Airing Out The Tent
I'm late to the party, and I apologize. (And many thanks to Todd Gitlin for providing me with the unprecedented and exquisite thrill of reading a fascinating book and turning the page to unexpectedly find myself quoted at length!)
It's interesting that Gitlin perceives some hostility to the notion of a Democratic Big Tent. It is, after all, a positive term and one which should make everyone feel good. In Matt Yglesias' case, it seems be a difference of opinion as to whether a "big tent" is necessary to gain political power. But the problem with Gitlin's use of the term, among the netroots anyway, likely isn't going to be one of strategy so much as a reflexive recoil at the term itself. It has the distinct odor of patented Third Way/DLCish scolding that the left needs to compromise again and I think even the pragmatic sorts feel that they have finally hit a wall on that count and it's time to move the other way for a bit.
That doesn't necessarily mean that Gitlin is wrong about the need for a Big Tent. There are only two parties and the Democrats are much less homogeneous than the Republicans --- the Democratic coalition is, as he says, by necessity, a broader collection of various interests held together less by big money co-opting cultural folkways and regional identity than varying degrees of philosophical comfort, which is a much more difficult concept around which to form solidarity. But I think it does illuminate the fact that liberals and progressives are looking to take the helm for a while and any notions of tacking to the center aren't going to sit very well. (That is probably what's sending the palpable chill down the spines of some old hands who fear a reprise of some of those internecine partisan battles of yore that Gitlin describes so well.)
It's true that the entire coalition came together in the last few years, mostly in reaction to the overbearing arrogance of the conservative movement, but also because of a hard won recognition that real political power was a prerequisite for maintaining, much less advancing, liberal ideals. Political purity has been extremely unfashionable since the election theft of 2000 when a massive bloodletting occurred between hard core liberals and their lefty relatives, the Naderites.(I have the virtual scars to prove it.) But the common sense of empowerment that Gitlin describes, among the fairly conservative grassroots workers in Scranton Pennsylvania and the netroots activists is not a static condition. The Bush administration may have brought us together but it won't keep us together. There is a lot of pent-up frustration, stemming from the Clinton years (which he masterfully analyzes in the book) and there are overdue arguments that must be had. There's no point in sugar coating that fact.
Gitlin has some reservations about the Netroots contribution:
There is no guarantee that the grassroots discussion about strategy, however, intense, will bite --- will sway the thinking of players who operate more less professionally in the arena of public life. Still, without the discussion there is very unlikely to be any smart combative victorious party at all. On the other hand, if what emerges from the netroots is nothing more than a collective gnashing of teeth, then the Democratic default will play before a larger audience than ever before, but a default it will remain.
He rightly points out that the new activist wing of the netroots are not scarred by the Democratic battles of decades gone and don't necessarily see the party as a group of discrete interests battling for supremacy. But what I'm not sure he sees --- and it's very new, so it's hard to keep up --- is that they are movement oriented, but far less socially and culturally engaged than we boomers were; they are interested most specifically in the application of political power and the strategic building of fluid coalitions to advance progressive ideals. It's certainly true that now that liberals and progressives can move beyond simple opposition, ideology is emerging and priorities are being sorted out among the netroots activists. People are thinking about deeper things than just stopping the bleeding and winning the next election, which were the important tasks at hand for the last five years. But so far, despite the intense frustration at the Democratic congress' willingness to simply run out the clock on George W. Bush, there are few delusions about third parties or "going back to the land" or withholding your vote as a useless protest. There is a very distinct difference between the Netroots and the 60's New Left --- recent rightwing success. The horror of GOP rule and political powerlessness is very fresh and the Netroots are generally firmly committed to the party system. Which is, I'm sure, a fairly dubious development for these "players who operate more less professionally in the arena of public life."
