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NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Saturday 27 October 2012
Obama betrayed many of his campaign promises, not merely by turning over his economic policymaking to corporate-connected insiders, but, as the Washington Post this week documents, by additionally championing more-extreme versions of the Bush-era civil liberties and national security policies that he once criticized from his platform as a venerated “constitutional lawyer.”
In Defense of the Undecided Voter
A confession: I recently received my Colorado ballot but, even though my state will play a key role in the presidential election, I still haven't voted. Yes, I'm one of the oft-ridiculed undecideds, and here's why:
I am a left-leaner who previously voted for Barack Obama with clear eyes. Having looked at his record, I knew he was no progressive, much less a Marxist, as his conservative detractors claim. He has always been a thumb-to-the-wind politician who shrouds corporate-backed policies in the veneer of altruistic liberalism. But I voted for him because in 2008 he presented the best opportunity for change.
Sadly, that opportunity was missed. Obama betrayed many of his campaign promises, not merely by turning over his economic policymaking to corporate-connected insiders, but, as the Washington Post this week documents, by additionally championing more-extreme versions of the Bush-era civil liberties and national security policies that he once criticized from his platform as a venerated "constitutional lawyer."
Now, four years later, Obama and Democratic Party-affiliated media outlets are demanding that voters ignore this record, or at least believe that a President Mitt Romney will automatically make things worse.
For liberals, that belief certainly has some merit. On economics, Romney proposes punitive trickle-down policies to reward the wealthy "makers" with new tax cuts and punish impoverished "takers" with cuts to public services. Likewise on social issues, he stands against same-sex marriage and a woman's right to choose an abortion.
That said, there are far more similarities between the candidates than differences. They both support entitlement cuts, corporate tax cuts, the Drug War, expanded fossil fuel drilling, privatizing education, warrantless surveillance, extra-judicial assassinations, drone warfare, increased military spending and continued foreign interventions. Hence, my undecided status, and my perseveration on a prospective question: Does America need an opposition or not?
Based on the last four years, we know that when pushing his Romney-like priorities, President Obama in his second term would face almost no serious opposition from Democratic-aligned organizations, media outlets, politicians and activists.
Those forces have repeatedly proven they put party over principle. Indeed, just like first-term Obama passed extreme civil liberties policies and a national version of Romney's insurance-industry-coddling health care bill without much liberal pushback, second-term Obama would be able to freely legislate those priorities upon which he and Republicans agree. Worse, fellow Democratic politicians would see Obama's electoral success as further proof that they, too, can support those conservative initiatives without fear of losing liberal voters' support in the future.
By contrast, we know from George W. Bush's second term that a President Romney will likely face a massive organized opposition. Why? Because the same Democratic apparatus that gives Obama a pass will suddenly see a partisan self-interest in frustrating the Republican president.
This, of course, is not to encourage liberal votes for Romney. After all, I'm floating just one possible — though likely — scenario. Additionally, the reason I still lean toward Obama (or a third-party candidate) is because, as mentioned above, Romney is decidedly worse than the current president on a few critical issues.
However, the overriding point is that for left-leaning voters, this election choice should not be seen as easy. It should be viewed as a complex decision about policy outcomes within the context of opposition politics. And here's the inconvenient truth: with such similar presidential candidates, a lack of liberal opposition to a reelected Obama is arguably as frightening a prospect as a Romney presidency.
Sure, like the pundits, you can smugly ridicule us undecided voters as stupid - but with the stakes so high, the rubes are those who make such an impossible choice out to be so simple.
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ABOUT David Sirota
David Sirota is a best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado.
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By Kiley Kroh
30 comments on "In Defense of the Undecided Voter"
October 31, 2012 10:11pm
So thoughtfully wrong! Let's focus on what can be accomplished, not progressive fantasies. The majority of people of this country, and that includes most of the public servants of elected government, have no interest in progressive causes - in fact many are virulently opposed to them.
If you think that someone else, facing the challenges that President Obama had and the level of reaction and obstruction he had to deal with could have done better, fine. But do not contribute to a Romney win or we will all really suffer by magnitudes beyond Obama.
