Wounded But Not Dead
Todd, as we have come to expect from him, addresses important questions with insight from his life in the movement for justice and democracy. At this moment of ripe opportunity for a progressive revival, with the collapsing of the hold that the right wing has had on the debate and the rise of progressive spirit to fight back, we should pay attention to Todd's analysis to address what we need to do in order to win and be progressive.
Todd describes the Republicans (big business and the Right Wing) and our days in the Wilderness (post 60s Democrats), and now the Emergence (blogs, MoveOn, money and re-finding values and the need for a big tent). All this sets the stage for seeing where we have come from, where we are now so that we can address what we need to do to combine our values and vision and actually win.
We should also start with a caution. Because the old influence of the Right is in decline, does not mean it is no longer present.
The old order is dying, but the new one has yet to be born (as it is said). The Right Wing machinery is still very much in place (their echo chamber, political organization and technical advances with capacity like their voter file and micro-targeting), but the broad ideas they promoted
1. no government--you are on your own and let the free market rule; but Katrina exposed the reality of that perspective;
2. so-called values--the right can dictate our morality; but Terry Schiavo and their own scandals and hypocrisy undercut the strength of that argument;
3. peace through war--but Iraq undercuts this every day.
However, just because these ideas no longer have the sway that they did, it does not mean that they are gone or don't still have some resilience.
The key question, is what do we have to replace those ideas with (as well as the building up of our own technology--which is certainly gaining strength and sophistication). And are we building the popular force with the understanding, willingness and ability to fight for a better alternative (and not be confused by the deceit they will promote).
A key reason the Right was able to advance and hold sway, when it did, was because there was not a strong enough alternative fighting for the lives of working families, of mainstream America, and advancing policies by a government that actually made a difference in people's lives in dramatic ways that were easy to see, understand and appreciate. This was a problem of leadership and of an organized base, engaging people in the fight for the future. In the absence of actually improving people's jobs, health care, education and promise for the future, a small tax break or credit seemed a step in the right direction to many. Scapegoating and demonizing hard working immigrants, gays and lesbians, darker and poorer people fed an explanation for why progress was not being made.
We now have an opening, the likes of which we have not had in over 25 years, for progressive renewal. It is possible in the elections, it is present in the organization and new media, it is open because there is a new sense of optimism by the progressives and because there is this collapsing of the Right Wing. However, the promise of that opening will only become reality, if we actually fight on the progressive values, Todd correctly emphasizes, for the improvement in the lives of regular people. So the fight to end this war is a top priority. The fight for high quality, comprehensive, health care for all is the top domestic issue people care about, and we must deliver on. The structural changes that will come from election reform and immigration reform, and the host of other issues that Todd lists--all are important. And the building of the organized force that can engage this fight. The Labor Movement is still the most organized element of this potential for change (and we must strengthen it, as we remember it this Labor Day). It is joined by those in social change organizations--the big tent as Todd describes it: people organized by race, religion, gender, as well as by issue across the breadth and diversity of this country).
But most important is that we continue that fight, based on the progressive values, and engage people themselves in that struggle--so that we learn together what is worth fighting for and what we need to do in order to win for a progressive future.
I would suggest that it has found a new disguise, that of the "centrist Democrat".
Just as many viral contagions mutate out of range of traditional cures, it seems, IMHO, that as long as Democratic candidates exhibit symptoms of the need to present themselves as "strong on defense", the right-wing has won the battle.
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
"The Republican's have a very small tent, but it has a very large closet", borrowed from SayitwithWookies, commenter on Wonkette.
September 4, 2007 5:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Centtrist Democrats are hardly the new rightwight except to the largely irrelevant leftwing in the United States. As for the rightwing they were pronounced after Barry Goldwater lost in a landslide in 1964. Four years later Richard Nixon was president.
For too long there has been such a hodgepdge of ideologies that get blended into a marriages of convenient. One the right the group that seems to be losing power fastest are the social conservatives, the evangelicals, who wish to push their intolerance against all manner of people. Another rightwing group that seems to be losing its grip are the Norquists and the like who demonize government as the enemy of all things good. What one things of as business conservatives or Rockefeller Republicans, who favor moderate taxes, and gobalism does not seem to be all that weak.
