Kevin Putzier
2 min readJun 16, 2021

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This is what I keep trying to tell my Liberal friends.

The reason that the Conservatives (Luddite and Fascist alike) win is not because of gerrymandering, vote suppression, etc. Those are merely tools.

The reason they win despite often overwhelming public opposition is because they know what the levers of power are for.

For the majority of my life, Democrats have been fairly adept at getting their hands on at least some of these levers. Then, every fucking time, they seem confused as to why they put their hand there.

Democracy, if that's the goal, is going to be chaotic and dynamic. This is a FEATURE, not a bug. Yes, taking away the will of the minority is somewhat brutal. But if you seek power and then refuse to use it, you are not worthy to have it. In the war of ideas, the left wins only if we are willing to actually pull those levers.

And that's really all it will take. Conservatives, for the most part, do not have ideas. Hell, it's in their label. They want to "conserve". If the left pulls the levers of power in a broad fashion, and manages to hold on to them for ten years, the conservatives will defend the new status quo with the same fervor they fight against the changes now. The GOP understands this. I often suspect the DNC does too, and don't care.

It is no accident that there are more registered independents than there are of either "major" party. A lot of us have long since realized that the official position is to waffle on the left and move to the right.

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Kevin Putzier
Kevin Putzier

Written by Kevin Putzier

I am a practicalist, which means I take political and social ideas from all sides and try to find what works. Mostly Progressive.

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