Why the Democrats Will Probably Fuck up Again
Locally, and nationally, progressive values have the best chance they've had in 75 years to change the country's direction. By any logical standard, the coming mid-term elections should be a slam-dunk to sweep the most corrupt party in our history out of power. Coming on its heels, the next presidential election should be the most profound shift in electoral power since Jackson.
Unfortunately, progressive hopes are pinned in part on the Democratic party, and in part upon the most inept and inchoate political left on the planet.
The Republicans should be even worse...Certainly, their performance in office makes Louis XVI look like a human rights god...But they know how to herd cats. No Democrat in a generation has shown that ability. Anyone who did would probably be crushed by his or her "friends" long before getting the critters into the same corral.
I've been thinking about this since reading MassMarrier's rant last month on Howard Dean. Here's my take on Dean, and on incidents of the sort that sparked that flame. I see an individual who seems to have very impressive background skills as an organiser. If progresssives are to have any hope at all, we need that. Dean is also someone who should never be allowed in front of a microphone without a gag. Apparently, he has to get in front of the mikes because there aren't enough Democrats willing to pull in the same direction who are good in front of hostile media. Surely there must be some who could speak to the broad issues far better than Dean, but is it that they won't help this man because he doesn't rise to a delusional standard of ideological purity? Surely there must be someone who can manage the manager, but they're nursing their grievances, big and little. Do they prefer seeing Dean hurt himself and the party to helping the common cause?
I can't see Dean as uniquely evil. Consider Senator Kerry's courageous (cough) stand on same-sex marriage. Consider also that when Dean "panders" to evangelicals, he is doing nothing that a good many other progressives, busy fighting the last election, haven't advocated. I'd rather persuade people who are otherwise on my side to take different stands on my issues than to flame them and make them opponents.
Possibly Dean appears so evil to so many of the ideologically pure because he presents an awkward and uncomfortable mirror to an American "left" that is more a Balkanised gathering of single-issue obsessives than a political movement. Rove isn't a genius to see and exploit chronic fragmentation. He's a mere opportunist who has survived to this moment because his opponents were far too nice to close in for the kill when they had a chance.
What I long for is something like David Lloyd George. Where in the American left is there such a combination of uncompromising radical and political pragmatist? Take a look at his period. In just 20 years, when British Labour submerged its differences, it altered the UK's socio-economic structure almost beyond recognition, disenfranchised and nearly dispossessed a ruling class that had governed the country for over 500 years, and in the end blew a pseudo-progressive Liberal Party virtually out of existence. The outcome was flawed, and anyone trying to uproot privilege today can learn as much from British Labour's mistakes as from its successes. However, that outcome left ordinary Britons in better circumstances, and with more control over their daily lives, than they had ever had before.
Lloyd George didn't do that with ideological purity, he didn't do it by being afraid to offend the other side, and he didn't do it by pandering to the other side's most extreme elements.
Want a plan?
Start with directing your ripest invective at the stupefying combination of idiocy, corruption, and mendacity that is the Republican party and its lap-dog media. I'm sick of people cringing when Fox News or Ann Coulter savage them. Crikey, go for their throats!! Progressives should disagree, of course, if only to show a good example to the idiot in the White House. Let's save the name-calling for the right.
Put your single issues in storage and figure out how to make the best use of the best talents of imperfect people. Absent a leader, cooperate: it might just fill the gap.
Want the centre? Then don't overreach. Appreciate that the religious right is as much a hollow shell as the Soviet Union was in its last years. Don't pander to them. Encourage their schisms and disputes, fragment them and marginalise them. In the meantime, offer every possible encouragement for more humane forms of religion to grow a spine. Liberal pulpits could use a little fire for a change.
Eastern intellectuals, please note: you really don't know it all. You certainly don't know it if you don't bother to ask. Keep the "purple map" in mind. Nearly every city and county in nearly every state is full of people who are not evil, but frightened and bewildered and toeing conservative lines because they not really been offered choices that speak to real anxieties that hardly ever touch the policy prattle of both parties. Democrats used to excel because they were on the ground and they did listen and help ordinary people in ways Republicans still can't match.