Not that netroots activists care. Those players are the most expendable members of the Big Tent, after all. They represent a very small elite group of insiders who have been losing elections and presiding over an ostensibly liberal political party during a conservative era. At a time when the country has finally grown tired of right wing hypocrisy and maladministration, they hardly seem the most likely people to lead the party out of the wilderness. The netroots are not in the least bit interested in persuading them of anything. They are speaking to the crowd in the tent directly -- and hopefully with more and more sophisticated outreach they will be listening to the concerns of those people in Scranton or Detroit or Santa Fe, as well. (With the advent of the internet, the political middle man is becoming obsolete, as so many middlemen and gatekeepers have.)
Gitlin wisely cautions all parties to be decent to one another and that's good advice. The much discussed vituperation of the blogosphere is an effect of frustrated outrage, immaturity (of the medium, not the participants) and the adoption of the common language of everyday American life. It's always going to be a more casual debate because of the form not the substance. But as the movement starts to gel, and it is, many of these early objections will begin to fade away and the netroots will rise or fall on its ability to influence the party and work with the other constituencies within it.
And anyway, as Gitlin says, fervor is the price you pay for democracy. And in my view, political passion is a good thing, even if it's somewhat hyperbolic and profane. Democrats especially need a little more inspiration and a little less negotiation right about now. The Big Tent is stifling and airless without it. The politicians have had the passion bred out of them apparently so the "movement" may have to fill that void too. (I'm frankly not sure it shouldn't be that way anyway --- cults of personality are for fascists.)
So yes, we will have a Big Tent. But it's probably going to be something of a three ring circus. And that's ok too. The Republicans have just once again proven that professional, top-down, ideological control can lead to abject failure of governance as easily as political chaos. Maybe it's time to let the amateurs take a stab at it.
It's not about the name applied to theleft, or the demoratic party, (netroots, bigtent, whatever) - it's about actually advancing policies and providing practical measurable improvements benefiting all Americans, and particually, the notwhite, notrich Americans. The rich white Americans already have every possible advantage and extraordinary largess from the government access to financial intraments and stategies that most American can never dream of enjoying. It is working Americans, disadvantaged Americans (notwhite, notrich populations), and Americans from all circles regardless of race, gender, sexual persuasion, income strata, or religious proclivity that the democratic party should be defending, protecting, and working in every possible way to advance their, the peoples will and best interests.
Talk is cheap and hollow. Actions define success or failure, and when it comes to actions, and actual practical realworld achievements, - despite the empassioned support of the majority of Americans, Democratic leaders have failed woefully to advance the peoples will or best interests.
I personally believe democratic leaders are either cowards, or complicit. When democratic leaders stand firm against the fascist policies and wanton profiteering of the Bush government - regardless and in spite of the Bush governments certain sliming, demonizatinn operations, - and regardless of the supposedly dire political consequences parroted by the complicit parrots in the socalled MSM, - and regardless of the mammoth enticements offered by this or that lobby group, oligarch, or K Street snake oil salesmen, - when democratic leaders muster the courage to stand firm and demand accountability from the fascist warmongers, profiteers, and pathological liars in the Bush regardless of and in spite of the political reprecussion, - then theleft, the netroots, the bigtent constituencies will rush to support them.
We are waiting. We are begging. We are hoping. We are praying for democratic leaders to emerge that have the courage to facedown, and defeat the fascists in the Bush government. All America's many crisis are doomed to fail, until and unless we execute and peaceful and orderly and just regime change here in the land of Oz. Then and only, then can intelligent leadership assume command of the good ship America, right her course, and begin the arduous and daunting work of righting the terrible, bloody, costly, wrongs of the fascist in the Bush government.
We are hoping and praying for leaders, not fencewalkers, for leaders not complicit parrots, for leaders not empty suits and hollow PR cutouts.
The nano-second any democratic leader arrives with the courage to stand firm against, - and forcefully in public, unashamedly repudiate, renounce, and unconditionally reject all the fascist policies of the warmongers, profiteers, and pathological liars in the Bush government, and truly give voice to the voiceless, and hope to the hopeless - the people will pour in like a tsunami with a flood of support and raise that champion to the presidency.
