In 18 years since Naders run, what has been accomplished by complaining about it?

[jobycom]

36. How can we know? If we could go back 18 years and not complain about it, would things be different?

Politics isn't about sitting around a room waiting to run to a voting booth to cast a ballot we've known our whole lives we would cast. It's about the discussion. I'm not the same person I was 18 years ago, and that's largely because of the arguments I've had with Nader supporters, and Bush supporters, and Obama supporters, as much as with Republicans.

My views on race and gender, always liberal, have changed by hearing the complaints of non-white people, and non-male people. I remember arguing about gay rights here ten years ago with a gay friend, and leaving feeling like he just didn't get it (it was over method of gaining rights, not over whether rights should be gained). Now I look back on that argument in shame, knowing I was 100% wrong, even if my intentions were good. If I had never had that argument, I never would have grown past my short-sightedness then. I've had similar moments on race, gender, and even on degrees of left-ism.

We should complain about Nader. And Clinton. And Obama. And everyone else who we think is wrong. We should complain, fight, listen, and learn. Maybe we are the ones who are right. Maybe we aren't, and will learn that. And maybe over time the amount of information we take in during these arguments will make us better people, having heard the views of others and therefore better understood our own.

We aren't winning elections because we are divided. Maybe the coalition of voters the Democrats are trying to get isn't workable. We haven't found a way to unite the needs of Black Lives Matter with southern moderate white voters with blue collar union workers with feminist voters with Naderites with whomever. We're not hitting a message of justice, equality, and prosperity for all that all voters understand. Our goals are right, but our message is fragmented.

And the only way I know of to fix that is to argue until we all hear each other and work together. Or rather, until a candidate and that candidate's campaign structure hears us and gives us a message we can all embrace.

The worst part is, we're not even losing elections. The last Republican to take the White House with a popular victory was Bush in 1988. Some states have more Democrats voting for representatives and legislators, but wind up with more Republicans in office because of the districts that have been drawn. We don't have a fair democracy in the US.

So to me, the ways to win are to 1) argue until we come to a consensus, 2) reform the Electoral College and the way our elections are structured to better reflect the views of the people, and 3) find a way to show the majority that the same issue that drives Black Lives Matter also drives Labor, Feminism, the Middle Class, and even many people who think they are conservative now. Human dignity. Human rights. Justice. Equality. Whatever we want to call it. We are right on the issue, but we are terrible at explaining it.