Seattle Times carries the item.
We are political hostages
One of our greatest errors as a country has been our nonstop campaign to convince generations of voters that elections are about freedom of choice.
This may be true if you are of a class not historically oppressed by the state. Many white people, particularly white men, fall into this category. They have the ability — the power — to be swing voters, knowing that their basic civil rights are not on the line. And many of them have invented new dangers — like threats to the Second Amendment — while pretending to defend their rights against those threats.
In November 2019, Nate Cohn in The New York Times analyzed a number of surveys of swing-state voters and looked specifically at the “persuadable pool,” the 15% of voters in the battleground states who were undecided and still thinking of voting for Donald Trump or a Democrat.
He found, “As a group they are 57% male and 72% white.”
For most other people, “freedom of choice” in elections is an illusion. We are captives of the two-party system. We are political hostages.
Voters subject to oppression have only two choices: the benevolent captors (Democrats) or the cruel captors (Republicans).
Democrats will work for your freedom, but not to the extent that it endangers their power. They have to work against Republicans, who, now more than at any other time in recent memory, seem hellbent on establishing a new age of severe restrictions under the banner of states’ rights.
The choice between the two is not a choice at all. Voting for Democrats is the only option, not because they have been fully responsive to your pleading, but because they are the only bulwark against disaster.
This is not a lesser-of-two-evils view but a light-switch view: the choice is light — no matter how dim — or darkness.
An exceptionally good metaphor deserves special praise. More -
There are periods on the electoral calendar in which Democratic voters can more forcefully challenge Democratic politicians to stay true to their ideals while doing the least amount of damage to their electoral chances: the primary season when Democrats are choosing among possible Democratic candidates and in the early days of a presidential term.
But once those windows close, the time for complaining ends. One must enter the defense phase.
This is all incredibly unsatisfying, and yet it is the reality that voters must accept. We have to dispense with the mythology of elections and come around to the reality of them.
[...]
This is as good an explanation of why primary voting matters as much, perhaps in some cases more than general "light-switch" elections.
And it is in primary elections that Dem establishment and AIPAC and DMFI have so far spent incredible millions to torpedo progressive candidates. Earlier Crabgrass quoted downwithtyranny.com
It should come as no surprise that Hakeem Jeffries' anti-progressive hit-squad has chosen Newman and Levin-- along with Rashida Tlaib-- as his first incumbent targets for elimination. He is the truest political descendent of Rahm Emanuel in over a decade. He has AIPAC's sleazy, Republican-funded SuperPAC, United Democracy Project, and Mark Mellman's even sleazier Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) putting hundreds of thousand of dollars into deceitful media smears against the 3 candidates. Congressional observers expect that to grow into millions of dollars in the next couple of weeks.
Agree with the characterizations or not, the fact is clear that millions of lobby dollars have been invested against progress - in favor of a greater perceived pro-establishment docility and manageability of other primary contestants facing off against targeted progressives.
The saying, "All is fair in love and war" fits; this being on the "war" end of that dichotomy. And when the progressives survive to the general election they are fiscally weakened, while establishment primary success in scuttling progress will mean another cash infusion from the deep pockets, to take their investments to Congress, for return on investment.
That is fleshing out the last op-ed paragraph quoted above:
This is all incredibly unsatisfying, and yet it is the reality that voters must accept. We have to dispense with the mythology of elections and come around to the reality of them.
That op-ed suggests a new general election slogan for the Dem establishment:
VOTERS - "Light-switch for Dems - else darkness."
It is what they give you, so why not call it what it is?
BOTTOM LINE: Minnesota's primary election is Aug. 9, and early voting already has begun. VOTE. Even with some precincts not having much Dem side choice, just get into making voting in primary elections a habit. It is best for our world and nation.
__________UPDATE_________
Washington State has its primary tomorrow. From Seattle Times:
This election, like every election, will come down to turnout.
Statewide, turnout was slightly down through the end of the week, compared with the same time in 2018, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
In raw numbers, more [early] ballots have actually been returned than in 2018, but as a percentage of population, ballot returns were lagging about 1 percentage point behind the 2018 midterms.
“The 2018 midterms had a massive turnout,” said Charlie Boisner, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office. “So the fact that we’re kind of pacing with what we experienced in 2018 is showing increased participation, at least at this stage in the voting period.”
[italics added]