Is a Democratic MoveOn Possible?
John Stauber raises a number of criticisms of MoveOn that he raised in my interviews with him, and before responding directly to them, I'm curious to see what Eli or Ben or others within or associated with MoveOn have to say.
That said, I want to just stress a few points:
1) Probably because my father was an organizer and my brother is one now and many of my friends work in the trenches, I am, as a writer and observer, a bit circumspect in criticizing people doing the very difficult work of organizing. (Or, "exceedingly fair" as John aptly put it) That's not to say there's no room for what in the olden days used to be called "principled critique," but it does mean that it's a whole lot easier to write a few grafs about the shortcomings of this or that organizing model than it is to actually organize. I try to keep that in perspective.
2) Substance v Process. I think in looking at MoveOn, and the whole post-impeachment progressive movement in general (in that I'd include MoveOn, the netroots and a whole host of institutions that grew up in the Bush years to push back against the right), it's important to distinguish between substantive critiques and procedural ones. John does a pretty good job of that. Some people think MoveOn isn't sufficiently anti-war, or embodies an ideology that's too tentative and squishy. That's fine. One thing you learn quickly as a writer for the Nation is that there'll always been someone to your left calling you a reactionary sellout. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's just the fact of the matter is that the American Left (and I'd imagine the Right, though I obviously don't know it as well) has a kind of ideological long-tail. And indeed the disagreements between radicals and liberals, for instance, are, while sometimes unpleasant, part of a larger dialectical process that is both inevitable and salutary. I do think, however, as Matt points out, that in general the ideological and political positions of MoveOn the group reflects those of its members quite well.
But John's question is a different one, about process. He and my friend David Sirota criticize MoveOn for not being democratic, and that's true: they're not. There is no structure whereby MoveOn members vote, as, say, union members do. I can imagine a day in which the local councils they've started naturally begin to assert themselves more forcefully and, perhaps create or evolve towards a bottom-up democratic structure. But, we shouldn't have any illusions about what this would entail organizationally. One of MoveOn's defining characteristics is the insanely high ratio of members to staff: almost 150,000 members per staff member. This would simply be impossible if they converted to the more democratic model that John and David urge. I don't have the numbers off-hand, but having spent a lot of time around the labor movement i can tell you the staffing ratio of your typical union is more like 100 to 1, maybe 1000 to 1 at the largest. The reason unions can afford a massive overheard and organizating is because of dues, which members all pay as an act of collective solidarity. But MoveOn doesn't have access to dues and as currently constituted simply could not financially support the kind of overheard and staffing of say, SEIU, or, as I compare it to in the article, the NRA. (Another organizationt that is, theoretically at least, democratic.)
In other words, a "democratic" MoveOn of the kind John envisions would be so different from the current MoveOn, that I'm not sure the critique is even really relevant, or if it's more like criticizing the New York Yankees for not being a better football team.
Christopher writes:
Not to nitpick, but in the ten years of its existence MoveOn has raised from its 3.2 million email=address list and from individual wealthy donors many tens of millions of dollars for its own operation, for ads it purchases, for its coalitions like the American Against Escalation in Iraq (how did that go?), and for candidates it supports. MoveOn has shown itself a very, very effective vehicle for raising funds. So I wouldn't worry, Chris, about its ability to redirect funds to grassroots infrastructure if that's what it chose to do.
The money would be there to create a bottom up structure, and of course one pay-off would be that an organization stronger at the grassroots would wield a heck of a lot more political clout. It's one thing to organize 50 candle light vigils with an appeal over the web and to an email list. It's another to actually build up organizations in 50 or 100 or more congressional district, local organization that could be run by the people who live there, and that don't fold their tent and go away until the next emailed call to action. Organizations with offices, development people, organizers, communications skills, tied together at the state and federal level with an accountability from the top to the bottom.
Again, I am not out to reform MoveOn, that is impossible. Only Wes and Joan and Tom and Eli and Adam and Nita and the other dozen folks who are decision makers could actually do that.
My purpose is to get people reading the Nation and reading this, those of us who are presumably working for fundamental social and political democratic change, to realize that MoveOn has reached its limits. MoveOn remains a great example of how smart online organizers pushing back against the Far Right and capitalizing on public outrage against an illegal war and other outrages can build a list and milk it, in the best sense of the word, for money. And MoveOn will continue to be a success at raising money and marketing for the causes its leadership chooses to endorse.
But there is a much greater potential that we need to realize, and that is the real lesson of MoveOn. It is the untapped potential in organizations that might learn to marry the MoveOn web-campaign style to the vision and goal of grassroots empowerment.
"Grassroots empowerment" is not just some catch phrase to slap into speeches and proposals. If you want to see it, look at the spontaneous and courageous uprisings of people anywhere in the world out to right a wrong, defend their communities, put an end to a blatant corruption, stop the funding of a disastrous war, or prevent a polluting incinerator from being built. That's grassroots democracy at its best, and its the tinder for building a bigger and sustained fire that reclaims our government from the wealthy elite who have taken over both Parties to different degrees.
