Reply #7: Fear

[Michael Costello]

I am always suspicious of people who appeal to my fears to try to get me to do something. You could almost say it would be how I sense the difference between people who are on my side, and people who are not. Bush's campaign will certainly be based on people's fears (is it an accident that the convention will be on 9/11 in New York City, the first time the Republicans have ever had a convention in New York?) One half of the US eligible population will not vote, and about one quarter will vote for Bush, so I really wonder how scary it will be if that thought is even entertained by one quarter of the population.

I just look at what the Democrats did in San Francisco - a Green looks like he's going to beat the Democrat (a millionaire who ran on a campaign to throw the homeless out of downtown). In fact, the majority of registered Republicans voted for the Democrat there, and the majority of registered Democrats voted for the Green. And what happens? Gore flies in, Bill Clinton flies in to beat off this insurgency from the left, the camapign is outspent 10-to-1. I wish the Democrats would fight this hard when they are in contests against the right. They may have won the San Francisco mayor's race (in fact, in an attempt to appeal to the left he OK'd gay marriages which might help bring down the national party in this election), but they sure soured me on voting Democrat this election.

If you look at where Nader draws his votes from, <1% of them in 2000 were from people who would have voted Democratic. Why are the Democrats, who are ever becoming more undemocratic, dominated by big business, and moving to the right, so concerned with killing off this left wing movement that will pull less than 1% of voters from them, instead of appealing to the 49% of eligible voters who do not vote, who are, as a group, poorer than the 51% of voters who do vote? I have never gotten a satisfactory answer for any of this. I am not as committed to the two-party system as some Democrats apparently are, I prefer a European model with many parties.