October 28, 2012 4:46am
If it came to pass that Romney is elected and there is aground swell of protest that would stop the radical agenda of the Republican Party then so be it. I know that scenario and it is attractive.
But lefties, lets not kid ourselves. The United States population is one of the most conservative in the world. When Wisconsin and Walker and the Republican Agenda was renewed in their special election, after all I heard from those about the workers are going to rise up etc....Well they didn't. They couldn't even vote him out. Who do I blaim? Lieing Politicians? No a public who believe in a 19th century economic ideology that has been proven wrong so many times and yet still seems to get their support and vote, against their own interests.
I guess some of you folks are still spouting the same delusions about what will happen with Romney in there. All the left is going to rise up and save the nation etc...The same etc.....as Wisconsin.
Give me a break all you purist. Lets have a reality check. If you want to play with fire, have another Bush in there and the American public will give him two terms.
Ultimately it is this public that is responsible for accepting the lies of garbage like Romney, not Romeny himself. What he spouts is what many believe.
What you may eventually have is a Civil War with this country breaking up, because so many of us will follow the radical right, to the end of the line. If that happens well then you deal with it! Trying to force it! Hah, don't make me laugh!
SO stay undecided and play a game that has failed and probably will fail again?
Put someone in power who will probably ten times worse than Bush every could hope to be.....
AJ
October 31, 2012 2:49pm
"When Wisconsin and Walker and the Republican Agenda was renewed in their special election, after all I heard from those about the workers are going to rise up etc....Well they didn't. They couldn't even vote him out. Who do I blaim? "
AJ, who has been living on Planet X? The Koch brothers flooded that recall election with money and outspent those pesky 19th Century idealogues by 10 to 1.
October 27, 2012 8:52pm
Sirota speaks for me.
We're in trouble when the 'major' alternatives are both well to the right of Nixon. Heads we lose, tails we lose. It's sort-of 1860 all over again - but without any Lincoln. It's Douglas vs Breckenridge: the former, an Illinois Senator, urges a suitable compromise which uses 'all the above' sources of energy and labor, free and serf; the other urges no federal restriction on obviously productive and job-creating serfdom-based enterprise.
Actually, I have partially decided. I have decided that neither Obama nor Romney merit my vote, for reasons well articulated by Sirota plus others: Obama's indifference to Syrian and other genocides abroad, his readiness to join the wars on wolves and other wildlife at home, an ag sec who believes in GMO poisoning of my food, etc. (note Ms Murphy's comments); and on the other hand (among much else) Romney's rejection of the basic ethical standard set by his own father - release of the last dozen years of tax returns.
Sirota has also noted an important reason why a squeak-in Romney presidency could be far less catastrophic than a renewed Obama endorsement from sycophantic or know-nothing Dems. (Apparently some commenters here haven't even noticed that you don't have to have a Dem pres in order to have a Dem Congress.)
I have voted in every pres election since 1960 - for independents in 1968 and 1980 and otherwise for Democrats. This year, for the first time since 1980 I will not vote for the Democratic (or Republican) candidate for president, even though I am heartily donating various small amounts to Democrats - and only to Democrats - for House and Senate.
Back in 1980 I had no problem voting for a reasoned alternative: John Anderson. However in 2012 my real dilemma is what, along with voting for our local Dem for Congress, to do on the pres. vote.
I could abstain or vote for Jill Stein (Green) or vote for Gary Johnson (Libertarian). Both Stein and Johnson are on the ballot in all states, so a vote for either will at least send a message. Vote Stein for real action on climate change, Johnson for real action against the drug war. But both are running on inadequate party platforms which overly fixate on certain particulars (Green) or on smug and unfounded grand assumptions (Lib).
October 27, 2012 5:49pm
Until the third party supporters can organize a viable operation and elect a state wide canadate in at lest 10 states, I will continue to vote for the lesser of the two evils. Fighting a rear guard action is better then a suicide charge into the rear of your left wing.
October 27, 2012 4:46pm
Many of us want a resistance movement to corporate and military America. But lf non-voting is the only form resistance can take, then you have answered your own question: "Is resistance possible in America?" and your answer is a resounding NO.
