Know what Republican voters never do? Stay home on election day. Know what they also don't do? They never refuse to vote for their party’s nominated candidate just because they don’t like their behavior or if they exhibit a major lack of understanding of how government works. They don’t protest vote or cast their ballot for a non-viable candidate that has less than a 5% chance of victory. The GOP is nothing if not strategic. Even if their nominee is a repulsive, deplorable, gelatinous orange turd - they will still vote for him. Why? They vote for whomever wears the R label to get their policies put in place. They are aggressive in exposing the less than perfect qualities in liberal candidates because the left wing has proven easy to manipulate. They call us bleeding hearts because they know that for a good faction of the progressive population, many will sit out, or protest vote, or cast a wasteful ballot rather than vote for the most qualified candidate because the Koch-invented smear tactics aimed mostly toward the democrat front runner have successfully fooled them into putting their rights to healthcare and free speech and equality up for grabs, simply because they became convinced that front runner didn’t pass their purity tests. Again, something Republican voters never do.
That certain faction of so-called progressives fall for these common Koch campaign tactics often. From Ralph Nader to Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, it wasn't being popular that led to a George W. Bush or Donald J. Trump victory. Both lost the popular vote, one by far much more than the former. Both presidencies could have been entirely avoided if left leaning voters hadn't been so easily convinced by the GOP that their nominee just wasn't blue enough to deserve their vote. Like the serpent of Biblical fame who convinces people to go against their own interests, the forked tongues of the Kochs and Roves of the world are slick, silver, and they slither their slimy & salacious smears into the ears of liberals wishing to be pure, vote their conscience, and to not be morally responsible for voting for a less than perfect candidate.
In a perfect world, that'd be great. If everyone already had equal rights, health care, equal pay, paid family & medical leave, and if people of color weren't being gunned down by one acquitted police officer after another, liberals could maybe afford to play purity politics and choose to cast our ballots for whichever candidate spoke to our heart the most - regardless if that person actually had a snowball’s chance in hell of making it to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
A utopia this is not, however, and we cannot afford to continue proving the smarmy strategies to pit liberals against one another effective. There are actual lives at stake here. Present policies of the GOP are limiting everyone's access to health care, equal rights, equal pay, & at this point - simple human dignity. Just because a few of us may have these rights already doesn't mean every citizen has had their humanity yet recognized.
This means that in 2018, if you really consider yourself a liberal who deeply cares about others and their basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then not even one liberal can afford to stay home or place purity tests on the democrats running. We have to consider ourselves to be at least as capable of strategizing together as the Republicans have been. It isn't because they're the greatest people that Republicans have been picking up congressional seats left & right, i.e.; Karen Handel and Greg Gianforte. Not to mention the ever decreasingly popular POTUS, Donald. J. Trump.
Obviously, the voting machine hacks commissioned of Russia by GOP candidates and the always reliable system of gerrymandering also contributed to many of these deplorable candidates being sent to D.C., but with all of that and more going against us, why be our own worst enemy and also add to the cause of liberals losing? These nominated democrat frontrunners may not have been perfect, but they were far more likely to enact more inclusive progressive policies. Plus, gerrymandering and election hacking cannot be combatted so long as the party that benefits from these examples of tampering of the People's right to government by, for, and of said People remains in control.
it is very important that we do not allow ourselves to be manipulated by the GOP into helping to elect their majority again. There is too much at stake now for too many people, and for too many generations to come. Maybe one day our great grandchildren can afford to play purity politics as better candidates arise, but we have to build that foundation first and pave the way for such candidates to come into power by doing all we can to put Democrats in Congress, not just in 2018, but from now on. Let 2016 be the ultimate reminder of what can happen when we mistakenly believe we have nothing to lose by protest voting or voting our conscience, because remember, our own conscience isn't the only one being affected by the outcomes of these elections.