This is a response to Rob Kall's article, "What Do We Do Now That the DNC Rigged & Stole the Primary?" It takes far more than a comment for me to properly explain myself, and I do so here.
While I hate to reward Hillary Clinton's cheating, to allow
Donald Trump to gain the White House has only one use for progressives, and
that is that the Donald will tear it all down, saving revolutionaries the
trouble. What we may fail to realize is that Trump is a revolutionary, but a
fascist revolutionary, so we allow him to revolutionize at our peril. An
unfortunate side effect of his access to executive power would be a Supreme
Court that would busy itself with reversing and stamping out progressivism for
the next generation.
From my point of view, anyone willing to allow Donald Trump access to the White
House (other than his mentally defective supporters) is necessarily willing to
entertain the notion of armed revolution as well, because that is where such a
catastrophe will eventually lead, with a high order of probability. The
alternative would be to concede the loss of the republic, and get the f*ck out
of Dodge, posthaste.
With that in mind, I see myself clipping a heavy-duty clothespin on my nose,
supplying myself with a post-election emetic, and choosing the somewhat less
committed criminal, Hillary Clinton. I guess it ain't bean bag.
That means organizing the grass roots. Even starting with Bernie Sanders' fourteen million committed supporters, they will not have the horsepower to govern in an electorate of one hundred million voters. And that is the electorate that shows up in the quadrennial Presidential elections and fails to turn out at above 60%. More turn out, which of course, is desirable, would further dilute their impact.
The Greens need to double that strength just to have barely enough people knocking on doors. Having just looked at the precinct committee person list on my county clerk's website, I find that there is not a single precinct committee person without an R or a D before their name in this entire county, and this is in the six county, metropolitan Chicago area. We may safely conclude that a G showing up in that context would stand for "ghost".
For the Greens to be worthy of my vote, and, of course, I would add in my effort, at organizing, canvassing and contributing to Green candidates, I would have to see a level of ambition on their part that goes beyond watching me cover a whole county by myself. That takes recruitment, and that takes organization, and both of those require resources that are not wasted on futilely wishing for control of the White House, as if that office conferred the power of an emperor upon their candidate. It would require such power for their accidentally elected President to be effective, but it would be a very bad precedent. Their efforts need to aim at preventing the coronation of an emperor.
We are looking at years, if not decades for the Greens to gain viable electoral strength. One additional thought is, that they might exercise the option to change their name. In the United States, the name of the Green Party has become synonymous with political negligibility. Perhaps their change to a resurrected Progressive Party would be in order, with its previous incarnations having been led by such progressive stalwarts as Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette and Henry Wallace
In any event, with my having preached against non-participation and third party votes as a waste, in other, earlier elections, I cannot counsel anyone against following their conscience this time around. I have seen the corruption of the current system very clearly, with the candidates and both major parties involved, contemptuously plying their lying and cheating, out in the open with no concern for FEC enforcement, exposure by the media, or the sanction of the electorate. And it seems that they guessed right since the vilely corrupt process elevated the two most disapproved of candidates to be the standard bearers of their respective parties. What do you prefer? sh*t or shinola, or this stuff here, whatever it is? They are all hoping that you don't know the difference.
No, I can't ask others to do as I do, and I cannot criticize whatever course they choose to follow themselves. I am simply telling what I will do and my reasons for doing so.