General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Yes, Nader cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000. [View all]TheKentuckian
(25,038 posts)Guess what folks when the party is dead set on "meeting in the middle" on some key differences and trying to muddle the lines on many other in a willful marketing ploy you are putting your chin out there and you are going to get tagged on the old button sometimes because of it.
Why was "not a dimes worth a difference" able to take any root? Because it only reinforced the party's own message and many policies some still biting us in the ass today with no end in sight and others we have to burn energy rectifying instead of actually moving forward.
The dawn the torpedoes, full speed ahead weirdo ideological determination to ever seek some phantom "middle" that leaderships seems believe to consist of Republicans that aren't bigots.
You add a steady refusal to both call out (other than campaigns) or ever hold them accountable and you find yourself putting out a pretty weird case all on your own. Who knows how many voted for Bush that would vote Democratic because it wasn't that much difference and they liked Bush more for whatever stupid reason.
All of that said, it doesn't much matter because Gore didn't get those votes and was not entitled to them. Who was stealing votes literally and "losing them" by the pound was Harris and her thug network.
If we wanted those votes then we should have contested for them instead of willfully alienating them and I think I probably went the wrong way in hindsight because instead of getting it and have some reconciliation and change but instead we get double down and digging in. Maybe mockery, perhaps a tut...tut...is a Republican going to do better but no movement or solidarity just "what you gonna do, suckers?" that sometimes goes all the way to fuck you we don't need you, we can move right to pick up more voters. (Never saying what they are willing to move right on to grab these voters or who they actually are while saying the critical are correct, you are trying to move right because you want to.
It is the last attitude to that makes this loyal (despite substantial misgivings) voter wonder if I have been wrong about what has been my party my whole life. That perhaps the real problem with 2000 is that the wound wasn't massive enough for some dumb motherfuckers to see clearly that you can only bend your voters so far before you don't represent them and their votes are nothing but fuel for an out of control car driven by kidnappers taking us where we cannot go.
What I see is no real values, no principles, no honor, no trustworthiness, lack of honesty for whom governing and working for the needs of our people and nation is not the goal but rather simply winning the next election. Winning elections is a necessary means but far from any real end.
Too many of us have lost our way and perhaps the only way to restore clarity is to learn the lesson that the right end of the party loves to flex, that the ultimate power over a thing is the ability leveraged by the will to destroy it.