We are waiting!
"Deliver us from evil!"
September 6, 2007 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
How far "the other way"? How long is "a bit"? This is too vague to mean anything, except "Don't do it the 'DLC' way." OK, what way shall we do it then? After years and years of netroot carping about the "third way," the netroots found candidates they could get behind: people like Jim Webb, a former Republican, whose only difference with the DLC is Iraq. Is that your idea of "the other way" for a "bit"?
They are? What percentage of people get even a chunk of their news from the internet? Is it 5% yet? I'm all for "cutting out the middleman," especially considering what an abysmal and dishonest job the middleman has done lately, but I'm even more all for a realistic assessment of where we are, and where we are is a world where 95%, if not more, of the populace gets no more news than what they see on their TV set or in their doctor's office skimming through the hideous tripe in Time or Newsweek. People in the netroots say they understand this, but it's obvious by reading them, by reading posts like this one, in fact, that they really don't. Then, we have the likelihood of large numbers of people giving up their American Idol and spending the time it takes to actually become educated and politically aware. You're talking about a fantasy, a world where people behave in ways they never have in human history. And you're basing an electoral strategy (at least, I think there might be the beginnings of the idea of a strategy in there somewhere once we find out how far "a bit" is), on that fantasy.
I could go on, pointing out the usual netroots nonsense about a "failed" third way (the failure being the electoral defeats of '02 and '04), and the implication that going the "other way" for "a bit" would have reversed those failures. Sure it would have. A Democratic Party that lost in '02 and '04 because people were angry and frightened after 9/11, and because Bush had 70+ percent approval ratings, would have done better at the polls by opposing Bush and his war. Maybe a bit better, anyway.
I can remember a whole lot of elections where we did go the "other way" for "a bit," and got the shit beat out of us. Apparently Digby can't.
Crooked cops, crooked lawyers, crooked judges, crooked politicians, crooked doctors, crooked scientists, crooked clergymen -- but no crooked journalists. An amazing record for an amazing class of people.
September 6, 2007 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some short comments:
- Digby, it's better to have a Democratic coalition in which Netroots sit next to centrist Democears. The collaboration of several groups will result in a better, more reflective, government.
- Labor issues are almost terra incognita for the Netroots; this mandates labor at the table and labor sometimes couldn't care less about foreign policy towards South Africa, for example.
- With all do respect, you'll never be able to talk to people in Detroit, for them you're from Mars.
- I may be to the left of Netroots, but the Netroots are still a small group under the Tent.
September 6, 2007 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
A tent full of elephants is not a great place for people.
Best, Terry
September 6, 2007 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
But what if Democrats aren't cowards and aren't merely complicit with the fascists. What if they too are in favor of fascist policies and wanton profiteering? What if their supposed fear of being blamed for weakness is false and they actually believe that making war and making money are the best way to fill their own personal coffers? What about the senators that voted for FISA: Bayh (D-IN), Carper (D-DE), Casey (D-PA), Conrad (D-ND), Feinstein (D-CA), Inouye (D-HI), Klobuchar (D-MN), Landrieu (D-LA), Lincoln (D-AR), McCaskill (D-MO), Mikulski (D-MD), Nelson (D-FL), Nelson (D-NE), Pryor (D-AR), Salazar (D-CO) and Webb (D-VA)? Aren't they in favor of fascist policies? The Dem senators who unanimously voted for the Lieberman Amendment, full of lies about Iran?
You are hoping and praying for a leader but personally I don't need a leader, I need someone as president who obeys the law, and representatives who provide for the general welfare and not just for their own prosperity. I need a democracy.
September 6, 2007 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
How much time does the DLC spend worrying about the huge chasm that has opened up between the privileged and the working class? I hadn't heard it was a big concern.
If you can't see the difference between a liberal populist and Republican Lite, you might need some glasses.
