About the Voters

It occurs to me that this election is about the voters, more than the candidates. The Republicans are now the party of conservative rich old white guys. The Democrats are the party of everyone else. If the party of the conservative rich old white guys wins, everyone else will be shut out, possibly even denied the vote. Seen that way, there's a clear and simple choice. We are fighting over the basic rights of citizens of a democracy, and while the major parties have moved closer together, their voters have not. In the voters, I think, the hope lies; not in the party leaders.

Croak!

Lesser Evil

"Of course you can vote for the lesser of two evils. You get less evil."--Chomsky, 2008

It seems to me that on the left we need to work for three things:

1. Time. Time and demographics are on our side.  This is why you vote for the lesser evil.  If the centrists will bring us to the hard right by 2025, that is 13 years for us to change the direction of the country and, with a majority the younger popular and more and more women on our side, we might pull it off.
2. Unity. It is often forgotten by well-off white men that this is an election about whether anyone counts politically other than old wealthy white guys but women, blacks, and gays can hardly forget.
3. Electoral reform. We need to make as much space as possible for a new party to the left of the conservative party the Democrats have become.

And this against the backdrop of the biggest threat to the social safety net in 50 years. Thanks, conservatives!

We're For It Now!

What Digby Said.

The President has promised a "grand bargain" on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid after the election—he said so in the debate. Pete Peterson and the billionaires for austerity are putting on a full-court press press (sic.)

What do these people think they are doing? If this goes through it's going to fail, it's going to fail in the same way it is failing in Europe, and it's going to leave no country except possibly China standing. This is insane, even for the very wealthy.

With luck, it will all come apart. This is electoral poison, even for the absurdly entitled Senate. My guess is that Social Security will stand, Medicare will get some cuts, and Medicaid is going to get very badly hurt.

Food!

[edited a few days after posting.]