Ten Reasons to Vote Democratic in 2010

This post has two predecessors, published respectively before the midterm election of 2006 and the presidential election of 2008. Many of the reasons for voting Democratic in those elections still apply.

But in this midterm election, American democracy itself may be at stake. The question is whether a massive, concerted program of lies and propaganda, over television and the Internet, can get common people to vote against their own economic interests. If it can, American democracy has little long-term chance of success, especially bogged down (as it is) with the filibuster and the Great Compromise, which allow the few to rule the many.

Here are ten reasons to vote Democratic in November:

1. To avoid even more gridlock in Congress as an emboldened Party of No plays “chicken” with the presidential veto, just to score political points, without the faintest hope of actually accomplishing anything.

2. To postpone an immediate start to the 2012 presidential campaign, which will likely involve the most outrageous lies and negative campaigning in our history.

3. To elect legislators who believe in government and want it to work, not to “drown it in a bathtub.”

4. To increase the number of legislators who respect facts and evidence more than ideology, political posturing, and party discipline.

5. To give our new government a little more than twenty-four months to correct the mistakes of three decades of misguided policy.

6. To reduce government’s financial rewards to the folks (especially on Wall Street) who crashed our economy for personal gain.

7. To let census-based redistricting correct the gerrymandering that has disenfranchised many minority voters and given the weaker party power grossly disproportionate to its real popular support.

8. To reduce the risk of the Tea Mob entering the hallowed halls of Congress.

9. To avoid rewarding out-of-control commercial media for trying to seize the reins of government by brainwashing uneducated and ill-informed voters.

10. To put a political price on a consistent pattern of lies, corruption and obstructionism, on the part of many members of Congress, for no other purpose than to maintain their personal political power at the nation’s expense.

permalink