Tag: 2026-election

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I have mixed feelings about the successes of Democratic Socialists in New York and Colorado.

Personally, my views are close to these candidates, although I do have some disagreements which, while concerning, are insufficient for me to vote Republican or skip voting altogether. But, and this is the important point, I am not the typical general election voter. which is why I am concerned about this more leftward move of the Democratic Party.

What matters, above all else, is winning the general election and not ideological purity.

To start with, the Democratic primaries are different from a general election. Liberals should do better in Democratic primary elections because the Democrats are the more liberal party. It shouldn’t really surprise anyone. Will they be able to win in November is a much different story.

New York City is both more Democratic and Liberal than the rest of the country. Colorado is less so but still comfortably Democratic. These Democratic Socialist winners will all probably coast to election in their districts. Is this the case elsewhere? I would like to see how Democratic Socialists fare outside of Blue States — say Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or Michigan — three states that are vital to any Democratic victory.

This is yet to be seen and this is why I am concerned. I have heard the siren call of imminent Left Wing victories (see George McGovern, Jesse Jackson, Howard Dean and Bernie Sanders) too many times for these victories to signify a leftward movement in the country. Keep in mind, Hillary Clinton, hardly a Democratic Socialist, crashed and burned.

The overarching goal of this election is winning seats in the House and the Senate. Candidates need to be focused on putting a muzzle on Donald Trump and the economic issues affecting all Americans. If, in October, the Democrats are discussing which pronouns people should use then I am afraid this diversion will doom any success for the leftward trend in the country as a whole.

Let’s keep everyone can on board. Candidates don’t have to be perfect. They just need to be better than the Republican. Given the Trump take over the Republican party, this should be a piece of cake.

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You don’t press unpopular issues if there is little chance of winning. For example, Barack Obama did not support gay marriage when he first ran for president. Now, in my mind, a gay man, I realized that Obama could give a rats’ ass about gay marriage and was opposing it in order to win an election where a significant portion of the American public opposed gay marriage. It doesn’t make sense to lose an election for an issue, gay marriage, that would surely go down to defeat in most state legislatures. Gay marriage had to wait for another time because Obama could do other things that help me and, more importantly, every other non-gay citizen who, by the way, make up 90 percent of the population.

One of the great lessons of age is you realize that you don’t get everything you want. It is better to get some of what you want than to get nothing. You have to win elections in order to govern, this means compromise. This is how democracies work. Some changes have to wait. You have to deal with the reality you are in.

Which brings me to the New York legislature’s recent passage of a law that replaces mother and father with gestating parent and non-gestating parent in the law books. This change was necessary to make sure that the very few women who are transitioning into men (and vice versa) know that New York law is aware of their non-binary status and included in New York law.

I have numerous problems with this fishing expedition in an empty lake.

  1. 1.The binary division of man and woman has dominated Western Culture. It is still to be determined how this view might change but Trans activists are under the impression that they have won the battle. The vast majority of people, even in the liberal circles, still fall back on the terms like man, father,woman and mother. More to the point, nobody I know uses the terms gestating parent and non-gestating parent. None. So, why is this piece of legislation even necessary when no one uses the terms or even knows what these terms mean. But OK, I guess, gestating parent.
  2. Because no one uses gestating parent and non-gestating parent, it seems like a bad idea to incorporate such words into the law books when the more popular terms — mother and father are working without complaint. Why change them? Who requires this change? Oh, trans activists want this.
  3. Well, if Trans activists could deliver votes, I might be inclined to give them this change without complaint but they can’t. In fact, Republicans are using this issue as a cudgel to defeat Democrats. So, then, it might be bad idea to be pressing the issue. If they are demanding it, they don’t seem to have a grasp on reality. I would never have expected any Democratic body to push for gay marriage during the 1990’s. It would be political suicide. Are Trans activists so short sighted to see this an unhelpful in the struggle to defeat Trump and the Republicans.
  4. The Democrats control New York. How did this pointless and damaging piece of legislation get through these bodies when someone with power should have killed it long before it ever reached the governor’s desk? It is both shocking and depressing that Democratic power brokers were more interested in distributing symbolic prizes to loyal constituencies instead of winning elections. It is almost as if there is some Trump mole working at a high level in the New York Democratic Party.

I don’t want to lose this election but if it were to happen, I want the defeat to be about something big — something like Medical Care or the War in Iran and not whether to rename Mother’s Day to Gestating Parent’s Day.