(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
The Democratic zombie apocalypse [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-26
15 years ago I wrote this charming screed on dKos suggesting the Democratic Party was deceased.
It has aged pretty well!
The issues raised seem charmingly benign compared to the current political nightmare and where it might lead.
I’ve continued to be loyal to the Democratic Party and still vote a party line in every election. It is still true, as numerous commenters in 2009 suggested that a D vote is better than an R vote or a third-party throwaway vote. [Even as our party continues to be led by octogenarians! Experience matters, I suppose — getting to the age where I’m getting hit with ageism myself, so I have to tread carefully.]
In my state of Alaska, we passed ranked-choice voting in 2022, and narrowly affirmed it last year at the polls. I’ve become a big fan of RCV, and especially how it plays in a Red State. Like [most?] of the Red States, Alaska’s GOP was taken over by the Tea Party in 2010, and it’s stayed conquered as we have morphed into the MAGA era. RCV has made it so that the voters don’t have to abide the crazies — and so that winning a GOP primary isn’t an automatic win to take the seat. That is progress! Especially in a State Legislature that has managed more often than not to organize into ruling coalitions in both bodies, which further isolate the MAGA types and put the Democrats into the ruling coalitions.
I know what you’re thinking — that’s still not electing more and better Democrats! It’s progress, though. It’s a way to hang on and build a stronger resistance, long-term.
A final note about renaming the tallest mountain in North America. The State of Alaska [and there is unanimity in this across the political spectrum] has been asking for the McKinley name to be dropped for 50 years. Obama just happened to be President when the request was finally processed. Not because it was necessarily on his radar, or because of a “woke mind virus” or whatever the GOP would have the nation believe. Be assured that almost nobody with any connection to or awareness of Alaska will be calling the peak McKinley, regardless of how it is noted on signs and maps. It’s been Denali for millennia, and still is and always will be. The use of “Mt. McKinley” will become a cultural identifier, in the way that for the people who live here it’s “snowmachine” and never “snowmobile”. IYKYK.
There’s a lesson there about Trump and MAGA — they will be ultimately ineffective, and fail to win hearts and minds.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/26/2299447/-The-Democratic-zombie-apocalypse?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
