Lightning Round: Don’t You Want to Win?

From the time I was in my late teens to early thirties, much of my free time was spent on various asphalt (and the lucky occasional inside gym) basketball courts in eastern Massachusetts.  Not organized ball, just pickup, full court when possible but mostly three on three or less, mostly with a core group of friends and others, just knocking each other around.

It’s the funny, little things in life that really sit in your head, between the big milestone events, like births, deaths, weddings, new jobs, etc is living.  On one random day playing full court hoops in a rare occasion inside, a bunch of us friends were playing against a group of other guys.  We’re all scrapping around, and at one point, a friend of mine, you know one of those guys who hangs out twenty feet from the hoop, waiting for people who work for rebounds to pass to him, says to my sweaty ass after a play, “don’t you want to win”.  For some of my close friends,  maybe 25 to 30 years later it still sticks out as just a funny moment that we all remember and repeat those words from time to time away from those youthful, active days. 

“Don’t you want to win” is coming up to me as we begin to see the Democratic primary Presidential race (and senate and house races) come into focus, even in its oversized, amorphous form that it is here in August.

The Democratic party as a long time sometimes reluctant member has always puzzled me, some rolling to the center right, particularly when dominated in the days of white workers in the past (particularly when there were strong industrial unions) to a day when some progressives are pushing that the Black Congressional Caucus is far too conservative for a modern Democratic party.  Republicans has always managed to have a big tent, a weird ass tent with lots of fucking crazy ass people but a big tent.  There have always been the big business types, focusing on low amounts of regulation, low worker protection, and low to no taxes but the larger base has been much bigger; running the gamut from wacko racists, anti-choice, anti-immigrant and of course one of the largest constituencies, the gun culture.  Many of these folks will vote and even more importantly show up to vote in districts that control the electoral college in sufficient numbers to win the electoral college and senate on a regular basis.  It may be outside of running a terrible Democratic candidate (you know who they are) or some type of Democratic scandal or just Republican incumbent overachievement, that a Republican candidate will ever win the popular vote for a generation in this country.  The demographics of the population, particularly the growth of the Latino population, just project to a Democratic majority, well until progressives take Latinos for granted and then you will see a population with “traditional” values start to move toward the GOP. 

Do you want to win?  Remember there are people that are not going to agree with you.  Who are not socialists, who may not think that the job of government is to provide a cradle to grave hand hold.  When treated like adults they generally understand the need for a safety net, who among us has not hit bottom and needed a hand up.  Whether laid off, fallen sick, seen a family member addicted to drugs or left on the bad side of tomorrow?  I think there are a significant number of Democrats (or all races, colors and creeds but particularly white folks who voted for Reagan) who really appreciate the idea but are sold some bill of goods that his safety net is a hammock.  Are some of these racist tropes, yes for sure, but there are people that have been convinced that the Democratic party stands for layabouts and do nothings and essentially have been pushed to vote against their own economic interests.

The Democratic winning candidate does no have to clear the table.  They are going to have to convince the hard core cracker Trump voter to vote for them,  but they have to carry a significant number of 18 plus old people to register, show up and vote Democratic in about 5 critical states.  The Republicans have figured out that they really just need to carry 50 percent plus one, (yeah I get the popular vote but bear with me.  The key here is not to win 60% of the popular vote the key is to win.  Don’t you want to win.