Not voting = voting a straight right-wing ticket. Period.

If you think you’re “too political” to sully your ideological purity, you’re doing just what the Koch Bros., Karl Rove, and Rush Limbaugh would like you to do.

Yes, I know several close friends will adamantly disagree with this.

These friends will agree to support ballot initiatives and referenda.

They’ll make themselves highly visible at protest events.

But they won’t be seen supporting a living breathing politician, except the occasional minor-party candidate like Nader.

Otherwise, they’re content to just protest all the bad things that get done, without doing anything practical to get good things done.

So righteous. So superior. So black-n’-white.

I, however, believe in shades of gray.

The non-theoretical world is a land of deals, hustles, and heartbreaks.

Obama always claimed to be a centrist. You should not feel betrayed when he turned out to really be one.

Yes, he’s compromised, with the defense lobby, the food lobby, the national security lobby, etc.

But the answer to only getting half of the agenda you want is not to throw it all away, to let the whole system be taken over by the guys who want total “freedom” for corporations and the rich, and brutal oppression toward the rest of us.

The only way to make anything happen in that world is to be in it, not to pronounce yourself too perfect to risk being sullied.

And don’t just run a Presidential candidate. Thanks to the Electoral College, there’s no practical way to get elected President without a nationwide, year-round party infrastructure behind you.

You want an American left that’s a real thing? Push for policies AND people, top to bottom, every district, every state.

Run through the Democratic Party structure when you can; through indie campaigns when you must. Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos calls this a push for “not just more Democrats but better Democrats.”

Building a national, permanent movement involves a lot of long, hard, boring work. It’s the opposite of the WTO anarchists’ slogan “Live Without Dead Time.”

But it’s the only way to make national, permanent changes.

Protesting, no matter how vigorous and high-profile, is never enough.

(P.S.: There’s been a highly active comment thread about this topic on Facebook lately.)