Below the fold is a narrative of one voter's journey. It starts as an under-age McCarthy admirer in 1968 and a McGovern voter in 1972. It wanders through the Repubs, then into the Liberts, eventually bending onto a more populist/left tack that led to DK in 2004, and perhaps should have returned to the Dems by now. Except it hasn't.
Maybe, as kossacks here fight amongst themselves (the current boycott, progressives v Clinton/"middle way", activists v burnout victims) in their efforts to figure out the way forward, just maybe this one voter's journey can be instructive.
Or not. (though I honestly hope it helps y'all).
Now you've gone and done it - followed below the fold. If you've come this far, I figure you've signed up for the whole narrative so I'm not going to edit down/out details.
So I grow up in W. Pennsylvania, son of a steelworker. While they never actually spoke of such things with me, it's not a difficult chore to guess he was a Dem. As a teenage male in 1968, it wasn't hard to be against the Viet Nam war and consequently against LBJ. Besides the whole student/youth enthusiasm angle of Eugene McCarthy was hard to resist. And I didn't. But I was not of voting age. And there were no examples in my life of being politically active beyond voting. So I wasn't.
By 1972, I could vote. How could I ever vote for Nixon? "Tricky Dick" himself. The guy who had kept the war going. To say I was a McGovern supporter would be overstating (I had some notions that his economics were maybe suspect), but I had some 'inertial momentum' in the vote Democratic direction and I sure as hell wasn't voting for Dick!
I did, incidentally, cast a write-in vote for congress for my dad that same election. The incumbent was unopposed (despite shortly thereafter proving to be a crook) and I wasn't happy about the whole lack of choice situation. I suppose that was one early indicator of my political tendencies.
When 1976 rolled around, I was pretty sure I didn't like what I saw as the "collectivist" nature of what the Democratic Party was typically peddling. Somehow the Repubs seemed the more "realistic" and "grown-up" party. But I was still pretty hung up over Nixon and had sworn I'd never forgive Ford. Still, somehow the inexperienced and maybe even naive Carter (my perspective on him at the time) and his "socialist-lite" Demos.... Hard choice. Switched to the Repubs.
1980: Didn't stay. What a bunch of overbearing "parents" the Repubs were. Sure they could be trusted with the economy, but they were such WASP-y spoil sports. War on drugs my ass! I landed with the liberts. The apparent consistency of their views gives an aura of self-proving. And really, at that time, even taking a non-philosophical single issue by single issue approach, my views pretty much squared with theirs anyway.
Time passes. Nothing really happens to sway me in any meaningful way. I develop "inertial momentum" to stay Libert. I get used to voting for candidates who lose. Life sometimes permits activism, sometimes not. When it does, I donate, I'm active in my local & state organizations, I even run for office. I won't over-sell, however, as there are long periods of family & career and very little politics.
Over time, I begin to develop the belief that there's not much difference between the Rs and Ds. And I also got more exposure to the Greens and other 3rds. And my perspective starts to be - anyone, anyone but the major parties. I will vote Socialist Worker or Constitutionalist before I vote for another R or D. The system is broken, it needs to be changed, and I will never stop using my one little ballot (but for every office in every election) to throw a monkey wrench in the works.
But also over time and despite momentum, I begin to despair of "my" Liberts. It's not because of any issues or tactics over which there's disagreement within the party (it's fine that people have sincere disagreements), it's that there's a near universal failure to disagree or question the role of corporations. As wild a statement as it was for Romney to say that corporations are people, it's a statement that would easily come from the mouth of 99% (okay, I made that up) of liberts. Which I find simply incomprehensible.
If liberts are the bulwark of individual rights and freedoms not granted by any government but inherent in the simple fact of being human, how in the name of all that's holy, can they not see that the corporation is the creation of the (hated, by liberts anyway) state itself, presumably as a means of benefiting society as a whole (as would be appropriate for an entity created as a consequence of following laws enacted by a democratically elected legislature). As we are its creator, a corporation can only have rights to the extent that we allow our creation. (Arguably much as our creator is the only appropriate circumscriber of our own rights.) And as their creators, we can change the rules at will.
There is just so much good that can flow from reversing corporate personhood. I won't even go into that here; I know there are kossacks here who can argue that topic far better than I. I will simply say that as much as I still believe that government is too often intrusive and too often incompetent, the same can, should and must be said in spades about our own creations - corporations. And just as it is through government that they come into existence, it is government which must rein them in.
This is the wedge that has, in recent times, begun to deflect my decades of momentum. But where should I land?
Again, many kossacks here can expound far better than I on what a disappointment the Democratic Party has been in terms of pushing back against Wall Street in particular and their corporate contributors generally. Words are said about "Main Street" but precious little action. This frustration with both major parties about "Wall Street" and "bought professional politicians" is a part (the degree is arguable) of the impetus behind the Tea Party who saw nowhere to turn to for help. Certainly the Repubs are far less likely to be helpful in this regard (Tea Party types often too blinded by their frustrations to see this and recognize that they've since been co-opted), and as presently oriented the Liberts are even worse (acknowledging, however, that the Liberts are at least anti-war, although that's another subject).
So as this voter ponders on what was, it seems as if the circle should be complete - I should again be a Democrat. But instead, it's as if I'm adrift in mid-ocean and where I expected land, the island has moved. Impossibly far off are two lands and while one may be slightly closer to me than the other, as a practical matter it doesn't matter. I can't stay with the liberts, but there is no substitute in reach. And I am left with only my continued resolve to throw that ballot/monkey wrench again & again & again. But it shouldn't be that way. And if anyone's going to fix it, my gut says you guys are as likely as any. So fix it already!
Thanks for putting up with me these past 7 years.
p.s. I'm a ponderously slow writer. It's a horrible trait when it comes to diary commenting. I apologize in advance if I don't respond to you. Probably I'm laboring over a couple lines in reply to something someone wrote half an hour earlier.