Not voting against Romney and the Republicans is no tactic at all. It is just criminal stupidity. It is not smug to say this, it is just common sense and moral decency. The reason you describe it as 'smug' is that whenever A is behaving like an idiot and B points this out to A, then B always looks smug to A, because B is so obviously correct -- even A can see it. But smugness requires complacency, and when we say you are just criminally stupid to advocate non-voting in this election, we are too scared to be smug about anything.
October 27, 2012 12:47pm
David, thanks (again!) for a great column on a difficult issue. For a swing state, it's difficult, but nobody should shirk hard decisions, and everybody should vote.
For a non-swing state (like California), is this ever a no-brainer.
I think i can fairly say that any third party candidate, including even very conservative ones, is much better than the President or Romney simply because they all agree that it's nuts for us to spend so much on the military and be involved in so many wars (all undeclared) and have so many foreign bases.
Coloradans: please think hard and deep.
Californians: please think just a few seconds about how much worse off we're making our victims and ourselves, and send a message with your vote to the powers controlling the President and Romney.
October 27, 2012 2:46pm
I agree with both of you. What I am asking is that the day after the election, we start building a VIABLE 3rd party, one that is against U.S. wars that are the reason for our economic problems as well as our unpopularity in the world. I am suggesting a CONstructive, rather than a DEstructive army. I have written Barack about this , though I have no idea whether this message has gotten to him, nor do I know if he really cares about this issue.
I WILL vote for Obama in this election, BUT it will be with a heavy heart.
October 27, 2012 11:42am
If the unprecedented high voter turn-out of 2008 against Bush's policies happens again in 2012, Jill Stein will win by a landslide -EASY!!
How bitterly ironic that the only thing preventing us from defeating the 1% -for real this time!- are the Obama-apologists who insist that we can't.
In just three years Obama's environmental and human rights records are already worse than Bush Jr's, in his eight years. At this rate, give Obama another four years and he'll out-evil Romney beyond everyone's wildest dreams! (Obama is clearly nothing more than a show-off who cares more about impressing his 1% puppet-masters than anything else!)
p.s.
An open letter to the Obama-apologists,
With Obama's "indefinite detention" law (the NDAA) already in place, it takes a truly frightening case of cognitive dissonance not to recognize that there is NOTHING "worse" than the irretrievable loss of human rights/democracy/earth -which re-electing Obama will guarantee.
It simply cannot get any "worse," or more evil, than that! With an end result like that, the "differences" between Romney and Obama are meaningless drivel! So, your arguments about how "Republicans are much worse" are the sad logic of your slave-mentality trying to figure out which overseer will be less cruel.
As Americans, we are perfectly capable of electing someone who is not a corporate-puppet for the 1%. The fact that you won't even try to help is unforgivably cowardly! SHAME ON YOU!!
October 27, 2012 2:52pm
But, Kathleen, I have never EVEN heard of this "Jill Stein" that you are talking about! What are you doing to make sure the masses know who she is?! I am not happy about voting for BO, but we seem incapable of supporting a 3rd party candidate to the degree it will take to have their name known throughout the country.
It seems that only billionaires like Ross Perrot (sp?) can get their name out to the majority of voters.
Come on, before you shame us into hiding, give US a viable candidate!
Sherrie
P.S. I read almost every left leaning rag out there so how is it I never heard of your candidate before?
October 27, 2012 2:57pm
And, Kathleen, you didn't even bother to add a link here. How serious can you and Jill's other supporters be?!
October 27, 2012 3:01pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Stein
O.K., I found a link here, but I have to ask: What is her stance on Israel? We need to pull ALL U.S. military support out of Israel and force their hand in making peace with Palestine.
This is a very crucial issue for me!
October 27, 2012 11:22am
Call me dense but I fail to see why you are pondering your choices as a progressive. Do you think that a President Gore, beholden to the 'powers that be' as all our politicians are, would have been a worst choice than Bush? I don't know about you but I prefer health care which needs improvement to no health care at all. I prefer to be on the side that is writing the policies and is fighting to go further, than on the side that is fighting just to stop being steamrolled. Give me an Obama administration ten times before any period under the helm of the Tea Party!
