I really resent the word "insurgent" used against those of us who can't stand where this party has been going. Why don't you just call us "terrorists"?

Some of us just can't follow a party that can't seem to do anything but vote for war. Today, Hillary the Hawk and friends voted to take us down another road to war in Iran. Today, the Democrats cave in one more time (seems they do it every day!) to right wing fear mongering and militarism.

No need to make this all so complicated. The simple fact is that the party is no longer representing some of us on core issues like war and peace.

I think I take what you are saying, but some of it is hard to follow without giving some examples, either of people or of institutions, that represent certain centers of gravity within the party.

Anyway, I think one explanation for a lot of elected Dems is that they are politicians, a chief concern for them is getting re-elected, they wrongly believe that they need to be very cautious to appear moderate/centrist, and that means they have to just go along with whatever it is the GOP wants to do (like Ben Nelson wanting to appoint DoJ elections law malefactor Hans von Spakovsky to the Federal Election Commission -- that's not getting him any votes in Nebraska, so why?).

If instead they would just have a little courage, and some conviction, they could actually do better both for themselves, their constituents, and the country.

Alternatively, the netroots may eventually bring enough pressure to bear that they face a price for voting the wrong way (or face a primary challenger if they always vote the wrong way).

How do they think Russ Feingold keeps getting re-elected in Wisconsin anyway?

Yes, but it's just another example of how the "establishment" casually picks up words to describe members of its own party that reinforce right wing spin.

It's fine to take him seriously, Ed, and I take him very much more seriously than I did in 1992 and 1996 because I now understand that centrists and I have some fundamental differences on core values.

Tom Harkin comes from the same "place" I do. He's a rural, Irish, social-justice Catholic who has embraced issues like rights for the disabled out of family experience. He has the courage to stand up for values like reproductive rights which are very difficult for him personally and politically. And he was a great friend of my hero, Paul Wellstone, the only Democrat up for reelection with the guts to vote against the war in Iraq.

(P.S. my dear old mother in Iowa, a swing voter if there ever was one, tells me she doesn't know anyone who likes Hillary.)

"Accepting that there's plenty of principle, and plenty of cynicism, scattered around the Democratic Party is a good first step towards party unity, if that matters to you."

It used to matter to me but not any longer. I'll vote for anyone but a Democrat in the next election. It's bad enough that they lied about ending the Iraq war. Now they have the nerve to hold votes to condemn the Left in the Senate and the House. Personally, I think the netroots should abandon them and do the same thing to them they have done to us, declare war on them.

Maybe you could call us neo-populists. When you've got 89% of Americans unhappy with Congress, i.e., the political establishment, something is brewing. I don't know where it's going but I don't think triangulation is sufficient to address it. People don't believe they count and they don't believe they're being heard, worse, they don't believe it's worth talking because no one is listening. The netroots can't stop talking but I'm not so sure they (we) sufficiently represent the depth and breadth of the angst out here.

If anyone can stand it go to the DLC website here http://www.dlc.org/ and see what they have in big shiny lights. It's the article by the right-wing hack David Brooks trashing the netroots. Then the DLC has the audacity to whine and moan that we are unfair to them.

It's war boys. You had better prepare.

I agree with your last sentence, bluebell. I suspect we have a lot more anguish out here than the DC folks begin to realize.

Brooks, Lieberman and that cretin who used to work at the DLC, Bullshit or BullMoose, are all symbolic of that wing of the party. I can't believe those right-wing fanatics have the nerve to call themselves centrists. It must be a marketing scheme, or some sort of inside joke?

Unless you are involved in a plot to violently overthrow a democratic government, you are pretty much a moderate. However, those phonies seem to think they have some sort of monopoly on moderation. Guess what Lieberman I wasn't one of the people who flew a plane into the WTC, nor was I the third man on the grassy knoll. The fact that you refer to me as an extremist is a sign of your intellectual bankruptcy.

Insurgents?  Maybe I am.  When I see the "centrist" democrats aid and abet the passing of that HORRIBLE FISA bill maybe it is time for a insurgency.  I don't even want to talk about compromising my principles for the right wing of the Democratic Party...

