I've changed my mind about open primaries... [View all]

.... as of about 10 p.m. Monday night.

I've long been a proponent of keeping primaries limited to members of the party involved.  Why should people who are not members of a group get to have input into what the group does?  If you want to participate, join the group.

But after hearing Rachel Maddow's interview of historian Steven Ross, I've come to the conclusion that our two party system is so broken that we need to fight fire with fire.  We need to let the broader electorate pick all the candidates, because the core of the MAGA Republicans are out and out fascists.  Not "like" fascists, just plain fascists.

Here are the salient points.

- After WW2 many soldiers who fought because Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, not to protect democracy, came home enraged that blacks and Jews were moving into their neighborhoods and taking their jobs. They felt betrayed.  The lit a huge KKK cross atop Stone Mountain in Georgia to proclaim their outrage.

- There were hundreds of groups with names like "White Supremacists for..." and "White Nationalists for..."  Some pundit predicted that they would all coalesce when they could communicate instantaneously and could find a common leader.

That day has come.

We can no longer defend the two party system. We need to defend democracy.  We need open primaries.