October 27, 2012 2:53pm
Hear, hear!!
October 27, 2012 11:22am
Call me dense but I fail to see why you are pondering your choices as a progressive. Do you think that a President Gore, beholden to the 'powers that be' as all our politicians are, would have been a worst choice than Bush? I don't know about you but I prefer health care which needs improvement to no health care at all. I prefer to be on the side that is writing the policies and is fighting to go further, than on the side that is fighting just to stop being steamrolled. Give me an Obama administration ten times before any period under the helm of the Tea Party!
October 27, 2012 12:27pm
Anyone who cannot see the sleight-of-hand move pulled on us by the 1%, by having Obama expand ALL of Bush's ugliest policies... well "dense" is too kind of a word.
We are perfectly capable of doing better than someone who expands Bush's ugliest policies, like the current black Romney-clone we have now. There is another choice and she is on the ballot in 47 states (in 9 states, allowed as a write-in) -not bad for getting no support from "progressives."
October 28, 2012 1:16pm
I can hear the echoes of Trotsky... This notion that progress will come clean and marvelously pure from the hands of the true revolutionaries is as moving as it is adolescent. Real progress is an ugly movement where society takes two steps forward and one back. Whoever thinks otherwise will die waiting for change. If 500 of the purists that thought in 2000 in Florida (or NH) that the Democratic Party was the same as the Republican Party had a more realistic view we would not had been involved in an obscene war in Iraq nor in the passing of the Patriot Act. Of course, those enlightened souls will always have a clear conscience. Too bad the country is all the worse for their sanctimonious stance.
October 27, 2012 11:16am
Sorry, David, but I disagree with you. Of course, I'm a woman, so this vote is easy for me ~ and it should be easy for any man who cares about women. The Republican Party is hellbent on taking away women's rights, not just to abortion, but to equal pay, contraception, and a whole host of other basic rights. That party seems intent on recreating the 1950s, the return of the "little woman" at home, taking care of "her man". Makes me sick. I will never have an abortion, don't need contraception, but I will never vote for a man or a party that believes they have the right to legislate, or curtail, my right to sovereignty over my own body.
October 27, 2012 2:56pm
I so agree with you, Christine! We can begin working on a 3rd party candidate platform AFTER this crucial election!
October 27, 2012 11:52am
Do you really not see that without our civil liberties all other "rights" are null and void? Obama's "indefinite detention" law (the NDAA) destroys all our rights, especially women's rights whether you like to admit that or not.
"...then they came for the Arabic people and I did not speak up because I was not Arabic. ...Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up." -this especially applies to women's rights!!!!
Corporate puppets are not your only choices. Please wake up BEFORE its too late!
October 27, 2012 10:01am
David:
I have much more faith in Obama acting for the benefit of our future, especially in areas such as gender equality, Climate Change, and controlling defense spending. Willard is a veritable 'terrorist' on all three of those.
I hope that you and other undecideds will help us all re-elect President Obama. It will be nice when Willard just fades from our memories.
October 27, 2012 12:40pm
In just three short years, Obama's environmental record is already worse than Bush's! (look up Obama's record on expanding coal mining, oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing "fracking" which has already caused so much harm to so many communities having gas coming out of their faucets and Obama calls it clean energy?! and the keystone pipeline xl -which NASA's own senior climatologist James Hansen say is "game over" for the earth if allowed and Obama is fast-tracking it and telling Rolling Stone magazine that he doesn't think it well be as bad as what James Hansen says -is Obama not engaging in a bit of climate-change-denial with that remark? and Obama's persecution of medical cannabis dispensaries, when hemp could provide for ALL our energy needs!)
And Obama's NDAA, or "indefinite detention" law, along with his top-secret TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), is going to destroy all chances of saving the human rights, and the earth from corporate destruction.
I hope you will wake up and realize that Obama is funded and controlled by the same 1% who controls Romney. It's just a puppet show between the 1%'s 'plan A' versus their 'plan B' -and they both need to be defeated, not just Romney. That's why the Jill Stein movement has managed to get ballot access for her name in 47 states (9 states as a write-in)!!