Well, folks, it's well past midnight EDT, and getting late everywhere else. I'm perfectly willing to continue engaging you on the history and general nature of the DLC (for whom, I hope you know, I am no longer any kind of spokesman) or my use of particular nouns and adjectives. If my appearances at TPMCafe primarily turn out to be a rare opportunity for expressing anger directly at someone once identified with the DLC, I guess I am serving some sort of public utility function.

But I do wonder if anybody's interested in the main point of my post, which relates to the different elements of the D.C. Democratic Establishment, and the different responses of anti-establishment (I'll eschew the word "insurgent" henceforth) progressives to what they perceive as their main intra-party enemies. I raised as many questions as answers, because the subject is an open one.

A couple of comments (most recently, one by vorkosigan1) have gotten into the substance of what I wrote about, but it would be nice to see others. "The Argument" can best be continued if we understand the various intra-party forces and where they actually stand.

Ed Kilgore

Also, the points you've made are pretty complex and require a fair level of expertise to address, so they're not so easy for us average folks who aren't steeped in the minutiae to comment on.

Your rough disaggregation of the "DC Establishment" into the "interest-group liberalism" which presumably reigned in the pre-Clinton era and the "Clintonians" of the DLC era makes sense to me. I think one thing you might want to pay more attention to, though, is the timeline, and how it helped drive the fury of the "insurgents". I get the sense that a lot of insurgents are people who agreed with the DLC in 1992 (or might have, if they were old enough) that it was time to take a step back from the PC interest-group balkanization which had come to define the Democrats, to move towards the broad middle and be realistic about compromises and governing. The difference, however, comes in the reactions to GOP strategies of the '90s. I know that personally, I responded to the GOP's 1994 campaign as though I had been played for a fool; having moved towards the center, I found the other guy trying to pull the center back away from me. And as the GOP continued to pursue that strategy through the Lewinsky years, this anger hardened into fury. And it seemed then to the people who gelled in the original MoveOn group that too many in the DLC wing of the party were responding to GOP intransigence by trying ever-harder to triangulate and compromise, and that this was gradually eviscerating the party (not to mention the country).

None of this redounded on Clinton himself. He remained the wounded lion, and Hillary, by speaking the words "vast right-wing conspiracy", named the thing the NetRoots would ultimately define itself against. But if the insurgents tend to concentrate their fury against the DLC rather than the older interest-group Democrats, it's because it is the DLC's strategy that has proven so inadequate...well, since Clinton left office. Basically, in order to convince Democrats that they have to drop some of their interest-group demands and move to the center, you have to be Bill Clinton -- a sui generis political natural who can straddle huge political divides and make everyone feel that he's on their side. There is one guy in the Presidential race who has that kind of talent -- Barack Obama -- but he's currently making the kinds of beginner's mistakes Bill Clinton made early in his career in Arkansas. Anyway, the policy wonk figures in the DLC definitely don't have that kind of talent; and as a result they tend to convince people only that they are on no one's side at all.

The descent into madness of Joe Lieberman hasn't been very good for the DLC, either.

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone

=== I know that personally, I responded to the GOP's 1994 campaign as though I had been played for a fool; having moved towards the center, I found the other guy trying to pull the center back away from me.
[...]
The descent into madness of Joe Lieberman hasn't been very good for the DLC, either. ===

Right on, Ed!  I'm one of those people who came up in local Democratic politics in Texas, and now that I'm hanging out with the national Democratic activist crowd, I don't identify with either stream of "Establishment" Democrats...and I don't feel that close to the some tendencies within the Netroots either.

Thanks for pointing this out.

It's funny how people talk about the netroots like it is some sort of defined entity. To me another way to describe a member of the netroots is to say they are a citizen who knows how to use a computer. The last time I looked 70% of the nation want us out of Iraq and yet citizens with computers are the only ones who get tagged with that label. In fact, they have found another expression to equate with Satan, anti-war Left. If you want to win an argument all you have to say is ant-war left, or netroots, and roll your eyes.

And speaking of the Dems helping Bush with his agenda, I'd like to hear Ed's response to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7raAL3Wld0

The polls suggest that Dems in America are extremely unhappy with the elected Dems in Congress (Repubs actually approve more of their obstructionist and fighting GOP reps), yet they refuse to change their ways and truly represent the people. Being innocent bystanders while Bush ravages the world is one thing the Dem congress critters claim. I'm thinking they should buck up, really represent the people (elected to represent Mr. Hoyer, understand that?) and thus gain the people's support 'cause the Bush bogeyman is going away soon and then who they gonna blame for the Lieberman party votes?

