“Vote Blue No Matter Who” is not a good slogan. It is instead a highly ineffectual slogan.
I understand why it is popular, many people here feel like we lost in 2016, because of Bernie supporters who didn’t vote for Hillary. So people chant this mantra, in an attempt to, I guess, force their wishes onto reality. And I fully understand it, I too want Trump gone. He is a fascist and he has a fascist movement of idiots behind him. And now the senate has even given him free reign to do clearly illegal things. Its a very dangerous and infuriating situation.
Yet the way to stop Trump will not be to appeal to some form of party loyalty. Because contrary to what many like to believe, we did not lose 2016, because of Bernie supporters not voting for Clinton. More Bernie supporters voted for Clinton, than Clinton Supporters voted for Obama in 2008. And this is a normal thing, a certain amount of voters will never support a primary opponent. Add to that, that Sanders had an appeal, to people who were unlikely to ever support a standard democratic nominee. So if he hadn’t run, those were not votes Clinton was likely to win anyway. centerforpolitics.org/…
Edit: As has been pointed out in the comments I did phrase the paragraph above in a way I can’t factually support. I can’t say that more bernie supporters voted for clinton, than clinton supporters voted for Obama. I can say less Bernie supporters voted for Trump (6% or 12%, depending on which source, than another 8% third party), than Clinton Supporters voted for McCain (24%). I would also love for anyone in the comments to give me any numbers that indicate more sanders supporters sat out than Clinton supporters. www.washingtonpost.com/... End of Edit.
But why do I so dislike the “vote blue no matter who” Idea? Because it is the opposite of what the Democratic party needs to be doing now. Vote blue no matter who, says to the voter, it doesn’t matter what we stand for. It doesn’t matter what issues you are facing. It doesn’t matter what gets you personally excited. ALL that matters is we need to stop Trump.
And within the core base of the democratic party, very many people agree with that. But we cannot win this election by only getting the core base of the democratic party. The core base voted in 2016, and in 2012 and 2008 and 2004 and 2000 etc.
But we need to give people outside of the core base a reason, a passion to vote for the democratic nominee. And vote blue no matter who, will not do that. You are offering them nothing, but are instead taking their votes for granted. Demanding them even. It should matter who we are voting for. It does matter.
In 2016 around 45% of the electorate did not vote. If we can get just a couple of percent of them to vote for us, we will win. But we can’t just fear them into voting for us because of big bad Trump. That will not work. We have to make them want to vote for us. We have to be enticing. That is how we can win. Not by making a purity test. Not by demanding their votes. Not by appealing to party loyalty, because those people don’t have any party loyalty. They are not already democrats, but they are waiting to give out their votes. They have issues in their lives that need fixing. They have problems and hopes for this country and this world, just like the rest of us. They hate the healthcare system as much as we do. They fear climate change and want to do something about it. They hate their dead end jobs and student debt and general debt and so on.
They might not know it, but they do want to vote. We just need to make the case that we are worth voting for. And if we can’t make that case, then maybe we aren’t.
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