the “cut off the nose to spite the face” movement

there is a new movement out there, like a phoenix rising from the ashes of hillary clinton’s failed presidential campaign. it is the “cut off the nose to spite the face” movement. this broad movement includes all sorts of people: centrists who think barack obama is a far-left radical, left-wingers who think barack obama is too centrist, people who just feel insulted by supporters of barack obama or by media coverage they think is biased, republican trolls participating in something known as “operation chaos”, female chauvinist pigs, and actual racists. people from all across the political spectrum are part of the “cut off the nose to spite the face” movement, people from all walks of life, but one thing unites them: they hate barack obama’s guts, and would rather have john mccain as president. almost all of them at least claim to be democrats, but i would not trust anything they have to say, since a good portion are probably republican trolls trying to stir up trouble. at a time when hillary clinton is about to endorse barack obama, these people claim to be her diehard supporters while at the same time rejecting her repeated calls for them to vote for the democratic candidate in november. many of them are changing their party registration from democrat to independent, republican, or some third party, to protest the results of the rules and bylaws committee meeting. they are evidently upset that florida and michigan only get 1/2 the vote they would normally get, and bring up the historical example that even slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person. what they fail to recognize is that the republicans likewise penalized both florida and michigan by only giving them 1/2 the vote they would normally get, and yet these fools still think this is a valid argument to vote for mccain over obama. on all of the major issues, hillary clinton and barack obama are very close to each other. just look at this chart from politicalcompass.org:



so, members of the “cut off the nose to spite the face” movement are mainly driven by one thing: raw emotion. they are upset over the outcome of the democratic nomination contest, and refuse to recognize the winner, because they got too emotionally invested in the loser. so now, despite the fact that most of these people agree with barack obama on the issues and disagree with john mccain on the issues, many of them are going to either vote for john mccain, vote for a third-party candidate, write in hillary clinton’s name, or not vote at all, out of spite. and many of them are leaving the democratic party out of spite. there is a site for all these losers called democrats against obama, which is ironic because the site urges people to leave the democratic party and change their registration to something else instead. democrats indeed. at pro-hillary blogs like talkleft.com and taylormarsh.com, there are some blog posts trying to convince people to vote democrat in november, but if you look at the comments, they are almost all anti-obama, full of people saying how they are leaving the democratic party or voting for john mccain in november. it is quite bizarre to observe. personally, i was not particularly impressed with al gore or john kerry, and actually disliked both of them when they were running for president, but i supported them strongly and voted for them anyway, because i am not voting for someone whose personality i like, i am voting for a democrat as president to uphold the values of liberalism and the progressive movement, and to fight against the plutocratic/theocratic/cryptofascist republicans, who should all be voted out of office. i am looking for someone whom i agree with on the issues. and that is why i chose barack obama over hillary clinton once i saw that my favorite candidate, dennis kucinich, had no chance. i have no sour grapes over dennis kucinich losing, just like i did not make too big of a fuss when howard dean lost the nomination to john kerry in 2004. i am a loyal democrat, something this country needs more of nowadays. i am very unimpressed with all the childishness of the people in the “cut off the nose to spite the face” movement. we need people making intelligent decisions about who to vote for in november, based on the issues, issues like abortion, the war in iraq, universal health care, and so on. people should not vote on any other basis besides the issues, because the age/race/gender/personality/experience of a president matters far less than their judgments on the issues that matter. i embedded the video of clinton supporter harriet christian’s mad tirade in my previous blog post but here it is again as a link if you want to see an example of this childishness.

let’s act like adults when it comes to deciding who to vote for, and not base decisions on our emotions, but instead on a logical analysis of who agrees with us on the issues and has a possibility of winning. and if you would rather not vote at all, or vote based on who you would rather have a beer with or some other incredibly stupid benchmark, either grow up and start thinking and voting as a responsible citizen, or don’t vote at all. or better yet, just do what i plan on doing: vote party-line democrat in every election, every november, for the rest of your life, no matter what happens. i agree with the democrats on pretty much everything and disagree with the republicans on pretty much everything, so it is really easy for me to decide who to support, regardless of which candidates each party comes up with and what offices they are running for. i know which side i am on, and it is the same side i have always been on, and i have no plans of ever switching sides. ever. i plan on being a loyal liberal democrat as long as i live, and the more i see these immature fools who are unable to muster any party loyalty and who do not know who their real enemy is, the more i realize how important party loyalty is. at least if you are a loyal democrat or republican, you know who your enemy is: the other party. but if you are a diehard supporter of hillary clinton, who is your enemy now, at this point? barack obama? the obama campaign? obama supporters? the democratic party? the republican party? john mccain? or is it all of the above? at some point you ought to realize that hillary clinton is a loyal democrat and that if you want to be a true supporter of hers, you ought to follow her wishes and vote for the democratic candidate in november, and that if you do not follow her wishes, you have not only betrayed the democratic party, but you have betrayed hillary clinton herself. i am sure that hillary clinton will be out there campaigning for barack obama; perhaps she may even be his vice presidential nominee, but i do not really care whether or not obama chooses her. many drama queen “hillary supporters” have actually said that they will vote for mccain even if obama picks hillary as his running mate... way to show loyalty to hillary. seriously, people need to grow up, and vote party-line democrat every election just like i do, unless they agree with the republicans instead, in which case they should just not vote, because i want republicans to lose.