Transformative politics is not for sissies (X-posted at dkos)

*Transformative politics is not for sissies*.

If you’re to really change political trends, and put bottom rail on top for a generation, you can’t be gentle about it.

You can’t cajole. You can’t seduce. You have to go right for the throat. And you have to be ready for the whole of the old order to come down on you for it.

So let’s be clear about this right now. Love him or hate him, Howard Dean is a master politician.

 

He’s not really a liberal, you know. He’s what used to be called a Rockefeller Republican, back in the day. He believes that budgets should be balanced, that alliances should be negotiated, that science should be respected, and that it’s possible for government to make life better for people if it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

He made it work in Vermont. He ran to the right of other Democrats there. He balanced budgets. He dealt amicably with Republicans. For his pains he was often called a sell-out by environmentalists, by the state’s left, even by its gay community.

He’s still the same man, but today Rockefeller Republicanism is called extreme liberalism. He’s only on the left because the center has shifted radically to the right. Our assumptions today are far to the right of those our parents held. Most people today believe government is their enemy. Most people are skeptical about science. Most people don’t care about budgets. This is reflected in their choices right down the line, from President to school board.

So how do you effect change?

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Dean Just Told Them The Truth and They Thought It Was Hell

By Thom Hartmann

This morning I called the Democratic National Committee to tell them that I support Howard Dean’s modern-day version of Harry Truman’s dictum that, “I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.”

Timid and fearful Democrats are trembling on national television as they beg Dr. Dean to stop pointing out the hypocricy and misinformation efforts of Republicans in office and Conservatives in the media.

“He doesn’t speak for me,” they say, apparently longing for the days when their spokesman was taking big checks from multinational corporations, signing corporate-friendly trade deals, and defending sex scandals.

The simple truth is that corporate interests have hijacked our nation, theocrats want to take us back to the days of the Salem Witch Trials (with gays playing the part of witches), and the “stars” in the corporate “mainstream” media have been so terrified by Bush administration threats of loss of access (which could then lead to the loss of their own 6- and 7-figure income jobs) that they perpetuate administration lies and tremble at the thought of actually asking a tough follow-up question when Bush prevaricates.

Howard Dean points out these uncomfortable truths. And, like the little boy who said that the Emperor had no clothes, those entrenched in the status quo are trying to hush him up.

But the status quo is bankrupting our families, gutting the middle class, putting a bulls-eye on American soldiers and tourists around the world, devastating our environment and our children’s future.

Given that this nation is only one of a half-dozen or so mature democracies still stuck with a system of government (lacking proportional representation or IRV) that requires a two-party system to operate properly, it’s critical that progressives infiltrate and take over the Democratic Party. After all, it was started by radical progressives like Thomas Jefferson, and reached its greatest electoral victories in the 20th Century when Franklin D. Roosevelt promoted an unabashedly progressive agenda.

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