Now then, who was it that was asking why I don't join LeftyBlogs?
Unfortunately, progressive hopes are pinned in part on the Democratic party, and in part upon the most inept and inchoate political left on the planet.
The Republicans should be even worse...Certainly, their performance in office makes Louis XVI look like a human rights god...But they know how to herd cats. No Democrat in a generation has shown that ability. Anyone who did would probably be crushed by his or her "friends" long before getting the critters into the same corral.
I've been thinking about this since reading MassMarrier's rant last month on Howard Dean. Here's my take on Dean, and on incidents of the sort that sparked that flame. I see an individual who seems to have very impressive background skills as an organiser. If progresssives are to have any hope at all, we need that. Dean is also someone who should never be allowed in front of a microphone without a gag. Apparently, he has to get in front of the mikes because there aren't enough Democrats willing to pull in the same direction who are good in front of hostile media. Surely there must be some who could speak to the broad issues far better than Dean, but is it that they won't help this man because he doesn't rise to a delusional standard of ideological purity? Surely there must be someone who can manage the manager, but they're nursing their grievances, big and little. Do they prefer seeing Dean hurt himself and the party to helping the common cause?
I can't see Dean as uniquely evil. Consider Senator Kerry's courageous (cough) stand on same-sex marriage. Consider also that when Dean "panders" to evangelicals, he is doing nothing that a good many other progressives, busy fighting the last election, haven't advocated. I'd rather persuade people who are otherwise on my side to take different stands on my issues than to flame them and make them opponents.
Possibly Dean appears so evil to so many of the ideologically pure because he presents an awkward and uncomfortable mirror to an American "left" that is more a Balkanised gathering of single-issue obsessives than a political movement. Rove isn't a genius to see and exploit chronic fragmentation. He's a mere opportunist who has survived to this moment because his opponents were far too nice to close in for the kill when they had a chance.
What I long for is something like David Lloyd George. Where in the American left is there such a combination of uncompromising radical and political pragmatist? Take a look at his period. In just 20 years, when British Labour submerged its differences, it altered the UK's socio-economic structure almost beyond recognition, disenfranchised and nearly dispossessed a ruling class that had governed the country for over 500 years, and in the end blew a pseudo-progressive Liberal Party virtually out of existence. The outcome was flawed, and anyone trying to uproot privilege today can learn as much from British Labour's mistakes as from its successes. However, that outcome left ordinary Britons in better circumstances, and with more control over their daily lives, than they had ever had before.
Lloyd George didn't do that with ideological purity, he didn't do it by being afraid to offend the other side, and he didn't do it by pandering to the other side's most extreme elements.
Want a plan?
Start with directing your ripest invective at the stupefying combination of idiocy, corruption, and mendacity that is the Republican party and its lap-dog media. I'm sick of people cringing when Fox News or Ann Coulter savage them. Crikey, go for their throats!! Progressives should disagree, of course, if only to show a good example to the idiot in the White House. Let's save the name-calling for the right.
Put your single issues in storage and figure out how to make the best use of the best talents of imperfect people. Absent a leader, cooperate: it might just fill the gap.
Want the centre? Then don't overreach. Appreciate that the religious right is as much a hollow shell as the Soviet Union was in its last years. Don't pander to them. Encourage their schisms and disputes, fragment them and marginalise them. In the meantime, offer every possible encouragement for more humane forms of religion to grow a spine. Liberal pulpits could use a little fire for a change.
Eastern intellectuals, please note: you really don't know it all. You certainly don't know it if you don't bother to ask. Keep the "purple map" in mind. Nearly every city and county in nearly every state is full of people who are not evil, but frightened and bewildered and toeing conservative lines because they not really been offered choices that speak to real anxieties that hardly ever touch the policy prattle of both parties. Democrats used to excel because they were on the ground and they did listen and help ordinary people in ways Republicans still can't match.
Now then, who was it that was asking why I don't join LeftyBlogs?
posted by Uncle | 22:43
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