According to George Will, our meritocracy rewards IQ. Try out that theory with the like of George Bush and Dan Quayle.
My all-time favorite defense of Dan Quayle was Ted Kennedy saying Quayle was just as smart of the rest of us.
How about that for a total refutation of George Will, not to mention your own thesis?
Best, Terry
September 6, 2007 9:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Word Don Bacon. We are seeking the same end, the exact same kind of leadership that will pilot America through this turbulent moment and honestly, legally, and in practical reality confront and surmount our growing ocean of crisis/
I do also appreciate and applaud your stipulation that said leader abides by the Constitution, the rule of law, the laws of the land, and core principles that formally defined America.
We can only hope and pray.
"Deliver us from evil!"
September 6, 2007 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have no suggestions to offer right now, no recommendations for courses of action others might take. All I have to offer are some personal feelings.
I'm 48 now, and I have voted for Democrats all my life. Well ... when I was 18 I did vote for a Republican for Selectman in my home town, but that's because he was my friend's uncle. Since then, I am fairly certain that I have not voted for a single Republican or even an Independent in any race, for any office, at any governmental level. All Democrats.
But I have never felt so alienated from the Democratic Party as I do now. Being a Democrat no longer feels like an important part of my identity, or gives me any discernible warm fuzzy feelings. And this despite the fact that I have never been more concerned about global events than I am now, and never followed the news or the world more closely, or with more alarm. The times seem truly epochal and fraught with peril, but for me that perception don't translate into party enthusiasm or activism. The primary is coming up soon here in New Hampshire. But the campaign strikes me as a tremendous bore so far.
Certainly my diffidence is not due to the fact that I have moved toward the center. Republicans have never been more loathsome to me than they are now in 2007. So I'm sure I will go right along voting for Democrats, just like I'm sure I'll continue to pay my tax bills. But there is nothing remotely inspiring about the prospect. Of course, the Republicans may end up running another horrifying evil cretin, and so I suppose come November of 2008 I may well be highly motivated to defeat the Evildoers by voting for whatever generic Democrat is running. Perhaps that will get my spirit up. A more efficient and intelligent manager of the creaky and moribund bureaucracy of the doddering sunset empire of the West is to be preferred to a continued turn down the path to fascism. But that's about the best way I can put the choice.
The American political system just seems so hopeless to me right now, so thoroughly incapable of grasping the exigencies of the times and responding to them with vigor, imagination and decisiveness, that I cannot find it within me to get worked up about the coming election. It looks to me that no matter who is elected, we are going to continue to drift along in Iraq; drift into conflict with Iran; drift into a new Cold War with the Russians; drift into financial insolvency; drift into a crappy environmental future; drift further into resource competition and resource wars; drift into an increasingly polarized and slummified have vs. have-not world; drift further into the inevitable imperial decline of a shrinking power hanging on against all reason to a massive, greedy and unnecessary military complex; drift along with nostalgic conservative and liberal elites trying to recapture their old feelings of importance by mounting heroic foreign crusades rather than participating in practical cooperative problem-solving; and drift further into cultural decline, anti-intellectualism, moral vulgarity and fragmentation.
An old world is dying, and a new one is taking its place. But the cluster of interests defining the old order in the United States is so locked into place, on both the right and the "left", that it appears to be beyond the capacity of party politics and the US political system to resist these interests and address the new challenges.
As big as the United States is, and for all its supposed global reach, its political culture is that of a hopelessly introverted and provincial backwater. I often feel like I am at a town meeting where we townspeople have been warned that there are volcanoes erupting, dams breaking and people rioting in all of the surrounding towns, but all we are debating is whether it is time to pave the elementary school parking lot. And these incessant, mawkish invocations and explorations of the "American Dream", the "American Story", the "American Journey", the "American Experience", the American This and the American That are like a non-stop concert by the high school band on the town common, as the flood waters race down Main Street.
