Your friendly neighborhood auto mechanic
Every election, plenty of Democrats and Progressives complain about Democratic candidates, saying they’re not progressive or liberal enough, are too tied to corporations or big money, etc. These complainers are comparing the Democratic candidates to some ideal of perfection. That’s the wrong comparison. Democratic candidates are running against flesh-and-blood Republican candidates (and some third party candidates), and one set of candidates will win the elections and decide our fates to a large extent. If your complaining friends still think the two parties are the same, try the car mechanic analogy on them:
Imagine your car has broken down, and the perfect mechanic you’ve envisioned is nowhere to be found, if he or she even exists at all. Instead, there are only two mechanics around that can fix your car. If you stay home and don’t go to either mechanic, your car, which you need to drive to work and do other necessary things, will stay broken and will only get worse. Furthermore, the problems with the car are too complicated for you or your friends or family to fix yourselves. Here are your only two choices for mechanics:
Mechanic A is known to do a good job at a fair price at least half the time, maybe two-thirds if you’re lucky. Plenty of cars that Mechanic A fixed are running better today. However, sometimes Mechanic A disappoints his customers by ripping them off, breaking his promises or doing a shoddy repair job, which they have to take elsewhere at a future time.
Mechanic B is known to do a lousy job and rip customers off all the time. Even worse, he falsely advertises his services using a smooth sales pitch. Part of his well-rehearsed pitch includes lies about Mechanic A, and a lot of things he says that Mechanic A does, such as damaging your car further when you leave it with him, are actually things that Mechanic B does himself. Mechanic B also blames customers when he breaks their cars, and he treats some customers much better than others.
So, who you gonna take your car to? Is there any choice? Obviously, you go to Mechanic A, because he does a good job much more of the time. Moreover, you might be able to convince Mechanic A to do a better job more often. With more business, maybe Mechanic A will need to hire an assistant, and you can influence him to hire someone who is really competent, thorough and trustworthy. In contrast, you’d be crazy to go to Mechanic B, who you know never does a good job, and somehow expect a different result.
Mechanic A and Mechanic B are analogous to the Democratic and Republican Parties. So tell your complaining friends that their car called the United States of America is broken, they need to take it to a mechanic on November 4 or earlier if possible or it’s just going to get worse, and there is an easy choice as to which mechanic can be expected to do a better job.
Photo by Seattle Municipal Archives, used under Creative Commons license. http://is.gd/hUrLPw
