I am pretty involved on Twitter, and have found a lot of great people to follow, Matthew Chapman is one of those people. His Tweets are always spot on.
Within the last few days he went on a Twitter Rant, and it is one of the most stunning I have seen.
I wish he would have gone on this rant back during the primaries, we might not be in this mess, had this been said.
I will post as much as I can… or at least highlight the best parts.
I highly recommend that people go and look at the whole thread, it is GOOD.
I have been saying this for a long time, Republican voters will always show up to vote. It doesn’t matter if they like their candidate, they will show up because they LOVE to vote in favor of taking away other peoples rights.
They will show up to take away woman’s right to have autonomy over her own body, many of them are Pro-Life, and that is all that matters to them, liking the candidate is secondary to them.
Now, many are anti-immigrant.. they will show up to keep brown people out of the USA.
Many will show up to take away voting rights from People of Color.
Many will show up to take away rights of LGBTQ.
Like Matthew Said, And when election season comes, they'll primary him. (But they'll vote GOP in the general election no matter the result of the primary).
Now, I will add what first came to MY mind when I read this rant:
To call ones self a Liberal, a Democrat and be on the LEFT, means we care about about the most vulnerable among us, we care about minorities, we care about women having a right to chose, and we care about LGBTQ rights, and their right to marry who they love, or use the bathroom of their gender, protecting the voting rights for People of Color.. etc.. etc..
Regardless of what you thought about the election, THOSE THINGS were on the ballot, just not in black and white writing. They were there in spirit, and have been for a long time.
If people truly want to call themselves Liberal, caring about people is part of that ideology, protecting those people is our duty, and we do that by voting, by voting for the party that is much more likely to protect those peoples rights.
Yes, I get it, people want to vote for people they LOVE.. or people they agree with 100%, it just doesn’t work that way. It is easy for the Green Party to make a lot of promises, because fact is, they don’t have to worry about keeping those promises, because they don’t have any power. The Green Party can put anything in their platform, because there is never going to be a chance for any of it to pass, so they can throw in every fairytale they want, and they won’t lose votes. BUT, voting for a party that has no real chance of winning, and who has no real power to effect change, is NOT showing the Democrats who’s boss, it is surrendering and giving up. It is not being part of the change, it is the opposite, because the Green Party has no real power to effect any change.
Yes, many people stayed home this election or voted 3rd party, believing that Hillary was no better than Trump, then the next day, when Trump won, people realized that YES, Hillary is nowhere near the same as Trump.
But now, the damage has been done… and those who voted 3rd party, or stayed home, wrote in somebody else’s name, those are the people who helped elect Trump, and now that change they wanted so badly, is never going to come.. in fact all the change we gained in the last 50 years is now on the line.
Over and over again, I heard people say that they would not vote out of fear.. OK, I get it, but how about voting to actually protect those peoples rights, that are now seriously on the line, like I said, Republicans will always come out to vote to take away other peoples rights, women’s rights, immigrants rights, Muslims rights, People of Color’s rights, LGBTQ rights…. how about we get to a point where we always come out to vote to PROTECT those peoples rights.
I know, this can not only be about “Identity” politics, but make no mistake, the Republicans have Identity politics as well, theirs is just White people and Christians.
Now, for those who say that the Democrats left the working class and are now the party of Wall Street, I just don’t know where that comes from, the Democrats have had a progressive tax policy for YEARS, just have not had the numbers in congress to gat that passed. The Democrats want to put more regulations on Wall Street, again, just have not had the numbers to get that passed. The Democrats have been wanting to pour money into infrastructure for years, but again, we have not had the numbers to get that passed. The Democrats want to lower the cost of health care by adding a public option, they just do not have the numbers to get that passed. Democrats have been wanting to add more money to education, but again… they just don’t have the numbers to get that passed. I keep seeing over and over again, that the Democrats have hurt the middle and working class, but how can that be, when we have NOT had the numbers to enact any of the Democrats policies.
How can people say the Democrats have abandoned the working class? We have not had the number of Democrats in office to pass any policies that would really help the middle class, because OUR SIDE does not vote enough.