A Path Forward

The Democratic primaries are heating up, and I am already seeing purity tests of various stripes filtering across the intertubes. Bernie supporters are claiming they will sit out the election if bernie doesn't win the primary. Same from Kamala voters, Warren voters, Biden voters. Booker, Gillibrand, O'Rourke ...

None of that is helpful, and all of it will guarantee another four years of the mango nightmare.

So here's the deal.

During the primaries, if you want to suit up and go to battle for your candidate, then by all means do so. However, make your approach positive. Instead of pointing out where all the other candidates fall short of your fave, why don't you instead point out what your guy (or woman) has going for him or her that will best serve the country? Make the case that your person is the best, instead of trying to make all the rest of them the worst.

Now, I understand that some people have difficulty with the whole concept of "opponents are people too," so below is a quick primer with some examples of what not to do ...

Helpful	Unhelpful
Pointing out that your candidate has a Medicare for All plan, for example, and discussing the various aspects of that.	Pointing out that some of the others have not signed on to this plan and accusing them of being shills for corporations/Republicans/trump/North Korea/Russia/aliens from the planet Zontar.
Stating that you do not want to support a candidate that takes corporate donations, a perfectly valid stance.	Declaring that, if the nominee turns out to have accepted corporate donations, you will not vote for him or her and will instead vote for Yosemite Sam, Donald Duck, donald trump, or some other cartoon character.
Reposting a story from a reputable source that highlights sketchy behavior of one of the candidates during a campaign event (the actual nature of the misbehavior is unimportant to this example).	Reposting a story with a lurid headline about one of the candidates sexually assaulting an underage dolphin because it's sensational and it will generate likes for your post, only to discover a couple of hours later that it was pure bullshit ... something that could have easily been avoided if you had just done your due diligence.
Allowing that the other candidates have perfectly legitimate ideas that, while not your first choice, are a drastic improvement over our current situation.	Demanding complete and total ideological purity and throwing a tantrum if that is not met.

The long and short of it is this: regardless of who your candidate is in the Democratic primaries, we will not prevail in 2020 if we are continually engaging in circular firing squads. So yes, Cory Booker might not be your cup of tea, or you may be enamored of Kamala Harris or Mayor Pete (and I'll be damned if I'll ever be able to spell his last name without looking it up), or you might think Elizabeth Warren has the best ideas, or Beto O'Rourke, or you may want to go old-school and vote for Biden.

All that's fine. You do you. What I am saying is that, during the primary season, we need to focus on what these candidates say they will do. We need to run positive campaigns, in which we discuss ideas for the future, not negative campaigns in which the goal is to destroy the others and leave them writhing in agony in the smoking shrapnel of an ugly campaign.

We definitely don't want to Al Franken these people. Sure, if they engage in disreputable behavior, call them out on it. But immediately resorting to hysterics and demanding that they step down/resign/commit seppuku will accomplish nothing of substance and will simply drown out the things the other candidates are saying that we need to hear.

And then, next summer, when the nominee is named, we -- all of us, without exception -- need to get behind that person 100%. Sure, the odds are there are going to be some policies this candidate espouses that aren't your first choice. They may be too grumpy for your liking, or too glib, or too ... something. The fact remains, that no matter who the Dems pick in 2020, they will have one salient quality that cannot be denied, and that has to be factored in:

They are not donald trump.

We outnumber Republicans. The fact is that trump only got into office through a quirk of the Electoral College (and for all those shrieking that we need to abolish the EC, stop for a second and think it through. Take a moment and think of how that could come back to bite us on the ass later, a la eliminating the filibuster for judicial nominees ... that worked out well for us, didn't it?). If we show up at the polls, and present a united front, then the GOP will be sent scurrying back to the depths from which the likes of trump and Mitch McConnell emerged and we can actually start repairing the damage of the last two years.

And once that person is in office, we can hold them accountable to stick to their promises and govern all of America, not just the "base."

I gotta lie down.

Please like and share this post from my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/blowhardpundit, and please consider making a donation to my advertising fund at www.gofundme.com/blowhardpundit.