Liberals: Stop chasing moderates and go after the real power


Forget moderates like me. Seriously, those of us on the political fence do not make up as large a share of the voting base as you think. Yes, there are many people who take a bit of this and a bit of that in their ideology, but very few who come out around a 50/50 liberal/conservative balance (and since it's a spectrum of many factors, that's not even a clear definition!).

Moderates like me will not respond to appeals from the right or left. You'll always be pushing something we don't want, even while offering a bit we do. Time spent getting us to pick the best of worst deals is time you can better spend elsewhere.

This is some of the reasoning for why I am appealing to everyone who still sees hope for the USA to not try to win me or people like over. Instead, spend time doing something the Republicans figured out a long time ago: shoring up and appealing to your base.

There are 27% of the voting-age population who consistently state that they do not feel supported by, talked to, or engaged by the political class, and that's young progressives. These people consistently under-vote and under-register, because to them there are a group of us old suckers who tell them to fight for what is right, but we refuse to actually fight when it comes time to.

Sure, there are plenty of advocates among us. We've each got our pet projects that we feel strongly about and will fight for. But the general idea of what we feel is right versus what we feel is practical flies in the face of the message we tell our young. That is a massively demotivating thing, for a young person to hear, that we want them to fight for our values but refuse to back them or support them when they do so.

So this election season, try to engage the youth. Get even half of that 27%, and you win handily. Stop worrying about moderates. Stop worrying about conservatives. Stop worrying about Trumpists. Just stand behind the values you want to youth to fight for, and they will answer the call.

Then once we've cleared this nightmare away from our nation, we can talk pragmatism and practicality. We can survive a few years of spending too much on things that help people. We cannot survive a few more years of spending too much on things that harm people.

As I said, we pragmatic moderates will be fine. We'll always find a way to balance it out.

Best In Moderation 

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