In one sense, there is no point railing against it. It is part of the very nature of the left to turn on itself and rip itself apart. There is no point in assigning blame for this, because every leftist thinks their niche is blameless.
When you combine the internecine nature of the left with our current powerlessness you begin to see something worse than finger pointing; you see defeatism and fatalism. People start saying semi-rational things like: “It doesn’t matter because they own the voting machines”, or, “If we take power with a centrist strategy it will only encourage the power brokers to sell out progressive values some more.”
Let’s leave history aside. Ever since the day RFK was gunned down in a Los Angeles hotel, history has not been the friend of the left. Let it go. We are trying to do something new. We are attempting it here at Booman Tribune, and we are attempting it more broadly throughout the blogosphere.
:::flip:::
The only history that concerns us is the (s)election of George Fucking Bush in 2000. I firmly believe that George W. Bush would be facing impeachment if we held both houses of Congress. He wouldn’t be facing it on the current slate of facts, but on the facts that would emerge if they had to answer for their policies before Congressional investigations.
Moreover, the nation’s policies would not be so disastrous if we had control of the legislative process. We can argue all day long about the best strategy for gaining power in Congress, but let me make one thing clear. We can’t do it by losing elections.
We don’t like the DLC strategy of backing off women’s rights, of talking about Dan Quayle’s phony family values. But our presumed nominee for 2008 is Hillary ‘DLC’ Clinton. Fuck her. If we can’t sideline her candidacy we are worthless. But we can sideline it. And the first thing we need to do is to demonstrate to the Democratic politicians that we can get them elected. They don’t need to spend 30 hours a week on the phone raising money from the Chamber of Commerce or bundling from the financial services corporations. If they respond to our concerns they can raise money more painlessly.
The reason Democrats have tacked to the center is not because they have forgotten what they stand for. It’s because they haven’t been able to raise the money to stay in power any other way. Howard Dean’s campaign for the nomination, and his campaign for the DNC chair showed an alternative path. Lots and lots of small contributions from ordinary Americans of modest means are better than a few large donations by the power brokers. Why? It’s less time-consuming and taxing on the candidate.
When we become a more attractive source of campaign funds than the alternative (spending 4 hours a day whoring on the phone) we have our voice heard first. The people, average Joes and Janes, suddenly have more clout than some lobbyist for the soy bean industry.
Money is power. No amount of idealism or reform legislation can change that. If we want to make the politicians in Washington stick up for the little guy, the little guy has to figure out how to stick up for their representatives when they are besieged by maximum contributions from the Exxon/Mobil managerial staff going to their opponent.
But before we can replace the traditional power brokers we have to show results. We have to show our model actually works. And we can’t do that if we don’t believe the model can work. And we aren’t the only game in town. The power brokers are busy at work trying their own strategy which involves recruiting anti-abortion candidates, of soft-pedaling our support for affirmative action, women’s rights, gun control, gay marriage…
Our job is not to oppose the power brokers efforts, but to show our model is even better. We can’t succeed by making the DLC model fail. That is the circular firing squad mentality of the past. We need majorities in Congress for the health of the country. We can’t afford to win by losing, thereby demonstrating the bankruptcy of the DLC model. We have win right along side the DLC model. For every Casey they succeed in electing (with our reluctant help), we need to win an election like Dean’s run for DNC chair (without the DLC’s support).
Above all, we need to have confidence in what we are trying to do. We can’t mope. We can’t sit on the sidelines thinking we will benefit by seeing the DLC model fail. The DLC model must succeed, and we must succeed much more dramatically. We must make the DLC strategy seem ponderous, inefficient, soulless…
But we cannot afford to splinter over our disagreements and go running off pouting about the DLC coronating some candidate here or there. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and we have not had enough success to expect to be power brokers in their place. Only success on our part can show the superiority of our model. But our success cannot be measured against the DLC’s failure. It must be measured against the DLC’s success. Otherwise, we will not win enough seats to hold hearings or control the flow of legislation. And we simply cannot afford that outcome.
So, I am optimistic. We can succeed, and if we do, the result will be more progressive candidates, and politicians that are less responsive to monied interests and more responsive to ordinary Americans.
