Why Politics and Purity Don't Mix

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People say, "Well, Bill Clinton didn't do this, and Bill Clinton didn't do that, and the first Bush passed more money for AIDS research than Bill Clinton," and all this stuff. These are incredibly easy and oversimplified factoids that we use to remind ourselves that political structures are without meaning. It's a complete rejection of the possibility of working within democratic structures -- which still exist, even though they're in great danger right now -- and opting for some refusalism that leads somewhere, but nobody knows where.

This is a time of incredible crisis, and it seems to me we're not going to get anywhere good for a very long time, but we can try to put the brakes on where we're going now. I don't know anyone who has paid any attention to history who doesn't say this is absolutely the worst, most dangerous moment the human race has ever faced. I don't think that is an exaggeration at all. I think our chances of surviving the 21st century are extremely slim. And if you believe that, I don't know why we all sort of giggle about the idea that the Democratic Party matters. Of course that's what's going to win the election and take the White House away from George W. Bush. It isn't going to be the Green Party. It isn't going to be people with black bandannas over their faces marching down the street next September blowing up Gaps and Starbucks to show George W. Bush whatever we're trying to show him.

And of course the Democratic Party candidate next fall will be compromised, and of course he'll make mistakes, and of course there'll be lots of advice saying "Don't go too far to the left so you'll sound bad in the debates." But if people go out and vote for Ralph Nader again, or don't vote . . .

The fate of the world is in our hands, and if we fuck it up, it's our fault.

A lot of people don't want to hear that.

Nobody on the left that I know has ever been to a Democratic Party meeting -- including me. We don't even know how the party works! But demographically it's the party of the people of the United States. It's ethnically diverse, it's not all rich people, its platform at least is essentially progressive and decent. It's not anticapitalist, it's not socialist, but it at least has a sort of Keynesian idea of capitalism that understands the importance of regulation and some sense of equitable taxation, which is the closest we can get right now in real political terms to a redistribution of wealth. And it's the party that passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and the Great Society and the New Deal. This is not of interest? I don't understand that.

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