October 27, 2012 11:41am
Jeff Lewis, Unlike you I don't have a helluva lot of "faith in Obama acting for the benefit of our future." Climate change will only be exacerbated under "either" Obama or Romney. We're drilling everywhere except my backyard right now. The largest prison population in the world is never mentioned by either man. If the miniscule cuts to Defense spending comfort you, they sure don't me. The Pentagon "lost" a trillion dollars between 1990 and 2001. Who "knows" with certainty what these brass buttoned bastards really do with tax dollars? I do agree that gender equality and women's reproductive rights are better advanced and protected by Obama, although in the quest for votes he rarely talks of the latter and speaks of the former to very selective crowds. Obama would be considered a moderate Republican 15 years ago. Given that, he's better than a flaming Conservative hell-bent on turning us into a totalitarian banana republic.
October 27, 2012 9:56am
I agree that both Obama and Romney are corporate shills and that convergence on political economy betrays the notion of democracy and choice, especially with the exclusion of other presidential candidates and views from recent corporate mass-mediated debates. And I am profoundly disappointed at Obama's silence on environmental issues such as climate change while standing firmly with global oil and national coal. I will vote for my principles in the crimson state of Kansas where it will mean a write-in vote that won't affect the outcome anyway, but I, too, would like to know why David thinks Obama supports privatization of education. What story or speech did I miss?
October 27, 2012 3:03pm
And whose name will YOU wrote in?
October 27, 2012 12:41pm
Yes, you did miss it. But that's perfectly understandable because it's never reported in the media. Try the name 'Arne Duncan' and you'll see: www.DumpDuncan.org
(Besides, why would you worry about missing an Obama speech when his words never match his deeds anyway?)
October 27, 2012 9:51am
I think David's piece is both accurate and thoughtful. But as jussmartenuf noted, there remain some issues for which we have a clear choice.
Yes, Obama should have advocated a public option. But only because he spent considerable political capital in his first term (have we already forgotten how difficult it was to get that last vote in the Senate?) do I now have health insurance --- not only for me but also for my 22 year old daughter. If she or I am diagnosed with an curable but otherwise fatal disease, or if I am in an accident, this election may well be the difference between life and death --- or, even if Romney's emergency room service for the now-uninsured is good enough to keep me alive --- between solvency and bankruptcy.
October 27, 2012 12:50pm
Which is all the more reason we need to break away from the two corporate puppets of the 1%, and elect Jill Stein! As Noam Chomsky points out, Obama's healthcare plan still leaves the middle-man, corporate power structure, in control. Didn't we originally wanted the healthcare system like Canada has? So you're just going to give up on that now?
If the unprecedented high voter turn-out against Bush's policies in 2008 happens again in 2012, then Jill Stein will win by a landslide -easy!
How bitterly ironic that the only thing preventing us from defeating the 1% -for real this time!- are the Obama-apologists who insist that we can't. If Martin Luther King Jr adhered to common held beliefs about what is "unrealistic" or "impossible," he never would've tried.
October 27, 2012 9:19am
My goodness David, smugly ridicule you as stupid? No way, just stupid without the ridicule and smugness.
I have seen nothing of Obama wanting to privatize education. The whole right wing is for it so they can preach fundamentalism in our schools which is against the constitution in they are public.
I hear Romney wanting to pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing that Gay citizens are denied their inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness (and in the process taking that decisions away from the possibility of States rights).
I hear Obama wanting to curtail additional military spending while Romney says he wants a trillion or two more.
I see Obama passing and promoting universal health care for all citizens and Romney making it a point to stress how he will kill it.
You may be undecided because of your mental confusion, David, but not because there is not a difference in the choice offered us.
October 27, 2012 12:42pm
Check out Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan (or try dumpDuncan.org) and it should be quite clear that, yes, Obama is trying corporatize American schools.
Do you really not see that Obama's words have NEVER matched his deeds? Or are you just not bothering to look?
And did you miss how Romney made a fool of himself trying to criticize Obama's healthcare plan when it was discovered that Obama's healthcare plan was identical to Romney's earlier healthcare plan? Alarm bells are ringing! If Romney is so bad, then why are you going through so much effort to elect someone who is just a hair-split away from being identical to Romney?