A Healthy Democracy Requires a Healthy Economy

This is long. I apologize for that.

So we must vote out the Republican Party, yes"  In this cycle, I agree, and as a Democrat I usually do. But rather than being a single loop thinker, we might assess the goals relative to costs and adjust as necessary (double loop thinking). This is important because we are faced with candidacies that claim to be Democrat but are fringe or independents who camp out under the Democratic tent. To those who voted for Bernie Sanders, the fact that he was a Democratic Socialist by label and actively a spoiler for Hillary Clinton did not bother them. The danger of Donald Trump seemed distant. From the perspective of those of us who live in majority Republican Evangelical states, the danger was very real.

So socialism or capitalism?   Or is that a false dilemma?

It's not a good practice to get caught up in labels particularly those used by people who camp in one party to the detriment of their candidate.

Sometimes it is tough to know who is what or which. This is important because we are at the point where the other party has our range, that is, they know which active groups are capable of mobilizing voters and continued resistance. They will use means fair or foul to disrupt those groups and will have inserted disruptors into those camps to destabilize them.

My test is simple: if a conversation started by one party results in someone saying they just aren't going to vote, those who agree with that are not working to elect the party candidate. Every voter for a party that stays home voted for the other party.

This is politics. The first rule is you must win. Somewhat like SEC football.

An argument coming at us since the Sanders candidacy is our form of government is wrong or antiquated or that our economic system is wrong. This has surface merit if one only looks at these two ideas in isolation. However good systems analysis does not rely on the conditions of a single subsystem in a system of interacting subsystems except to assess maintenance conditions relative to repair and replace. Logistics 101. So let me posit this:

A healthy democracy constrains the excesses possible with unhealthy capitalism. Healthy capitalism creates the resources required to sustain a healthy democracy.

Don't let labels confuse you. Look to behaviors and outcomes. If the wealth of the nation is not being applied to maintain the health of the systems that sustain our democracy, it is being misapplied. Look to behaviors and goals, not labels, to make good voting decisions.