Over the past thirty years, the Left in America has found itself fractured and unable to affect the national public agenda. Even Bill Clinton, now fondly remembered by liberals and the Left, was a centrist. Very little of his agenda had even a strong liberal bent, let alone a Leftist one.
Right now, however, the Left has the strongest possibility it has had since the Vietnam War to return as an effective player on the national scene. We can end this war, and it will be the Left that leads us to its end–if it can get its act together.
If.
The Left has felt (for almost a century) that it should be a “big tent,” that it should welcome anyone–as long as their agenda was vaguely related to basic concerns of human rights (taking that, again, in its most broad interpretation). Thus, the left has long supported `true believers’ in causes that haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming viable parts of our national debate.
The focus on the Left has neither been on strategy nor on comprehensive goals. It has been on a panoply of separate agenda items, some of which can even contradict each other. It hasn’t mattered if these goals could be realistically imagined as part of the national debate or even if they were worth fighting for on moral grounds. What mattered was that somebody supported them, somebody who was also willing to give lip-service to whatever other goals might be under the big tent at the moment.
What this has done is allow the Right to paint the Left as a bunch of crazies. The media have been able to pick out the more `outrageous’ inhabitants of the `big tent’ for focus, making us all look like Don Quixotes tilting at windmills.
It has allowed the Right to marginalize the Left.
Sure, there are lots of good causes out there, ones that we should all support. There are changes that do need to be made. Realistically, however, not all of those changes can be made. Not now, certainly; not at once.
Until the Left learns this, and starts to impose some `message discipline’ on itself, it will continue to lose.
We have, for the first time in a long time, a clear and simple message we can present–a message that can succeed. Cindy Sheehan `stumbled’ upon it, and it has resonated across the land (witness the candlelight vigils last night): The war in Iraq is not worth the lives of our soldiers. By asking “What is the `noble cause’ my son died for?” Sheehan has reduced the questions concerning the war to something even our media can understand–and something the media are having a hard time corrupting.
If we on the Left can’t put aside our other agendas and take up this simply-enunciated cause, we probably will never succeed at any of our causes–and probably don’t deserve to. We can win, now. We can stop this war. But we cannot do that unless we bring an unstoppable majority with us–and that will not happen if centrist America sees identification with this cause as identification with other causes, ones not so easily presented in sound bites.
When there are demonstrations or vigils or any other activities in support of Sheehan, the organizers need to remember this, and discourage speakers and the crowd from getting off topic. “Free Palestine”? Sure. But don’t invite speakers on that topic to address rallies concerning the Iraq war–as happened Monday night in New York City.
Yes, sometimes there are “means and ends” questions… and ends don’t justify every means. Here, however, there is a critical need for an end to be reached. If the means to getting there requires putting aside other causes (not really a great sacrifice), then that has to be done.
If we on the Left can’t learn to discipline ourselves even to this small extent, then we probably have no business thinking we can succeed, anyhow.
If we on the Left can’t learn to discipline ourselves even to this small extent, Americans and Iraqis are going to continue to die as a result of this insane invasion and occupation.
Sure, there are other people dying elsewhere–there are plenty of wrongs in this world. But this is one we can have an impact on right now.
Get behind the one cause, people. Forget everything else until this is over. Let’s have the sense and power to win one when we need to.
Perhaps we might even learn something, and move on to win other battles later.
[Crossposted at dKos].