More talk about a "liberal revival" from the grizzled veterans of old political battles leaves me cold. The term "liberal" no longer means anything much to me. They might as well be talking about a whig or federalist revival. It's not that none of the preoccupations of 20th century liberalism are still relevant - many still are, just as are the preoccupations of whigs and federalists. It's just that such terms already seem like relics of history, and their invocation just more epicycles on old debates about old battles and old movements sporting old labels for old coalitions that no longer exist.
So US party politics as usual, whether in its older forms or its new turbo-charged, netrootsy form, holds little attraction for me. I'm not sure what exactly I am going to do. But I'm sure it's time for me to turn my attentions elsewhere, and find some other channel for playing a small role in influencing global affairs in what appears to me to be a positive direction.
September 6, 2007 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for coming through Digby.
Geez -- I think what I read here . . .
. . . is basically what my point was about with the current condition of the "big tent" here: I don't cotton to the elite wing requiring the lesser have-nots of the party to sit second banana in the nose bleed section eating cold paper wrapped hotdogs and drinking warm flat soda while they sit in the corporate tent suite being fed filet mignon off $500 china plates and sipping Dom Perignon from Waterford crystal. (it's in there ya' just have to read it) ...
The voices from the rafters will be heard.
~OGD~
September 7, 2007 4:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Digby. I delighted in seeing you accept the the award on behalf of the Blog contingency at the Take Back America Conference. There is so much in your post here that I'm tempted to trope on lots of it, save that I'm sitting in my skivvies waiting for my ride to call and warn me that its time to get ready to head out to the education factory and earn my living. I may come back at the end of the day and if the thread hasn't drifted off into some incomprehensible spat or other as threads often do. Two things immediately strike me
I don't know if I qualify as a member of the "new activist wing" or not. I don't keep a blog myself: I read a ton of them, and I post here nearly every day someplace or other. I hardly qualify as "new" anything...at 66 I guess I'm now officially a new member of the "younger elder" population...merrily looking forward to become a middle elder in a few years, and then, an older elder if I hang on that long.
But I am an activist, and I bear scars--lots of them. I've morphed to the net through discovering the net, and there are bunches of my generation who have done the same...it's a little easier on the feet and knees than yet another march. (I still do those, too--I'm a younger elder). I guess what I'm thinking is that the distinction we occasionally make for rhetorical reasons is not as sharp as we think...I wear a lot of hats.
The other thing I find interesting is something I see creeping into the discussion in this thread and elsewhere...a kind of despair (perhaps a cautionary, "don't get my hopes up too high" despair) which I find both troubling and sad. For example, I read Dan K. with delight, most of the time. But when I read about someone 18 year younger than I am musing about walking away from the political process--
...I'm tempted to despair myself. But only tempted. I don't think I'm mawkish, and I don't spend a lot of time musing on or even believing in some S0's TV version of the American Dream. Nor do I confine what I do to the political arena alone. If I carried all my membership cards in my wallet I wouldn't be able to sit down. But I cannot believe that the political arena and especially the political arena of the Democratic Party would be better by my absence. I have too much hubris for that. And, maybe because I'm 66 and not 48, I'm used to feeling alienated. I probably wouldn't feel like myself if I wasn't alienated. But my having come to accept my alienation as a fact of life I choose not to let it take me to the sidelines politically.
My ride just called... time for a quick shower and a trip to the education factory. Have a good day, one and all, and don't give up hope. Be audacious. <grin></grin>
aMike
September 7, 2007 4:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
The netroots are not in the least bit interested in persuading them of anything. They are speaking to the crowd in the tent directly -- and hopefully with more and more sophisticated outreach they will be listening to the concerns of those people in Scranton or Detroit or Santa Fe, as well.
Yes.
I have been harsh and critical of Professor Gitlin for his Big Tent analogy. I do recognize he is using the Big Tent metaphor in a different and more nuanced way. But I still hear "Big Tent" nonetheless and it causes me to have a Pavlovian reaction.
