Are You In The Game? Or Under It?

There’s a lot of disgust out there with our political parties. Both sides feel angry and betrayed. Eight years ago (and even not so long ago as that) conservatives and libertarians decried “compassionate conservatism” as a betrayal. Today, liberals are saying the same thing about the Democrats and their policies. And the mantra for both is that they will abandon the party; they won’t donate money or time, they won’t support their candidates, and they won’t vote.

Which, quite frankly, is stupid.

In our two-party system you do have choices. One choice is to support the other party. “But I can’t do that,” you cry. “The other side is EEEEEEEVIL!!1!!eleven!!!”

No, they’re not. They’re your colleagues, your neighbors, and often your relatives. If they are, in fact, evil, then you need to move to a part of the world that is less evil than here. Good luck, and don’t let the door whack your bottom on the way out.

Your other choice is to stick with your party. Because a political party is like a car. It’s not so much an end in itself as a tool to perform certain tasks. When your car breaks down, do you just throw up your hands, abandon it, and not go to work anymore? Of course not. That’s stupid. You get it fixed.

If your party is broken, do you throw up your hands, abandon it, and let the country slide into disaster?

“But they don’t have any candidates I can support,” you cry. “They’re all a bunch of weasels.”

Then get new candidates. Where do you think candidates come from? There are these things called primaries, where a bunch of people toss their hat in the ring and vie for your party’s endorsement. They each have a different vision of what you party should be doing. If you don’t like these candidates, you need to find one you do like, or run yourself.

Waiting until the primaries are over and then complaining that you don’t like the final candidate is exactly like waiting until everyone else gets on the bus and then bitching that you can’t find a window seat.

Sometimes (perhaps even frequently) your candidate in the primaries will lose. Then you’ve got to figure out why and fix the problems. Maybe you need a new candidate. Maybe you need to spend more time explaining why your candidate’s ideas were better. Maybe you needed to raise more money. Learn, retool, and do better next time.

In the meantime, is the candidate your party chose better than the opposition? Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We’re all human and nobody is going to be perfect. Do the best with what you have.

And if your candidate is so odious that you can’t bear to vote for them, then perhaps you’re using the wrong party. Seriously.

Getting tied down to one party is often a mistake for any group. If they feel they can take you for granted, they will. There are only two cures for this. The first is to jump ship and vote for the other side. The second is to fix your party so it doesn’t take you for granted anymore.

In America, folks, politics ain’t a spectator sport. You’re either in the game or your getting trampled by it.