The extreme challenges that present themselves today -- climate, energy, ecological destruction, economic injustice, the failures of industrial agriculture and corporate trade regimes, a looming global repression, interminable war -- demand a resurgence and recreation of democratic activism rarely seen, and especially here in the United States. MoveOn has shown how the web can be used to promote candidates, frame issues from a liberal perspective, and market them in a way that raises money and a lot of publicity. Good for them, we all should tip our hat and learn from it.
But the real prize here, the real challenge, is in using the web tools and methods that MoveOn exploits so well for something much more powerful, rooted and independent.
There is an organization called DemocracyInAction. It's a company that provides web-activism services to scores of progressive organizations. Each of those organizations has their own lists, some in the thousands some in the hundreds of thousands. The combined number of left/liberal/progressive names on those lists exceeds that of MoveOn. Imagine the potential if the people in these many organizations, or even some of them, decided to work together around the vision I'm outlining. Some people like Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association, a good friend whose group I advise, have taken some very interesting steps in this direction. But we need to see a lot more experimentation, a lot more realization that online petitions and fundraising, smarmy TV and print ads, millions of dollars raised for middle of the road candidates, is not enough to bring about the changes we need to make. It will take a much more ambitious populist uprising. And hard times are going to fuel populism from both the Right and the Left.
I am not out to reform MoveOn because again, that would be impossible. I am out to fuel this fundamental debate about how our various progressive movements can become much more powerful, effective, interlinked, and organized from the bottom up, empowering a 21st century left populism.
Part of the problem in even conducting this debate is that there are very few models to point to, and none of the major national public interest, environmental, labor or other progressive organizations are interested in giving up the power wielded by their few dozen top board, staff and funders, including MoveOn. [Or maybe I'm missing something. If there is a big well-funded national group that is really committed to building a democratic structure within itself, clue me in.]
But its late, and I'm tired and heading out of town tomorrow afternoon, so I'll let others weigh in on this discussion. Apologies for the typos!
July 30, 2008 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that Hayes and Stauber basically agree here. MoveOn is what it is. But there's room, and now the technology, to encourage something that's more about a MoveMENT.
And remember, MoveOn's name was about sanctioning Clinton and moving on from the whole Monica/Starr/EndlessInvestigationofthePresident fiasco. It was never meant to be a movement, it was meant to stop a travesty before a twice elected president lost the White House over a blow job in modern times.
Times have changed. MoveOn was born to defend the White House (and to a lesser extent, Clinton) and it grew up to fight Bush, but now something else has to be born in what I hope will be Obama's epoch. It'll be like what Stauber wants. MoveOn was born in the age of email. The next group will be born in the age of social networking. There will be room for both.
July 30, 2008 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fair point and it applies to MoveOn too...you can't please all of the people all of the time.
I don't know. Maybe I just see a wealth of unused potential. MoveOn has done yeoman's work raising money for and supporting liberal/progressive candidates. Sometimes the politicians who benefit from the financial support MoveOn's members provide aren't always using their positions, positions some of them have attained thanks to groups like MoveOn, to promote liberal/progressive causes. I'll use, even at the risk of being screamed at for being 'childish', the example of Barack Obama. I gave him my support in large part because of his stances on Iraq (immediate withdrawal) and FISA (would filibuster any bill with immunity in it). Now lets say I contributed to MoveOn because of positions on specific issues and then those positions are in part abandoned. Would I be wrong to be upset or disappointed? Should there be some accountability in that regard? Or am I way off base suggesting this?
I think the left is in need of a grassroots organization. I am not saying MoveOn is or should be that organization, as they are primarily an organization that raises money for democratic candidates based on issues, but they could be a force in starting one. There is a huge reservoir of non-monetary resources just waiting to be tapped.
July 30, 2008 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
In 2004, when I was phone banking for them, the Dem candidate (that won barely) disavowed MoveOns assistance.
That was certainly weird.
July 31, 2008 12:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
MoveOn started as a moderate organization. It took a hard turn left, which was fine with me, but they lost a lot of their original members.
They need to get back to their roots and become the force for change that they once were.
It has nothing to do with numbers, and everything to do with members.
They tend to take us for granted.
July 31, 2008 12:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
such a joke - let me get this straight - here is an organization - or rather a "service" that is the first one in modern history to actually enable progressives to gain POLITICAL POWER, and all elitists like Stauber and Sirota can do is trash and criticize because the group doesn't always "fit" their narrow-minded narrative - here's a suggestion - rather than bitch about a group that has done as much if not more than any progressive group in modern history to give progressives a voice in the mainstream national political news cycle, why don't you start your own group to run things the way you see fit. This is why progressivism fails - self-described progressive "experts" (who havent WON a damn thing in how long?) eat their own, rather than fostering and improving. While you all have been bitching in the last 72 hrs, MoveOn has been getting PROGRESSIVE frames into the national news cycle on issues from health care to taking on McCain and BIG OIL. Sirota and Stauber should go write another book and screw off.
July 31, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, tell us how you REALLY feel.
July 31, 2008 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink