A Wasted Vote
I haven’t written about politics since shortly after last year’s presidential election, but it is certainly not because I haven’t been thinking about it or reading about it. With the Texas legislature recently taking steps to ban gay marriage, gay foster parents, and pretty much gay people altogether, our mostly conservative representatives are clearly attempting to make up for lost time.
Those of us that support progressive candidates and ideals spent time after the election reflecting on what went wrong. Adding insult to injury, my uncle asked at Christmas if I was planning on “wasting” my vote on Hillary Clinton in 2008, since I had wasted my vote on John Kerry. Although I’m not sure that one had anything to do with the other, the fact that my uncle wanted to discuss politics with me (however casually) was interesting in and of itself. This isn’t a guy who had EVER discussed politics in my presence, and had certainly never inquired about my voting habits. But fresh off a Bush victory, it was time to crow. How does one go about devising a plan to counteract the shifting balance towards people who don’t offer an opinion on anything until they feel legitimized by a majority of voters?
Just between you, me, and anybody related to me that might still be reading this entry, the real family scandal would have been if I had revealed to my conservative family that my traditionally conservative mother, had also voted for John Kerry.
The recent moves by the Texas legislature, while disappointing, are simply a fact of life for those of us living in a large part of the United States. I happen to believe that the proposed regulations are founded on fear and ignorance, and will ultimately come down on the wrong side of history, but politics are almost never about who is right. Bush and his team played a better game, and they won the election, but the result was as much due to politics and perception, as anything else. Pa Ferguson, governor of Texas in the early 1900’s, was famously elected by fashioning himself as “Farmer Jim” and capturing the rural vote, even though he had never lived or worked on a farm in his life.
The “new conservatives” (not to be confused with traditional conservatives) practice a brand of politics that targets specific groups with inflammatory issues, and then appeals to the lowest common denominator. Votes have never been simply a reflection of ideology, but rarely in history have groups so often voted against their own best interests.
Political parties have historically come in and out of power, but lasting change has most often been brought about by progressive ideals. And it will be again.
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