It is nonsense to say,[1] “I’m a blue state Democrat, so I can vote my conscience!” Yet I don’t see people talking about this. Instead, I hear the argument that swing state Democrats must vote for Hillary Clinton, but blue state Democrats have a choice. None of us have a choice, even if we are silly enough to believe a Trump presidency will bring on the revolution.

I was a Bernie Sanders supporter in the primary. I donated to him. And I bought a shirt from him and wore it proudly. But I did not support Sanders because he was perfect. He wasn’t perfect. I’m much more a Jeremy Corbyn kind of guy (not that he’s perfect either), but I’m not a citizen of the UK. I voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary because he was the best alternative available to me.

Now I am (Like Bernie Sanders himself!) a Hillary Clinton supporter. I have donated to her, and as you can see on the right, I have bought a shirt from her. And I wear it proudly too.

Alternatives Not Choice!

Voting is not an act of personal expression! It’s not about making the voter feel morally superior like those idiots who drive around with bumper stickers, “Don’t blame me: I voted Libertarian!” I think it is best summed up by Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, “At least we are presented with alternatives — but not choice!”

Picking Jill Stein or Mickey Mouse in the general election means blue state Democrats (And red state Democrats!) can’t pick between Clinton and Trump. But those are the only alternatives. It simply isn’t the case that our electoral system makes Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, or anyone else an alternative. Change the system? Sign me up! But that will not happen before 8 November 2016. So the alternatives are Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Blue state Democrats can vote any way they want, of course. But if they think themselves morally superior because they don’t vote for Clinton, they are seriously deluded. We will know what they are: people who left to others the job of picking from the alternatives — people who saw no difference between Clinton and Trump.

Blue State Democrats T-Shirt

I think the shirt I’m wearing above is kind of ugly. I wouldn’t have bought the corresponding shirt if I lived in Florida — a swing state.

But I bought that shirt because I am in a bright blue state. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Clinton a 99.8% chance of winning the state. I’m pretty sure that makes it the bluest state in this election. So I got the shirt for the message: blue state Democrats for Hillary Clinton. Because my vote is not about making me feel better; it is about picking the best alternative for the country.

Swing state Democrats are obviously foolish if they don’t vote for Clinton. But blue state Democrats are too. We have no choice. We have two alternatives.

What About the Revolutionaries?

But what about the revolutionaries? The ones who think Trump will bring on the glorious revolution? They have no choice either! They must vote for Trump. If they really feel the only way forward is revolution and that the catastrophe of a Trump presidency is the way to get it, they must pick Trump. That’s just as true in Oklahoma (FiveThirtyEight gives Trump a 99.5% chance of winning) as anywhere else.

Two Alternatives — That’s All

Such Democrats are stupid and very, very ignorant of political science. They are also, luckily, rare. Any reasonable person must vote for Clinton. And that is just as true for blue state Democrats as anyone else.

[1] Great idea: if you live in a country with a parliamentary system! Otherwise: stupid idea!

There are three open seats in New York where neither party has an incumbent running for re-election. Each is considered a toss up. The funny thing is that all three have some interesting politics going on.

New York District Three (NY-03)

Oddly, Democrat Steve Israel decided to not run for re-election, even though the district is fairly Democratic and he would have won easily. Maybe he wants to become a full time comic writer.

For the general election it will be Thomas Suozzi on the Democratic side. He is a somewhat perennial candidate who has held elected office before as a county executive. But he also lost his last three races for governor and his re-election bid to the county executive position.

On the Republican side it is State Senator Jack Martins. He has led the way in filing bills that actually get passed. He also really, really hates taxes since most of his bills have to do with that.

The DCCC has already started crazy-gluing Trump to Jack Martins. So this is another seat that the implosion of the Trump Campaign is probably going to have a huge impact on. Martins did say back in May he would support Trump if elected. But as recently as 4 August he has not formally endorsed Trump.

In terms of money, Suozzi has a slight edge. But neither has a huge amount in their war chests. And they are expensive districts to run in, so it is unclear what the money will do for either one.

There is a Libertarian candidate, Michael McDermott, but it is unlikely he will do anything significant in the race.

New York District 19 (NY-19)

This race is going to fun. The district has gone for Obama twice, both times fairly decisively. But the retiring incumbent, Chris Gibson, is a Republican. So the district is considered a toss up.

On the Republican side, the winner of the primary was John Faso. In the 2006 Democratic wave election, he ran in the general election against Eliot Spitzer and lost. After that, he kind of fell off the radar. Instead of politics, he worked on things such as Autism Speaks, a program that helps kids with autism.

On the Democratic side, the primary winner was the fabulously named Zephyr Teachout. She is best known for running against Andrew Cuomo and getting a surprising 34% of the vote. In addition, she has been a big supporter of Occupy Wall Street and Bernie Sanders.

The fun thing about this race is that John Faso is using red baiting. This is at least a bit odd. Faso has said he supports Trump for President, even though he hasn’t endorsed him formally. But, of course, Trump and his campaign have a lot of ties to Russia.

