seawasp | Inescapable imperfection, or You Use What You Have, Not What You Dream

Rant behind a cut for space...

I am 63 years old, going on 64. Statistically, I have about 15 years to live, something which would have seemed a very long time to me when I was a teenager, but which now seems vanishingly short.

I don't want those last years to be spent watching the world I grew up in sliding into a Mad Maxian or cyberpunk hellscape.

That means stopping the Trump-MAGA-Heritage Foundation lunatics from finishing the job they've started.

I can't wait for Captain America to show up and fix it all. And neither can you.

It is possible that Trump didn't actually win the last election; there's enough indicators of possible malfeasance in the vote in various areas that, in my youth, there would have been an investigation.

But even if that were true, he couldn't have won at all if NOBODY had voted for him. He couldn't have won in 2016 if everyone who realized he was a terrible person for President had voted against him.

But an awful lot of people did either vote for him, or chose not to vote -- and in our system, "third party" is effectively not voting. That sucks, and we should change it, but unless and until we HAVE changed it, we have to accept that we're given TWO, and ONLY TWO, choices in most of our political races, and we are obligated to choose the LEAST DESTRUCTIVE option if neither of them is actually appealing.

"The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good" is one expression that encapsulates the problem. When our opposition is united -- willing to overlook pretty much ANY flaws if the candidate says the right things or follows the leader -- we cannot afford much division, even if we outnumber them.

(we also can't afford apathy, either, but if people aren't energized enough to vote NOW, they never will be).

But we DO divide ourselves -- or, to be honest, to a great extent in the current era we allow our adversaries to divide us by listening to them like the devil whispering on our shoulders. "He says he's on your side, but he's rich! Are you a hypocrite?" "She lied about this, obviously you can't trust her about anything!"

Things are terrible and getting worse, and it's a natural reaction to WANT Captain America -- to want Superman or Wonder Woman or the Legendary Ideal Version of Abe Lincoln -- to counteract the unbelievably vile, cartoonish villainy of Trump and his gang. It would make SENSE of the world, in a way, to have someone as utterly Good as they are Bad show up and break their rule of lies, grifting, self-centered posturing, and deliberate destruction.

But unfortunately, while the bad guys here REALLY ARE THAT CARTOONISH -- I mean, I literally could not have WRITTEN a story featuring the Trump Presidency in 1990 because no one would have believed it -- the WORLD is still founded in reality.

And that means I can't get Steve Rogers -- or even, alas, Fred Rogers -- on the ballot to allow me to vote with an absolutely 100% clear conscience. And even if I could, he'd only be able to fill ONE position. Asking for an entire CONGRESS of Mr. Rogerses is demanding far too much even of a fantasy universe.

Instead, for President I'll likely have Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, JB Pritzger, or with less likelihood AOC, good old Bernie, or a couple other possibilities as the actual candidate.

Not ONE of these is a perfect candidate. I'm particularly cynical about Newsom, who seems to me much more a standard politician than an actual Democrat, let alone a real liberal champion, but there's not a ONE of them that doesn't have at least a couple of areas where I'd be giving them the side-eye. All the way down the ticket to the local level, the story's the same; unless you yourself ARE the candidate, the candidates you get will ALWAYS differ with you on something.

But the question is: are ANY OF THEM as bad as Trump, as JD Vance, as Stephen Miller, as Pete Hegseth, as Ted Cruz?

If the answer to that is "no", then YOU VOTE FOR THEM. Because ANYONE WHO IS STILL RUNNING AS A REPUBLICAN IS ACCEPTING THE CURRENT REGIME. Even if they're acting "moderate", even if they're arguing with Trump's toadies (and sorry for all the actual toads out there), they're still maintaining the IDENTITY of the party -- and accepting that they're still playing the same game as ever.

THE GAME HAS CHANGED. It wasn't an accident -- the Heritage Foundation has spent more than 40 years to get us to this point, and I actually must congratulate them on their brilliant and dedicated work to get them to the point that they could PUBLISH their blueprint for turning the USA into a "Christian" Evangelical fascist state and STILL get it to work exactly as planned -- but even if it HAD been just an accident, a freak of voting nature, Trump's first year of his second term has destroyed any possible chance of the Republican Party ever being anything but a synonym for fascism in the future.

Argue and champion your chosen candidate as much as you want IN THE PRIMARIES; obviously we'd like the best candidate overall. BUT ONCE THE NOMINEE IS CHOSEN, stop the argument and push them as far as you can.

This is also true about looking for allies. There ARE, absolutely, dealbreakers -- things that one simply can't countenance in someone you're going to associate with. But when you're dealing with situations of SURVIVAL -- which we are -- it's important to realize that NO ONE will pass a real purity test.

And that people CANNOT fight the system WITHOUT also being a part of the system. If you're reading this, you are by that very fact supporting a number of multibillionaires and the powerful oppressive systems they have put in place, because you can't go online and read stuff on the Internet without a computer or a phone or other gadget that was made by, or with the help of, one of those giant organizations.

(of course, the Internet also wouldn't exist if the government hadn't put it together in the first place... but that leads to a different discussion)

More importantly, barring being one of the few people lucky enough to just "go viral" without any visible assistance, ANYONE who wants to be a major player against the system ... still has to USE the system. If you're a rich person who sees the depredations of the billionaire class and wants to fight it, yeah, you COULD dump all your money in protest, but then you have destroyed the power, the leverage you could have used in the fight against it. If you're not famous, your voice is much less likely to be heard. But if you ARE famous, you are almost certainly in a position of comfort and privilege and the opposition will happily point out your "hypocrisy" for championing the oppressed while being, in one way or another, part of the oppressive system.

Accepting that level of polarization -- that requirement of purity in heart, deed, word, and life -- is FATAL.

On the Trump side, we have a group of people who ignore the fact that a large number of their members, including the current President, aided, abetted, and participated in activities of the largest human trafficking operation I've ever heard of in my life. They accept sexual assault, even of children, as acceptable if it's from one of their number. They ignore the laws entirely and use positions of public power to make themselves wealthy, without even an attempt at hiding it. They PLAY AT WAR, posturing and using our military, our PEOPLE, as pieces in a giant, real-life version of Call of Duty or even Helldivers. They care nothing for anyone outside of their group, allowing a militarized group of half-trained bullies to harass, intimidate, assault, and even kill anyone that LOOKS different, or gets in their way. They are literally buying warehouses to convert into giant prison camps.

Is ANYONE in the list of Democratic candidates even in that CLASS of vile? No?

Then vote for WHOEVER is chosen to be the Democratic candidate, all the way up and down the ballot.

WE DO NOT HAVE A THIRD CHOICE. In an ideal world we would. Maybe, one day, we can make that possible.

But this is not "one day". This is NOW.