In a set of recent pieces, Cenk Uygur has made a defense of relentless criticism of the president and an argument that Howard Dean and Jane Hamsher cannot be wrong no matter what they say so long as they are attacking the president from the left. Part of this argument I understand. Cenk is arguing that loud, visible criticism from the left helps blunt accusations that Obama is himself on the left, and that this makes him appear moderate which, in turn, makes his job easier. This isn’t an argument on the merits. Cenk isn’t saying that Obama is left, center, or right, and he isn’t arguing that criticism of him is fair or accurate or otherwise. He’s making a simple observation about how it benefits Obama politically to be attacked from the left. In this view, there is no downside to blasting away at the president from the left because you are either right and he might hear you, or you are wrong but he’ll benefit from the optics anyway. There are a couple of flaws with this strategy, even if it is true so far as it goes.
The first flaw is that there actually is a downside to having progressive opinion leaders blast away at the president and say things like this about him:
…you won’t make things better because you don’t work for us. You work for ExxonMobil, Blue Cross and Goldman Sachs, who are all stealing from us and making our lives worse. You can’t work for the people who are stealing from the public and serve the needs of the public at the same time. A House divided against itself must fall, you cannot serve the voters and Mammon, etc., as they say. It doesn’t matter anymore if some of you want to, or would if you could, because you didn’t and evidently can’t.
Most blogreaders and radio listeners and Olbermann/Maddow watchers don’t like to admit that they take their cues from opinion leaders. But many of them do. Because of this, progressive leaders can’t act like Charles Barkley and say they don’t want to be role models. Opinion leaders shape opinions, and they can breed cynicism and apathy if they so choose. If they go out and tell their audiences day after day that the president of the United States is stealing from them to do the bidding of Goldman Sachs and Exxon/Mobil, then a hearty percentage of their readers are going to, you know…start to believe it. And that’s where you start eating into your base and causing problems in a midterm election that will be decided on differential turnout. So, you ought not to go around saying these things unless you really truly think they’re true. And if anyone thinks that blockquote above is fair and accurate, then I just don’t know what to say to them. It’s a bunch of malarkey, is what it is, even if it does advance Cenk’s strategy of making the president look reasonable.
That is why I have a problem with this next bit from Cenk:
…I believe in attacking hard from the left. Some have started to call this the Uygur Doctrine, which, of course, I love. The reality is I’m a political moderate who until about a month ago believed we should stay longer in Afghanistan and that single payer was not the way to go. But it’s not my positions that matter as much as my attitude. We have to, have to, have to attack Obama form the left. If we don’t, he is seen as the far left and the whole spectrum shifts even further right than it already is.
I don’t know if he realizes it but he’s going to damage his own credibility with his audience if he continues to advocate that people make arguments that he doesn’t even agree with because they help move the Overton Window to the left. It’s important that Cenk not ask his audience to take him at face value when he isn’t being honest about his critique of the president and is asking others not to be honest either.
Another problem with Cenk’s argument can be seen in his advice for those of us that don’t agree with this strategy of incessant bombthrowing.
The point is that the mainstream media loves people who they can call “moderates.” If Joe Lieberman is somewhere between Obama and Cheney, no matter how far to the right he is, he gets to be called a moderate. Why? Because there’s someone to the right of him.
Now, you have someone to the left of you. Congratulations, you made it! You’re now part of the cool crowd in DC, the only people that the establishment media care about or give any credence to – moderates.
But Cenk is wrong about this. The only progressives who get on teevee and radio are bombthrowers who attack the president (and blacks that got confused and became Republican shills). You never see supportive progressive bloggers on television or radio. Never. That’s because controversy drives ratings. You see moderate elected Democrats on television because they disagree with the party and the president. The same phenomenon makes Jane Hamsher a starlet of cable news while anyone who defends the president is about as exciting as a WHAM! reunion.
Now, Cenk argues that we can’t be worried that relentlessly criticizing the president (regardless of merit) will help Republicans because we aren’t going to get good policies out of this president and this Congress if we don’t push with everything we’ve got.
I know what some of you are thinking – that’s not the worst case scenario. The worst case is somehow their attacks on Obama help Republicans win. But if you buy into that, then you have to pack your bags and go home. That means you are never willing to forcefully challenge Obama out of the fear that it might somehow hurt him. While I’m sure he appreciates that, I can guarantee you that he will thank you by completely ignoring you (and your policy priorities). Asking politely is obviously not getting the job done.
But we have already established that Cenk is not merely advocating “forcefully challenging” Obama, but attacking him relentlessly as a matter not of merit but of strategy. And that leads to problems of both personal credibility and base suppression. This is not the way to go.
This brings me back to my promise to address Armando’s critique as part of my response to Cenk. Armando says:
… it is somewhat surprising to see Booman’s “Obama’s Dem Party, love it or leave it” admonition. It’s not as unreasonable a view as it might appear at first blush. It is reasonable to think that criticism should be measured and the push against Dems muted. But in my view, that is the wrong approach for the Left blogs. I believe, as I have for some time, that the Left blogs can and should be a voice for the Left Flank of the Democratic Party. I believe that Left blogs should fight for policies they believe in, not the pols or the political parties.
Of course, Armando badly mischaracterized what I said because I didn’t ask or tell anyone to leave the party. But his view that “Left Blogs” should advocate policies they believe in and not pols or political parties is kind of beside the point when “Left Blogs” are bashing the president more as part of an Overton Window strategy than as a fair critique. What matters here is effectiveness and credibility. If you can get a public option by helping to convince Olympia Snowe, then pursue that. If Lieberman, pursue that. If Ben Nelson, pursue that. If Evan Bayh, pursue that. But if you instead call them all whores, attack their spouses, forbid Obama from making concessions to them, and accuse Obama of secretly agreeing with them, then I don’t think you’re going to get the outcome you want no matter how good it makes you feel.
So, what I think we really need to do is stop playing games and thinking we can outsmart the electorate. Be honest with your audiences. Be fair to the president and Congress (they are deserving enough of legitimate criticism). And remember why we got into this business. The Republicans are fucking nuts and must be kept out of power for as long as possible.