“Take the win!”
One of the most important concepts in political activism is that of taking the win. You don’t get enough wins in politics, and even when you do, they’re never perfect. So any time something happens that’s a net benefit for your side – no matter how imperfect – you have to seize upon it. In fact you have to not only take the win, but spin the win, or else you’re letting the opportunity go to waste.
We got a great example of this on Tuesday when Paul Ryan announced that he won’t vote for Donald Trump in November, and will instead write in some other unnamed Republican. The outrage addicts on our side are already jumping into gear and bashing Ryan for not being willing to vote for Biden instead. But this approach is unrealistic, and frankly, foolish.
Paul Ryan is a straight up turd. You can bash him all day every day, you’d be correct. But what’s the point? Do you follow politics so you can get to feel daily outrage toward people like Paul Ryan, or do you follow politics because you want to win and make a difference?
Paul Ryan, turd that he is, is handing us a gift here. He’s telling Trump-hating Republicans that it’s okay not to vote for Trump. He’s even telling them that if they show up on election day to vote for down ticket Republicans, they still shouldn’t vote for Trump, and should write someone in instead.
How many people are going to listen to Paul Ryan? We don’t know. But as we’ve seen too many times over the years, it doesn’t take a lot of protest votes to swing an election. For that matter, in this week’s Indiana Republican primary, Nikki Haley got about 22% of the vote even though she’s been out of the race for months. A sizable minority of Republican voters hate Trump and want permission to not vote for him. And now the guy who was the Republican Speaker of the House, while Trump was in office, is telling those Trump-hating Republicans that they don’t have to vote for him.
It’s easy to see why this is a win for us. It takes votes away from Trump. How many of few votes? Who knows? But it’s not zero. It’s something. Obviously it’s even better for us when a Republican votes for Biden. But when a Republican doesn’t vote for Trump or Biden, it’s still basically half a vote for Biden.
More to the point, Paul Ryan hasn’t just handed us a gift, he’s handed us ammunition. We can now go to the Trump-hating Republicans in our families and our social circles and point out to them that even Paul Ryan is refusing to vote for Trump. It might convince them to do the same. But for this gift to matter, we have to make that effort.
That’s why it’s so destructive when so many folks on our side simply sit back each day waiting for political news to come along so they can spin it as negatively as possible and indulge in the angry defeatist ranting that fills their empty days. Every time we’re handed a win, these types try to throw it away for us, just so they can feel outrage.
But if you’re the kind of person who’s willing to take a win like the one Paul Ryan just handed us, and seize upon it, and put it to use, then you’re one of the people who’s going to help get President Biden reelected.