I also found out today that a hedge fund billionaire has decided to spend a small sum of money against Teachout. Luckily Teachout seems to be one of the few people who can pull a Sanders off when it comes to fundraising and the national and state parties are willing to help her out. With a firm effort by Teachout, this may be a pick up.

New York District 22 (NY-22)

This race is not as wild as the other two. And it is the one New York district most likely to go Republican.

It went for the Republican candidates in the past couple of presidential elections even while being represented by a Democrat for ten years before redistricting. So it is possible that this is a pick up for the Democrats.

On the Democratic side is Kim Myers who is related to the Dick’s Sporting Goods family, but runs her own business. She also has been a member of the governing legislature for her county. So she has some experience running for office.

On the Republican side is Claudia Tenney. She is a state assembly member who endorsed Trump prior to her winning the primary. She was considered the underdog and pulled off a bit of an upset. Otherwise, she appears to be boilerplate Republican.

What is interesting about this race is this is a rare situation where a woman is running against another woman. Generally speaking, that doesn’t happen. Otherwise it is ye olde politics.

What Will Be the Outcomes of Each New York District?

I think these may all wind up being Democratic pickups. None of the three districts are heavily Republican, and this is shaping up to be a Democratic wave year based on how well Clinton is doing. She is taking steps to try to have a Democratic Congress to work with for at least the first two years (especially since she knows exactly what is going to happen if she doesn’t). The word is that the RNC is ignoring Trump and trying to salvage races like these.

So with that mess going on at the top on the Republican ticket, and the Democratic side working their tails off to avoid any losses, New York will be so blue it will be visible from space. And that will likely include each New York district discussed here.

I was chatting with Elizabeth last night on Facebook. The subject of feminism came up and I wrote, “I’m not exactly sure what a feminist is. I guess I’m one because I like women. Equality, sure…” And the conversation went on to different subjects from there. But today, I started reading Silvia Federici’s book, Caliban and the Witch. And it got me thinking about feminism in a deeper sense.

Many years ago, I was on the blog of a friend of a friend. She had written something about the subjugation of women. And I posted what I thought was an encouraging comment. But I used the phrase “radical feminism” to discuss what she had been talking about. She went ballistic. It was pretty clear to me that my use of the phrase was tantamount to calling her a “feminazi.”

Indeed, entering “feminazi” into Google causes it to spit out: “a radical feminist.” But this is wrong, as I will get to in a moment. I had two reasons for using the term. The first was that the woman responsible for my intellectual and political awakening was a radical feminist. The second was that the word “feminism” has largely lost its power.

What Does “Feminism” Mean?

At this point, what does it mean to say you are a feminist? Nothing really. It says something about you if you aren’t a feminist. But feminism itself has fallen into the “mom and apple pie” category of something so nonthreatening that only psychopaths are against it. And what is the point of that?

Caliban and the Witch is an explicitly Marxist look at sexual politics. Marx, understandably, saw things from a male perspective. He saw capitalism as a transitory system between feudalism and socialism. Thus it was a good thing. This is something most people miss about Marx: he was one of capitalism’s greatest admirers. Federici is not convinced, since she looks at the subject from a female perspective. She’s particularly interested in witch trials that became much more common during the transition from feudalism to capitalism.

I’m very much with her on that, although I come at it from a different perspective. The move from feudalism to capitalism just changed the way that we divided up private land property. There has never been a serious attack on what is, ultimately, an absurd system. Federici’s feminism is in the service of answering a question, “Why are women subjugated?” In fact, in the preface of her book, she discusses the two dominant feminist theories: Radical Feminism and Socialist Feminism. The former focuses on patriarchy whereas the latter on systemic oppression of all people.

Making Feminism Radical Again

I find this far more satisfying than gauzy notions that eventually we will get sexual equality through laws and norms. And that’s because when you have an unjust, unequal society, it’s always going to be bigoted against women, racist, and so much more. It reminds me of Nicole Aschoff’s great book, The New Prophets of Capital. As I described it, “The fundamental idea with all of [the ideas of these titans of industry] is that the problems that capitalism creates can be fixed by capitalism itself.”

And I don’t believe that. Yes, I will vote for the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate because that is the system that we have. But I am fundamentally at odds with the vast majority of my fellow Americans about the system itself. What’s more, I think we have DNA problems that make us naturally hierarchical. We need to get past that.

So where am I on the issue of feminism? Am I a feminist? Sure — in the same way I’m a Democrat. But I’m also a Radical Feminist. And a Socialist Feminist. We must fix ourselves. And we must fix the system. If we don’t, Homo sapiens probably don’t have but a few thousand years left.

As we finally get to the meat of the general election, we are off to Pennsylvania’s Eighth Congressional District (PA-08) which is an open seat and a toss up. When I checked the Cook Political Report today, there were a lot more toss ups than there were a month ago. This is more evidence that the top of the ticket is having a real impact down ticket.