On the other side of the ledger outside of two moments, the Depression and right after Goldwater's defeat has there been successful leftwing efforts in America. The Democratic Party that lost the South and was taken over the New Left has until today lost except when relatively conservatives were the presidential candidacies.
With Clinton's election the Democrats had a liberal, not a leftwinger, as its leader. Willing to use goverment to improve people's lives but not willing to construct high expense, high tax programs that are designed to cure all ills. The Democratic Party also had a leader who both reached out to the rest of the globe and limited the United States' isolationism and unilateral surrender.
Those who take the ineptitude, the criminality and the meanness of Bush as a signal that the United States is on the verge not on a traditiional liberal restoration but a leftwing one does not know the history of this country.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
September 4, 2007 6:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Daniel,
So you are saying that a traditional "liberal" restoration is that of the LBJ "guns and butter" policies?
How do you define the leftwing? Communists? Still?
All I'm indicating is that the "strong on defense" meme is code for whatever is in the mind of the beholder. To the military-industrial complex it means more bloated weapons programs, and opportunities to try them out. To AIPAC it means continual war in defense of Israeli goals. To the "heartland" it means they can sleep secure that Amerika will kick everybody's ass. To the business community it means the projection of force to secure economic hegemony.
Flip this around- what would you consider weak on defense?
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran
September 4, 2007 7:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
The neo-cons have won in one respect. Today the true conservatives are the DLC wing of the Democratic Party. So, even a Democratic president means that we continue along the conservative path. It will be at least another generation before we can have a liberal government, and that will be another generation of failed federal governments.
The most probable Democratic president in 2009 is Ms Clinton, far from a liberal. And, given her lack of experience, her lack of good judgement, and her need to prove her masculity, her administration would most likely be a failure.
This would lead us to yet another Repub administration, and yet another failed federal government. Perhaps then the next generation would see the light, and a true liberal administration would be a possibility. I'm sorry I won't be here to see that.
Hoppy in Sacramento
September 4, 2007 8:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who are these progressives that you hope will take power? In every one of your examples, Democrats have aided and even supported policies that are contrary to what people want and need.
Democrats refortmed bankruptcy laws to make sure that everyone is subject to the tender mercies of the markets.
Democrats rant about values and against Hollywood and free speech.
Democrats supported the invasion of Iraq.
If we're going to have a renewal, we need some new ideas.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
September 4, 2007 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton himself ran away from the term "liberal". Many like me didn't understand what the DLC was all about until later. Clinton was charismatic. Take away the charisma and the DLC strategy failed totally in 2000. We'll never know if Gore could have won had he run as a genuine liberal, but it's hard to see what state he would have lost and we've all heard time and again what the green/Nader vote cost him on the left.
September 4, 2007 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: As for the rightwing they were pronounced after Barry Goldwater lost in a landslide in 1964. Four years later Richard Nixon was president.
Richard Nixon was many things, but a rightwinger he was not. No rightwinger would have proposed universal healthcare or a guaranteed income. Nor would a rightwinger have imposed wage and price controls, withdrawn from Vietnam, gone to China in the heyday of Chairman Mao or played kissy face with Brezhnev. The resurgence of the Right in the late 70s was as mcuh a reaction against Nixon (and Ford) as it was against Carter, though of course the GOP was not about to even mention Nixon in the elections of 1976 and 1980.
Re: Take away the charisma and the DLC strategy failed totally in 2000.
Totally? I seem to recall that Al Gore won the popular vote and only lost the presidency due to some unprecedented chicanery by his opponent's forces. Also, didn't the Democrats make gains in the House and Senate in 2000? That may not have anything to do with the DLC (for whom I hold no particular affection, though I did like Clinton) but the election of 2000 was certainly not any sort of GOP blow-out.
September 4, 2007 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not only that but I'm pretty sure that Bush picked up more than a handful of very useful votes here and there by advertising that he would execute a more "humble" foreign policy than Gore without nation building, and selling himself as "a uniter, not a divider" after the country had been forced to go through the impeachment thingie.