The Big Tent is stifling and airless without it. The politicians have had the passion bred out of them apparently so the "movement" may have to fill that void too. (I'm frankly not sure it shouldn't be that way anyway --- cults of personality are for fascists.)
It is time. When the passion of the Democratic Party is firmly rooted in how can they tweak their message and win some swing districts from the GOP, it tells me they officially abdicated their position as "The Party of the People". They need to stop worrying about being everything to everybody and stand for something. People (the voters) admire politicians who stand for something other than just winning elections.
My home when I am not ranting here...
September 7, 2007 5:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
We need a new way besides the third way. The third way represented the best strategy in an age of Republican ascendancy, basically trying to hold back the worst of the bad ideas. Compromising has gotten us some very bad legislation - the Iraq war, the bankruptcy bill, the Medicare drug bill, the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, "improvements" to FISA, etc. All of these are pretty bad bills I think most of us can agree. Now we control Congress and what do we do - we continue abstinence-only education (a complete waste of money which only makes things worse), we keep funding the Iraq war - we even added more troops and we have failed to repeal the worst of these laws. Can you see why people are searching for something new?
September 7, 2007 5:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Leaders with the courage to face even political death, if need be, in order to stand up forcefully, not just to the bush cabal, but to all the fear and fear-mongering behind it.
Leaders of courage. Willing to accept even loss at the ballot box, urging the population to stand up along with them, calling for the restoration of full Constitutional separation of powers, compliance with laws, and civil rights. To bring an end to secret surveillance. To restore habeas corpus. End detentions and torture, which flout international laws and conventions. We need freedom of information, oversight, and leaders who both obey the law and urge fellow citizens not to be fightened of their liberties.
September 7, 2007 5:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
After the rolling fiasco that has been 2000-2007 (and it actually started in 1994), I really do wonder why it is that only the Lieberman wing of the Democratic Party gets to speak in the tent (much less take a turn as ringmaster) while everyone else, /including the party's base/, has to sit quietly and read their David Broder like good children.
sPH
September 7, 2007 6:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not True. Jim Webb is well to the left on economic issues. Don't you remember his initial speech as the official response to Bush's state of the Union Address where he talked about plutocrats and too much income inequality destorying the American Dream?
September 7, 2007 6:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Prior to the Reagan election, I asked a young couple, jobless and verging on homeless, who they were going to vote for, Reagan or Carter, and they said Reagan. Stunned, I asked why. "Because he's going to kick ass." Obviously, if they'd realized that Reagan didn't exactly have their welfare in mind, they wouldn't have voted for him? But of course they had no idea of the 'Reagan' agenda. They were merely bouncing off the Carter 'hostage' crisis, as were all those other so-called swing voters.
The Democratic party is in trouble whenever fear grips the American public. The Party, since fear seems firmly entrenched in the American psyche, has to convince the voters that they'll be just as safe, or unsafe, under Democrats as they are, aren't, under Republicans.
I submit that now, as it has throughout history, fear overwhelms reason and that leads to fantasy.
September 7, 2007 7:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
The most recent study of the influence of the internet in terms of news source put it on par with radio--about 17%. It's no longer 5%.
It's not only important now, it grows in importance daily.
September 7, 2007 7:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
And for the 30 & under crowd, it is a majority.... that is where the future of the Democratic Party is.... young people, not old baby boomers who carry the baggage of Vietnam around like myself....
September 7, 2007 7:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, actually they don't. While it isn't easy, persons with time and patience can speak in the tent and get to be ringmasters, too. Lamont beat Lieberman within the Connecticut tent, we have to remember.
If one wants to be involved and fight one's way into the ring, here are a few things one can do:
Anyhow...my point is that we can either assume we can't make a difference in the party, or we can aspire to making that difference and do something about it. The best way to make sure we have zero influence on the "ringmasters" is the first option.
aMike
September 7, 2007 8:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
aMike,
Don't you worry, Dan Kervick isn't going to walk away from anything. After all, the state motto in New Hampshire is "Live Free Or Die". He was just having a bad hair day. We all have one now and then, the way things are.