Bill Clinton doesn't really even enter into this conversation in my mind. First, it's different when you are the president, especially when you have to work with a difficult Congress. I don't even think that it's cynical to be poll-driven to a certain extent. Politics is the art of the possible, right? Besides, polls have almost always suggested big Dem leads on many of these domestic issues, so they just don't provide the whole explanation for these things.

I think he did what he could for the most part post-94, given where the GOP was in Congress. Before that, I think Hillary screwed up by not proposing something more like her current healthcare plan back then with a then-existent moderate GOP co-sponsor (maybe Chafee Sr. as suggested at the debate last night), not picking a fight with the insurance companies and doctors, and then dividing and conquering the GOP opposition by picking off enough marginal Republicans to pass it, rather than deciding to focus on NAFTA and I think a BTU tax. So I guess I actually take that as something where a more moderate approach would have done a lot of good for a lot of people.

Vorkosigan1:

On your first point, I was working at the DLC in 2002, and experienced first hand the anger and exasperation felt there about the Democratic congressional strategy. They had zero input in that campaign, which followed the same basic formula of tiny and fragmented domestic initiatives that polled well but added up to no message at all, that House Dems in particular had been using since 1994.

The only blame the DLC might justly accept for that particular moment was its earlier inability to convince all of its congressional allies to vote against any version of the Bush tax cuts, which didn't save the defectors that November.

As for Clinton's lack of accomplishments...well, I won't bore you with a lot of details, but I'm a bit surprised to hear a progressive adopt the conservative dismissal of Clinton's economic policies as just a matter of riding a tech boom he had nothing to do with. All those people (particularly minorities) who were able to buy homes for the first time during that period didn't lose them when the tech bubble burst. And despite what's happened economically under Bush, all those low-to-middle-income families who achieved the first real income gains in three decades weren't just deriving them from the stock market. More importantly, we've been experiencing for nearly seven years now the fact that national economic policies do have real-life consequences (I could say the same on the environmental front, where Clinton's record looks pretty damn good when you consider how many of his policies have now been reversed).

As for Clinton's political accomplishments, I guess if you really think he was responsible for a 1994 debacle that had been building for the better part of two decades, then there's probably nothing I could say to convince you he was responsible for the painfully slow but real Democratic comeback that ensued. By taking welfare and crime off the table as issues, he arguably brought a long era of overtly racist politics to an end. He also significantly restored public faith in the ability of government to do important things right (which has greatly added to the public outrage over Bush's handling of Katrina and Iraq). And lest we forget, America was the most admired nation in the world when Clinton left office. It's been a long, fast trip down from Clinton's presidency.

Sure, Clinton will also bear responsibility for the consequences of the Lewinsky affair, but I remain convinced that Gore would have actually taken office, saving us and the world untold grief, if he had simply run on his own administration's record and said: "I'll be Bill Clinton without the sex."

Ed Kilgore

Lydia:

Thanks for the endorsement. I'm beginning to think I should have done my whole post on the subject of Democrats who really haven't been brought into "The Argument."

Ed Kilgore

The Democrats seem to be primarily interested in one thing at the moment, expanding their appeal in Red States. They are willing to do this in spite of what the base, and majority of Americans want, and in contradiction of what they said they would do when they were elected.

I can only assume they are willing to do this because they think we, the base, have no other choice but to vote for them. We may be angry and extremely disappointed at their lies, but we will vote for them regardless. I think they need to be awakened from that assumption in order for them to stop lying to the people, get off their spineless asses, and stop the war. The only way to do that is to stop giving them money, rhetorical support and vote for anyone but them. I couldn't agree with you more about voting for a third party, and if one is not available, just stay home.

If there are really two Democratic establishments at odds with one another, one (to oversimplify) focused more on ideas and the other on bringing the power of already organized interests and constituencies to bear in defending existing programs, then my reaction is it's no wonder Democrats have been in the wilderness for so big a part of the past 30 years.

