It's time to just say it: I support Democrats doing or saying what they need to say in order to defeat Republican politicians. The GOP is a clear and present danger and Democrats are the only candidates who can defeat them.
I started feeling this way back in 1980 after the election of Ronald Reagan. Reagan was a hateful bigot who appealed to the racism that undergirds white America, and he enabled a bunch of Republicans to openly go after vulnerable people. But I lived in DC and in blue states over the years, and my vote didn't count, so I sometimes felt I was entitled to highlight my ideological purity by protest voting for 3rd party candidates in presidential elections.
Then TFG became president and I realized that the GOP had reached the apotheosis of the party-as-hate-group model that the Reagan years ushered in, and the GOP reached a new low. And I changed my mind because the wave of Republicans who came to power with TFG were openly at war with the rest of us. And I realized that ideological purity was stupid and destructive (to wit, look at the current House of Representatives).
Joe Biden wasn't my first choice for president in 2020; that was Elizabeth Warren. Joe Biden is no Elizabeth Warren—that's for sure. But he was also not TFG. And since his election he has consistently put forward legislation and other actions that have worked to help people who need help and he's addressed big issues like climate change to the extent he could with the Democratic majorities in Congress.
Do I disagree with him? Yes. I don't think he's done enough about the issue of expanding the Supreme Court. I know he doesn't have the Senate majority he needs to make the change, but I do think he should have put together a better commission to study the issue and not buried the report. I also think that protecting access to women's healthcare should go beyond just restoring Roe.
In the same way, I'm not incensed that Democrats running for the House in red states hold conservative positions on some issues, because it's those positions that get them elected. I live in West Virginia so I know that blue state ideological purity tests lose red state House and Senate seats.
Overall, the Democrats need a complete leadership overhaul, and young people need to be brought in so they can get the experience to assume senior leadership positions. It's crazy that we have 2 elderly men as the candidates—AGAIN—but that's because Biden understands that he owes his tenure to Black women and he made and fulfilled promises to the core of the Democratic party. Oh and TFG is totally deranged and there's only 2 people who have a shot at being president.
And because of that, I'm a pragmatist. If there is an anti-choice Democratic red state/district candidate who has a shot a beating a GOP candidate, it's OK with me. The goal is to win as many seats as possible so that when it comes to a vote on codifying Roe, there are enough votes to allow for dissent without tanking the bill.
Ideological purity is political fundamentalism. It puts the real life hardships of vulnerable below a veneer of meaningless perfection. That's why I'm a pragmatist.
Here's the right kind of perfection: a perfect pop song:
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