To progressives who voted for Kerry in this election, and especially to those who backed Nader in 2000 but shifted to supporting Kerry in 2004, I say this: you need to accept that you made a serious mistake, and resolve never to make that mistake again. By supporting Kerry and the Democrats when they were ignoring nearly every one of your deepest concerns, you only pushed them towards their stunning defeat and ultimately helped to re-elect George Bush.
More than any single group, it was progressives who could have put positive pressure on the Democrats. But instead many of you muzzled your voices and muted your criticisms, worried that any negative word might hurt Kerry's electoral chances. You ignored or rationalized away Kerry's Bush-like stances on a host of critical issues; after all, he'd certainly be better on some issues, and you let that be enough for you. The Bush threat was just too great. So you set aside your conscience and justified your support for Kerry by saying that you were being "practical" or "adapting to a changing situation." But when you put out those Kerry/Edwards signs with the message "A Stronger America" at the bottom, surely you must have been thinking: is this what I've waited four years to hear the Democratic Party say? When I was protesting the Iraq war, when I was writing letters and making phone calls to try to restore the liberties taken from us under the USA PATRIOT Act--is this what I wanted to hear?
Of course not. Yet that still wasn't enough to make you change your mind; you went along with it all and played the part of the good soldier, because you'd accepted the binding logic of surrender: Bush must go, and therefore Kerry must win. So you silenced your conscience, set aside your misgivings, and forged ahead. And on November 2nd you went out and voted for a candidate who had demonstrated just how deeply misguided he was on Iraq when he said: "I'm not talking about leaving. I'm talking about winning."
And for putting up with all of that, what did you get? George Bush as president, and a Democratic Party that's weaker and more compromised than ever. I've seen many progressives, still in denial, saying "I did my part" by voting for Kerry. Sorry, but not by a longshot--unless you mean that you did your part in helping re-elect George Bush, and assuring continued Republican domination of the US electoral scene for years to come.
I know that that wasn't your intention. I understand that your willingness to support Kerry was born out of a genuine (and quite valid) fear of the effects of four more years of George Bush, and that you felt that you were doing the right thing--no matter how disagreeable it may have been. You were following your best judgement. The results, however, have proven that that judgement was flawed.
But there's something you can do to make this right. If you're determined to continue working within the Democratic Party framework, you should contact your local party leadership--the sooner the better--and tell them that you'll no longer settle for candidates like Gore and Kerry. And you have to be genuinely willing to follow through on that pledge. If the Democrats run another Kerry or Gore in 2008 (in the form of Hillary Clinton, say, or Dick Gephardt), you have to be willing to withhold your vote, even if it may mean a Republican victory. If you don't think you could handle that outcome, consider that if you had withheld your vote this time--as you should have done unless you truly believed in the bulk of Kerry's positions--the Democrats would have lost more decisively and would have been that much more open to reform. But since progressives threw in their lot with Democrats and made it a relatively narrow margin, the Democrats may continue in their denial and refuse to learn the right lesson this time around. By giving them your support for free, you only delayed the inevitable.
It may take more than one election to set this right, or it may never happen at all, but it comes down to this: the Democrats' "incremental co-optation" approach to victory is doomed, and accomodation to it will only prolong its demise. As progressives, we have the power to make sure that that option is foreclosed to them sooner rather than later. This is the best opportunity we've had in years to force the Democrats to start acting like an opposition party again, and we may not get another before it's too late. Please don't squander it.
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