September 7, 2007 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
The battle I see, aMike, is already being waged between those supporting a local and state party organization with real "on the ground" activists and those Dem elected pols and their hangers-on in WDC (including their pundits no matter where they raise their heads) who want to seed the party organization with folks who see things "their way" and, quite frankly, are making use of the older and decaying remnants of the political machines.
The last time I saw grassroots activists at the level I saw during the 2006 midterm campaigns was back in the 60's and 70's. In the decades between, I've listened to the "outsider" versus "insider" campaigns but that's a bunch of crap when you don't see it on the ground.
The roots for this was with Dean in 2004 but it did not translate into many boots on the ground. In the 2006 mid-terms, activists were out in the dozens--we were crawling all over each other. Remember Carville's cry during that campaign about the DNC borrowing money to support Dem candidates who suddenly had a chance to win? The possibilities of those wins didn't originate in a vacuum--they happened because grassroots folks were forking over their time and money. I've been seeing this activism in local and state campaigns for the past ten years.
I don't plan on folding up my tent after the first four states in the primary. I'll fight right down to the ditch on February 5th and then join others in later states to fight right down to the last possible delegate vote.
But for the Dem party to then "assume" that I'll put down money, time and a vote to support their latest imperial-leaning, non-Constitution supporting candidate in the general election is simply too much. I won't do it.
I'll continue the fight in the local and state "big tents" in preparation for the next battle at the national level. It may take the rest of my life and things may have to get worse before they get better at the national level, but I will stay with the battle and under the "big tent". The issues we face are simply too important.
September 7, 2007 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wasn't really talking about walking away from activism or politics themselves, but just the party politics sub-field thereof. So many of the intra-party discussions we have seem to come down to something like this: There might be some position X that many of us support and would like Democratic candidates to support. But we hear the answer, "We can't support X because only 35% of Americans support X. We need a bigger tent."
Fair enough. If that is true, then one essential realm of political activity will have to aim at figuring out how we build an immediate-term electoral majority that includes not position X, but maybe some half-X or quarter-X position. Some people have a talent for this essential activity. I don't think I do.
What I would like to do instead is work with people who are figuring out how to get 60% of Americans eventually to support X, so that the big tent in the next election, or the election after that, or the one after that, eventually includes full-throated support of X. The party organizing stuff seems to be in perfectly capable hands, and the Democrats will still get my vote. I'm just trying to figure out how I can have the best impact, given my own talents and interests.
I'm not talking about a difference between conventional party politics and netroots politics. Most of the netroots discussion is also obsessively focussed on the "How do we win the next election?" question. Perhaps there is a netroots "movement", but it mainly seems to be a movement for raising cash, helping out Democratic candidates in current races and strategizing about how to win those races. Again, I am not disparaging the need for this essential activity. I personally just don't have a lot of talent for it, or enthusiasm for it.
September 7, 2007 10:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds just like Todd Gitlin's introductory post on this Book Club.
Hey, ever think you might be suffering from netroots overdose? I have suffered this malady at times, only realizing it afterwards. A tip: compare Ed Kilgore's new post with this one by Digby. Which one seems more confused and confusing, and which one seems more clarifying? I find it helpful to always keep in mind that those willing to post comments at TPMCafe (or Kos or Atrios etc.) are probably not a good scientifc representation of Democratic voters (right away, it selects out the lurkers who are turned off by the conversation). I find it good for the mental health to once in a while read an edited Letters to the Editor or something where the angriest and most passionate have not been allowed to take over the balance. (This fellow boomer should also add: sigh, yeah, it's that "silent majority" thingie again. :-))
September 7, 2007 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Me Too!
aMike
September 7, 2007 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan,
I'm not so much interested in party politics either, but it seems to me that more than 35% of the electorate, especially Dems, do favor an end to war, universal health care, economic fairness, clean and fair elections, and curbing global warming. Cast in the proper terms they would also understand why the huge Pentagon budget is un-necessary and the Patriot Act is an infringement on our rights.