The best ideas, without organized power to fight for them, are no more likely to prevail than a Cowardly Lion when up against powerful organized interests opposed to change.

Organized power uncentered on, or irrelevant to, the right agenda for our country and our world, can no more represent the kind of change agency worthy of passionate commitment than a Scarecrow lacking any cognitive functioning.

And a two-headed DC Establishment which doesn't realize it can't get anywhere without working together with one another, and with and in support of grassroots party-builders, is like a Tin Man lacking a heart--or, if one wants to mix and mangle metaphors even more than I've done already, a two-legged stool.

Too many of the intraparty, cross-wing exchanges I observe at this site and elsewhere strike me as being overly focused on who's been right in the past, rather than on what lessons might be learned from the past so as to create a better present and future. Each side in these setpiece exchanges has its own stock narrative or morality play that gets trotted out with the implicit and all too often explicit taunts and insults: "Self-serving sell-out!" "Self-destructive fanatic!"

Both wings of the DC Democratic Establishment seem so focused at sniping at one another that the real wonder is that those of us not a part of this scene--which includes most of us at this site, I suspect--feel as much of a sense of investment in the Democratic party, as many of us do, some only on our better days.

But I draw hope from what appears to be the reality that, as Mark Schmitt wrote about in his post on Bai's book, the right conversations seem to be taking place more often in the last few years. FWIW, Ed, you come across to me as someone sincerely interested in engaging in an honest and searching way with folks outside of your own immediate comfort zone. So I'm glad to hear you're able and willing to look past the backwards-focused insults and taunts and engage with the great many of us here and elsewhere, from whatever wing of the party or no wing of the party, who are trying and struggling to face and move forward to rise to the challenges of our times.

You do get a rough time here, Ed. But you know we love ya, right? I mean, those of us who have been around awhile and know you do love the opportunity to debate a well-known centrist Democrat, but you very often convince us that our interparty divisions are not as dramatic as they sometimes seem.

I suggest this to you, purely because I'm curious about what you'd make of it: the new message that the Democratic party needs is the old message, and it is the FDR message. But, when Clinton ran for office, what was needed was triangulation. After 12 years of Reagan/Bush policies, in which the top tax rate did drop by 20 percentage points, a Democratic candidate did have to run in a progressive way, but also with the knowledge that the country had been in conservative thrall for more than a decade.

Now, things are different. Even the conservatives will never talk about Dubya the way they talk about Reagan. It was a two-term presidency, but a failure. So now, we can go old school lefty. We're not fighting something that was mostly successful. We're fighting an unmitigated failure.

Is it possible that triangulation once had its moment and that now is a different moment, and a bolder moment? Maybe it isn't. Unlike you, I've never worked on a campaign. But my gut tells me we can get a little old school right now. People are hurting, private industry is failing them, isn't it time for government to step in?

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

destor23:

Thanks for the hug, which I sincerely reciprocate. I do think we are all, to use the outworn but still valid lefty term, "comrades," and my favorite blogospheric sparring partners are those who start out combatively, but then teach me something and maybe let me teach them something.

As for your general point, my second post on Bai's book indicates my general agreement with the idea that fighting Republicans now is a very different proposition than fighting them during the Clinton administration. I don't know that FDR is the right model for the kind of message we need, but we certainly need something combative, forward-looking, and open to experimentation. I'll leave it to others to conclude which if any of our presidential candidates fit that bill.

On a more specific issue, I do have to take issue with the "triangulation" characterization of what Clinton was about. That term was invented and briefly used by Dick Morris in 1996, as a shorthand for how Clinton would deal with his policy and message differences with House Democrats who had been fighting him for a couple of years. Even by Morris' definition, "triangulation" meant using progressive policies to deal with conservative political themes (e.g., welfare, crime, and hatred of government).

It was never an accurate description of Clinton's overall political strategy or policy approach, though the similar-sounding "third way" philosophy that Clinton did embrace probably created unecessary confusion. The "third way" meant not "triangulation" but a new progressive approach to problems the old left couldn't solve. And it was, and remains, an unambiguously Left concept that implies a different progressive strategy for defeating, not surrendering to, the Right.

Combining my two answers to your comment, you might even say that giving the GOP holy uncompromising hell is the appropriate Third Way strategy for this particular moment.

Ed Kilgore