And not only that but I find it amazing to see who is participating in the lovefest comments for Al Gore on another thread on this site, some people who have been very vocally anti-DLC and anti-interventionist foreign policy, apparently forgetting that Gore chose to have the netroots-bete-noire Joe Lieberman stand beside him and apparently under the mistaken impression that Gore was not more hawkish than Bill Clinton and was not planning to continue Clinton's DLC-oriented economic and social policies. Throw in that Gore is an authentic born-again Christian (while Bill Clinton just played one) and his wife became well-known for promoting ratings of music, and, well,
one has to wonder if many outraged liberals really mean what they say or know what they are saying when say they are anti-DLC.
9/11, of course, really did end up changing things in the electorate on foreign policy, as was its purpose, after all. Outside of his objection to Iraq, it's really not clear what a President Gore would have done and what political blowback he would have had to deal with about that in 2004. We can be pretty sure that he would have gone for the long-term goal of getting off dependence on oil--would that have given him a lot of Jimmy Carter dejas vus allover again? Might he have been hawkish in the short term towards countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to avoid that happening? How would many liberals react to that? People forget that Bush did not come in with the "god is working through me" thing, that Gore was the one who sounded more rigidly moralistic about foreign policy. Enough people were ok enough with that to give him a majority of the vote.
September 5, 2007 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I doubt if anyone can make hypothetical predictions of what Gore would have done, had he been President based on what Clinton did between 1992 and 2001. We really have no idea where his policy preferences would have been different or similar from Clintons. He was, however, a loyal VP, and he worked successfully on many of the tasks he was given.
What would have been the same? Gore would probably have had a Republican Right Wing dominated Congress.
I make this point because we need to introduce here the importance of Dean's 50 state project as it has proved quite successful in building the progressive party base, electing congresscritters and state legislators and all, which in many ways are the avenues that frame ideas and issues that are forced into any administration. Political Strategy is three dimensional chess. We have to be competent in playing it that way. In particular we need to be asking all the Presidential Candidates whether they support this "base growing" operation, because any look at 2006 shows the importance of this. (Remember, if we elect a President, the DNC Chair is President's choice.)
September 6, 2007 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see the Right wing as dying or even wounded. Indeed, they go from strength to strength with their real ideas and agenda:
* Katrina: What's wrong with ethnically cleansing a few hundred thousand blacks from the region and tilting the place to perpetual Republican control? Hasn't America turned its back on New Orleans? Haven't the Rich and Powerful made out like bandits in New Orleans with Iraq-style no bid contracts, slush and patronage, and a redevelopment that will exclude the poor and ennoble and enrich the wealthy. For the right wing, Katrina turned out well. Katrina was WIN, WIN, WIN!!!
* Values - don't you realize that their only value is winning. That it's OK If You Are A Republican? They've already succeeded in selling corruption as solidly bipartisan. The sex scandals are purged as they erupt. A compliant media tows the GOP line. And the red meat issues keep the crazies riled up. Right wing values are as loud and toxic as ever. They've been screaming for 40 years about abortion. Has time made them milder? Nope, now they've extended their crusade to contraception. They haven't given up the culture war, and they think they're winning, so if anything they get more extreme.
* Iraq? The worst one of all. They've already got their exuses worked up and polished. Want to hear it: 1) Even if we lose, the War was winnable and should have been one. The idea of invading and occupying was sound, it was just messed up. 2) Nothing bad that happens in Iraq was our fault, we just happened to be standing there, we had nothing to do with the civil war or anything else. 3)We were stabbed in the back by those goddammed liberals.
So don't start writing off the right wing. They're evil, they're toxic, they're not afraid to lie, and they're only going to get worse.
For over twenty years, the Democratic party have surrendered and catered to the Republicans, with some vague idea that the pendulum will swing naturally back to them.
John Kerry embarrassed the nation with his 'reporting for duty' shtick. He treated the Presidency as his by entitlement, as if Bush and the Republicans would let it fall into his lap. Well, too bad, so sad.
The bankruptcy of that notion must be obvious by now. But unfortunately, there's always a Heather Booth around to fatuously keep the idea alive.
If Democrats want to succeed, they have to abandon their comforting myths of the tide turning, their easy abandonment of principles, and get serious.
September 9, 2007 7:19 AM | Reply | Permalink