The left-leaning people who don't vote have to start.

[Waiting For Everyman]

That is, if anything is going to get any better. (Especially needs to change in mid-terms, as we know.)

That means registered Dems (I saw a stat that only 52% voted), and those who are unaffiliated. The latter are the most in need of education. They think calling themselves an Independent means that they have that characteristic. No, it only means that they don't get to have a say in choosing the candidates who will run, because in most states they don't participate in the parties' primary elections.

People have to realize that they have to vote. We have to pressure them to do so. That is simple but hard (to accomplish in sufficient numbers). Every time someone tells us they didn't vote, we have to tell them that THEY are the problem.

It is not acceptable to fail to vote. We have to make it socially unacceptable. (Left-thinkers who tell me they don't vote get told exactly what I think of that! And yes, some of them do then vote -- it's a numbers game, and a matter of repetition.)

And while we're at it... Election Day needs to be a public holiday, after all it is in the public's interest.

When people who think as we do get to the polls, we will win elections. That is the issue, right there. I have seen lots of people finding lots of reasons for losing so many elections yesterday; for me, it all comes down to this one reason.

The other side has the money but we have the numbers, and we have to get those numbers to show up or we will lose. Which is going to prevail -- money, or people? That question is what our elections now, and for the foreseeable future, are all about. It can go either way.

But if we are to turn this around by 2016, we have to begin on starting a groundswell of social pressure, right now. Whenever someone complains to us from now on, we need to say "did you vote?". And if they didn't, they need to be told that they have no right to complain, that they are the problem for the rest of us who are carrying the burden of their FAILURE to get off their ass and exercise the rights which they have proven they in no way deserve.

We spend so much time, and focus so much attention on finding ways to persuade red-thinking perople to think blue. I think that FIRST, before any of that, we should focus on pressuring blue-thinking people to VOTE. That is where we are losing elections. It must stop. We no longer have the leeway to be understanding of people who don't want to vote -- they are threatening our survival and our wellbeing. That is way too much understanding for them to expect or for us to give.

Our people failing to vote should be treated the same as if someone said, "I'm a flagrant lying cheater." Or heroin dealer. Or pedophile. They should know that there will be social blowback for such a thing, that it will be unexcused, that there will be a social price to pay. In my little sphere, I will be shooting for getting that idea to catch on, and spread. Peer pressure can do a lot. But we, not the media, not the PTB, have to decide what it will be directed toward.

[safeinOhio]

1. Sorry to say this, but

we could win every election if we made it so young folks could vote via social network sites.

[L0oniX]

13. Vote by cell phone ...they'd love that.

[Historic NY]

16. I got hammered for that...

Voter App. but its true. I have several that can't put them down. I've built a couple web sites and one asked me how I did it. People give them too much credit for being tech savvy, but its more social media group think.

[upaloopa]

2. All their money is spent on ads. I don't think

a right wing ad is going to change the mind of a left leaning person. If so the ads are meant to boost right wing turn out. So if left leaning people got it in their heads that they can counter the ads and the money by voting maybe we would get a better turn out.
We have to see voting against the money as a motivation to vote.

[SheilaT]

3. I know a pair of lefties who don't even register to vote

Last edited Thu Nov 6, 2014, 12:31 PM - Edit history (1)

because God forbid they get called for jury duty.

[LondonReign2]

4. Give them a good reason

Voting surged in 2008 because Obama said a lot of things they wanted to hear. Give them a reason again, and this time don't backtrack.

[whatchamacallit]

5. Wow, I didn't know 48% of democrats were on the far left...

Jeez, give it a rest.

[L0oniX]

14. People who like to attack the left should join DI.

[woo me with science]

6. Need something to vote for.

People have learned that Red versus Blue is a con game. The relevant issue isn't Red versus Blue or lazy citizens. The relevant issue is predatory corporate policies. It's a cynical corporate con game to blame citizens for not wanting to line up to drink poison.

No matter which party is elected, we keep getting the same overall direction of austerity, TPP, TISA, mass surveillance, "Kill Lists," indefinite detention, secret laws, secret courts, corporate education, drilling, fracking, new wars in Syria and Iraq, a TRILLION dollar ramping up of nuclear weapons when our president is signing ANOTHER round of food stamp cuts and a farm bill based on "pension smoothing." Not a single major banker in the mortgage collapse/theft held accountable, journalists and whistleblowers under assault, mass propaganda machines...It goes on and on and on.

People don't want to go in this direction. Seventy-six percent of them say we are going in the wrong direction. So they keep trying to switch parties, or trash it all and start over, but they keep getting the same direction anyway.

When people have two terrible options, they tend to lurch back and forth between them in protest. Or give up.

Time to stop pretending that the problem is insufficient bullying of people to vote for pols who don't represent them. We have to fix a corrupt system so that they actually have something to vote for.

[L0oniX]

15. ^^^this^^^ ...as usual.

[deutsey]

17. Agreed

It's interesting how progressive issues won on Tuesday while many Democratic candidates didn't.

I'm not saying that we should break from the Democratic Party, but I think we need to build progressive movements outside the Party structure in the vein of the old Wobblies or the early labor and civil rights movements. We need to develop a coherent, inclusive progressive narrative the lays out our values and our interests in a way that appeals to working people and develop creative ways to fight for them.

[wavesofeuphoria]

19. yep!!! +1

[belzabubba333]

7. well remember this well so that later when people say we lost cause we didnt vote

no one here will refute that claim like they do re: 2010 like this

But your attribution of of the non-voting to liberals is false.

Obama in 2008 was a charismatic candidate who was able to bring lots of people who normally wouldn't vote (i.e. not the liberals you blame) to the polls.

In 2010 there was little effort to get out the vote and a lot of people who usually didn't vote (once again, not the liberals you blame) went back to not voting. Meanwhile the Republican base was fired up and pissed off, so they had great turnout.

by mid 2016 will we be hearing the same thing

[woo me with science]

8. Bullying corporate propaganda thread. Trashing thread.

[jillan]

9. To get people to vote you have to give them a reason to vote, esp now with big $ buying votes.

That is why Dems do so much better in Presidential elections. People are on our side on social issues and we are out on the campaign trail, the airwaves promoting those issues.

Then in the midterms - nothing.

If you want people to come out and vote you have to give them a reason to think - wow - I NEED to vote!

imho.

[Capt. Obvious]

10. It's never too early to blame the left for mid-term losses

The 2010 meme lasted 4 years despite its lack of truthiness.

[GeorgeGist]

11. Vote for What?

Sometimes people don't buy the crap that's being sold.

[L0oniX]

12. Message: Blame the left. YAwn ...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Vattel]

18. Can we pay people to vote?