington by our votes, and they're supposed to get them. Well, we sent one hell of a message in 2008, and what happened? A lot of good, to be sure, but also a lot of frustrating bull. How loud do we have to shout to get through?
I am 30 years old, soon to be 31. In those three decades, if I have learned one thing, it's this: those who do not stand up for themselves, who do not stubbornly claim their rightful positions, will lose political fights and elections. You can't do it just once and expect politicians to realize that things have changed. You have to be part of the political environment they must survive to remain elected.
They've got people who tell them who's voting for them. If the demographics slide back towards the older generations, their power increases, and so does that of the Republican Party, which has a hold on older Americans due to the effective hogwash of the GOP during the last few decades.
That's our problem. If we won't speak, if we won't vote, we won't win. It can't just be something we do now, do once, and the world magically changes. No, the previous generation to ours tried that. Our parents tried that. The Conservatives then came back across with a strategy that branded us as radicals, that pushed us out of many ruling institutions, finally taking over Congress and the Presidency.
If Democrats in office are timid, it's because Democrats out in America lack heart, and are easily discouraged. Our adversaries are willing to hold their nose and vote, and they get the leaders and the policy they generally want. We? We get picky, letting Republicans win fights, then wonder why our politicians try to act like Republicans. Why? Because their voters, and those in the center show up.
Don't show up, and do it consistently? Let people push you out? Don't expect to be influential.
The dynamics of it are that simple. This not merely about idealistic shaping of those politicians. This is about holding gains against those we successfully fought back against. If we let ourselves get discouraged, then the scenario for the next few elections is that more Republicans get elected. Republicans will then, as they almost always do, claim that this represents the political direction of the country.
That a majority of people might not agree with this direction will be irrelevant. If you don't show up at the polling booth, your opinion on that proposition won't count.
To defeat the Republican's general agenda, we will have to compete strongly enough to hand them successive losses, such that they finally lose heart. If we stop fighting before then, they will rebound, with their capacity for self-delusion and insular boosterism, and they will do what they're doing now.
If you want power, folks, you have a fight on your hands, and you'd bette be prepared to wage it to the end.