The District

PA-08 was one of the pick-ups in the 2006 Democratic wave year, and kept in 2008. However, it was lost to the Republicans in 2010 and has stayed that way since then. When people talk about gerrymandering, they typically point to Pennsylvania as a particularly bad case, which greatly benefits the Republicans. But President Obama only narrowly lost PA-08 to Mitt Romney in 2012, so it is possible pick-up for the Democrats.

There also has been enough time with enough people moving around to allow it to flip. My general impression is that about six years after redistricting, seats become open enough to flip. We’ll see if that’s the case this year.

Incumbent Michael Fitzpatrick has decided to honor a pledge he made to serve only a certain number of terms and is not up for re-election. But don’t consider him too honorable. His brother, Brian Fitzgerald, is running for his seat now. It seems kind of like a trick — a loophole in Michael Fitzpatrick’s promise, but I guess the people of PA-08 will decide.

The Candidates for PA-08

Brian Fitzpatrick is a former FBI agent who is campaigning on a “law and order” appeal. He has several obvious advantages. Primarily, he has name recognition and a great list of campaign donors thanks for his brother. But also, having worked the Campaign Finance and Election Crimes Unit at the FBI, he speaks with authority on “law and order” issues. He is definitely playing down the partisanship based on his Facebook page. But overall, his campaign website has the standard Republican boilerplate with only one thing that looks like it comes from the candidate personally.

Over on the Democratic side, State Representative Steve Santarsiero from District 31 won his primary on April 26th. Serving at the statehouse since 2013, he has pushed quite a few reforms regarding campaign finance, fracking, and gun control. He even called for a constitutional convention for campaign finance reform. Santarsiero is not only not running from his party, he is embracing it. He is also definitely trying to tie Fitzpatrick to Trump.

Who Will Represent PA-08

As usual, it is difficult to say how this election will turn out. (I don’t write about races where the outcomes are clear.)

On the one hand, Fitzpatrick may be considered an interloper merely running to keep the seat for the Republicans (and in the family). On the other, he has actual experience fighting campaign finance crimes and knows what he is campaigning on.

Santarsiero is an experienced campaigner who is well known in his own district while Fitzpatrick is a political newbie. So Fitzgerald may be tripped up by common beginner mistakes. His refusal to take a position on Trump might hurt him as well.

Time will tell.

Minnesota’s Second Congressional District (MN-02) is open because Representative John Kline (R) has decided to go do more interesting things than be a congressman.

Currently the district is fairly well to do with an average income of $76,000. So naturally all of the people running are millionaires.  Yes, that includes the Democrat.  It is considered a battleground district since it has gone for Obama at the top of the ticket, even though it has gone Republican for about a decade at the House level.

The usual happenstance of a crowded field of Republicans fighting for the seat was the situation here with four Republicans battling it out. Two were simply regular Republicans, while two are very much of the Tea Party type.  What was different this time was that the Republican establishment fell in line behind one of the extremists: Jason Lewis.  He was the clear front runner, and managed to line up most of the major endorsements while having the highest name recognition. Not surprisingly, he ended up winning.

Republicans in the MN-02 Primary

The primary ran last Tuesday. But the field was interesting.

First, was former state senator and candidate for Minnesota Secretary of State, John Howe. He only served a single term as a state senator. But that did make him stand out: he had actually won elected office. None of the others have. He was largely self-funding, but that wasn’t a problem. Except that he lost with less than 14% of the vote.

Second, was Darlene Miller. She is a business owner. Thus, she had some advantages in being one of the demigods of the Republicans: a “job creator.” But otherwise, she didn’t offer much. She did have outgoing Congressman Kline’s endorsement for MN-02. It wasn’t enough, but she did manage to get almost 31% of the vote.

Third, was Matthew Erickson whose main selling point was his extremism. He served as a spokesman for Trump’s campaign as well as the volunteer coordinator for the state party. According to him, he was running because other politicians are cowards. Erickson does have some “interesting claims.” For example: he thinks he’s basically JFK:

Erickson’s goll-danged darnedest garnering him less than 7% of the vote.

Fourth, was Jason Lewis, the winner with 49% of the vote. His background is in radio. He’s had a local show going back 25 years. And he has been a bit outspoken in his right wing views, to say the least.  His main focus has been taxes where he takes a fairly libertarian line.

Democrats in the MN-02 Primary

The Democrats started with a three person primary, but two of the candidates withdrew. That left just Angie Craig. She is a former medical executive.  She has done very well with fundraising and has major endorsements from all of the usual liberal groups as well as the Democratic political establishment.

The MN-02 General Election

This race is rather like the national presidential race.  Trump’s struggles thus far have moved this race from one that would clearly lean Republican to a toss-up.

The question is how tightly Craig will be able to duct tape Trump to Lewis. If this is a wave year, and there are signs pointing to this, MN-02 will be one of the 29 minimum seats that the Democrats need to pick up to flip the House.