So the problem is not the people, it's the politicians. Polls show that the electorate is more progressive than the politicians. The problem is that the pols don't represent their constituents, but rather their corporate sponsors. The real reason they can't support X is because they don't care about their constituents nor the Constitution.
We need to focus not only on getting the truth out, but on getting politicians to behave.
September 7, 2007 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
And 2000. 2006 is looking pretty iffy too considering that some of the new representatives vote with Republicans on critical votes.
My complaint with the netroots is how gullible they are. They mostly fall for the same triangulation that they claim they oppose. They need to figure out that it isn't what a candidate says, it's what a candidate will do. Electing Democrats who vote like Republicans only matters to those who want a committee chairmanship or staff position. To the rest of us who aren't getting our interests represented any better by a Democratic Congress than a Republican Congress, it doesn't matter a damn.
September 7, 2007 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can I agree with this 200%? Except it may be that they can't bring themselves to trust their constituents more than that they don't care about them. (I'll give them a wee wee benefit of the doubt going into the weekend). Here's my case in point:
Congressional District 5, Minnesota
What would conventional wisdom advise in terms of choosing a nominee for Congress? Certainly not a Black follower if Islam. Yet Keith Ellison won more votes than the combined total of the Independent and Republican and Green Candidates running against him.
Conservative Pundits weren't all that happy, Rush Limbaugh wasn't all that happy, and Russell (not very)Goode wasn't happy, Michael Savage wasn't happy, either.
So I guess what I'm saying is that in this district at least, voters were way way way ahead of the professional politicos...I'm willing to wager a dime that the same would be true in lots of other districts, as well.
aMike
September 7, 2007 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don, that's why I think you need to get about 60% public approval for any progressive policy we want to enact. Politicians are always going to answer to the people on whom their jobs depend. In the United States, business and other entrenched interests do not count equally with popular interests. The former get more weight than the latter. So to counter them, you need overwhelming public support for your position, not just majority support. I don't think we are going to get politicians to do what we want just by railing at their cowardice or whorishness, and demanding that they grow a pair. We have to be able to hit them where it hurts.
September 7, 2007 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I doubt it, Mike. Of course, I’m in Delay-gerrymandered Texas, but I think, along with voter suppression, many other states have also been warped beyond fair elections.
September 7, 2007 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Never have.
The need for 60% approval for a policy is meaningless. All you need is 1 to be for something with the money and influence to see it enacted.
Overwhelming approval for some issues means nothing whatever as it seems will be true with universal health care, whoever is elected president.
The same is true for ending the Iraqi occupation.
The list is endless.
IMO the worst thing that could happen to the Democrats, not necessarily the country, is to put another Clinton in the White House. From the look of things at the present moment, that is precisely what will happen.
The Big Tent is full of elephants and the people are the ants.
I just ran across this jewel tonight that shows how badly things can go wrong despite good intentions. See Burn Oil, Save the Planet here.
I admire your optimism though, Dan. :-)
Best, Terry
September 7, 2007 11:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
~
Just a quickie to aMike before I run with the dogs:
Although five years your younger, I too somehow still maintain the motto (cribbed from an ol' scuffy associate):
And as you had kindly pointed out over here in this thread; yes I not only "remember my own yute" I'm still living it.
Now if I could at least get me that warm hotdog and a cool cup o' soda...
~OGD~
September 8, 2007 6:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Amen! Being president is just a job, nothing more and nothing less. Some people do the job better than others, and some are terrible at it, but it is still just a job and does not warrant extraordinary respect or admiration. The same with congresspersons. I just want them all to do the JOB they were hired for and stop acting so self-important.
As for a leader...I think that "we, the people" know perfectly well where we want to be and we don't need a "leader" to tell us where that is.
September 8, 2007 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink