By Justin Paglino

In the Democratic Party, the leadership is fighting against progressives. The DNC, the DCCC the DSCC, there are myriad examples of them throwing their weight into primary races to thwart the more progressive, less donor-pleasing candidate. They use every trick under the sun and they’ve been doing it a long time (see below). They are fighting against you.

Then, when the moderate wins, they implore you to vote for the moderate (corporate) nominee. This is almost invariably done by extorting your vote with fear of the greater evil. They are using you.

And if you vote your values with a third party, they will shame you.

I subjected myself to this for 30 years, because I didn’t think multiparty democracy would ever come to America, and I didn’t want to “waste my vote.”

Now I realize I wasted 30 years of votes. I could have been supporting my values and building Green Party strength the whole time, building pressure for the SYSTEM to change, to force them into passing ranked choice voting by making it in their own self interest to do so: they know that a good number of greens would be willing to rank democrats second on their ballot.

In the Democratic Party, I was being used, extorted, and shamed, but since joining the Green Party, I’ve been nothing but welcomed, appreciated, respected, and promoted democratically to leadership positions within the party.

It’s far more satisfying, meaningful, and worthwhile.

Additional Information

The DCCC's Long, Ugly History of Sabotaging Progressives