Please, for the love of god, stop saying "this isn't enough for you" and insisting that any disagreement means I'm demanding 100% agreement. I am explicitly not demanding 100% agreement. I voted for HRC and I voted in the dem primary in KS.
People are allowed to express disagreement without all the personal attacks. I'm trying to ask you nicely to treat me with a little more respect. I know I haven't always given you that respect, but your incessant claims that I am just like Trump are offensive.
Your "a vote for third party helps republicans" line may be true in some elections and not in others. In the KS governor race, I think Orman votes most likely hurt republicans. I am not disagreeing with you on the specific point, because it is difficult to measure and prove.
I am, i think, making a separate argument. That is that no party is owed someone's vote. They have to earn it. If McCaskill loses to Hawley, it won't be mine or the Green Party's fault. It will be McCaskill's fault. She is running just a terrible centrist campaign in a state that just overwhelming dominated big money interest with the rejection of MO's right to work law. She has a very rocky relationship with black voters in KC, and recently black leaders in KC refused to write a letter in support of her. She is one of the richest people in Congress. No one I know here feels like she gives a fuck about their material conditions. A "blue no matter what" position will never hold anyone accountable.
The Green Party will likely seek our local chapter's endorsement in the MO senate race. I don't know what will happen, but our chapter will democratically vote whether to endorse.
You keep saying that this vote or that vote will reverse everything accomplished. Before Trump even came along, we were seeing the reversal of past gains. I don't disagree that it may set us back. I'm arguing that liberalism is wholly incapable of fighting for, winning, and sustaining the kind of change I want to see in the world. That has never been more apparent than in the failures of the Obama administration.
Regarding the rest of your post, summarizing your long held beliefs: How do you think the Democratic party has done fighting for those same values?
If you care about labor, taking money out of politics, and internationalism, join a movement that shares those values.
Losing McCaskill means losing a reliable vote for good things. Taking any votes away from her is a vote for the Republican. You can try to justify it all you like, but the impact is the same. There are other people that would better than she. However, that option has no chance of winning.
If you vote Green, you are voting red. It's that simple.
Had people in PA, MI and WI not thrown away their votes, Hillary (not close to being my first choice) would have been POTUS. The Supreme Court would have stopped most of the erosion we are about to see.
If you and your party chooses to vote Green or anything other than McCaskill, you have no place to bitch for the next six years of Hawley's RW votes that will be massively worse than McCaskill's. Those are the only two who can win.
From the time you were in elementary school, Obama was head and shoulders the best POTUS. As Teddy Kennedy used to say, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good". A ton of good happened during Obama's administration. To say it didn't is ridiculous.
He wasn't close to being perfect, but no POTUS ever has been.
As to joining your movement, I'm not interested in being part of something that hands the world to Trumpees and worse. That would be the results of being all or nothing. Get in the game. Make the MO Democratic Party OWE you something. Get out enough votes to keep a Republican from representing MO in the Senate. Show the powers that you have the votes.
There are few things you can guarantee in politics, but I can guarantee you that if you take thousand or tens of thousands of votes from a party that loses a close election, they won't forgive or work with you.
You can dream all you like, but in the real world supporting anyone but the flawed McCaskill will greatly weaken your movement for many years to come. You can be pure or you can be effective.
In fact the best way for you to influence the DNC is to get hundreds of thousands to millions of votes to the polls this November. Take pictures, tweet, use all social media to show what you've done. If you get everyone out to vote and help switch the Senate, you will accelerate the power of your movement by several years and be able to cash in some chits very soon.
But if you stay home or vote for Greens or others, kiss it good-bye. You can't win the game from the bench.
