One thing I’ve learned about the progressive movement (the white part of it, anyway) over the last three years is that it is very thin-skinned, tends to demand respect it hasn’t earned, and refuses to have realistic expectations. It also has a very myopic view that focuses entirely on their agenda and almost not at all on the gorilla in the room, which is the alternative to our current center-left coalition. Given the current state of the Republican Party, which is focused on seceding from the union, using the tenth amendment to invalidate most federal legislation, birth certificates, race-baiting, onerous legislation against undocumented workers, passing state laws to restrict access to abortion, privatizing Social Security, repealing health care reform, weakening the United Nations, and obliterating Iran, it is crazy to allow one’s movement to get into an adversarial position vis-a-vis the Obama administration.
This will inevitably be read by most as a call for people to shut up and sit down and get with the program. It’s not. There are ways to balance things so that you both push the administration to pursue the reforms you seek and protect them so that we won’t be seeing a Majority Leader McConnell, a Speaker Boehner, or a President Romney. Consider the recent example discussed here by Katrina vanden Heuvel.
The thinking is that if progressives organize independently and forge smart coalitions, building a mass movement for reform with a moral compass that can transcend left-right divisions, we may be able to push Obama beyond the limits of his own politics, overcome the timid incrementalism of the establishment Democratic Party and counter the forces of money and power that are true obstacles to change. As Arianna Huffington has said, “Hope is not enough. . . . We need a ‘Hope 2.0’ that depends not on what President Obama or other politicians say or do but on what we as progressives do.”
That’s what key progressive groups — Labor, netroots activists and others — were trying to do in supporting a primary challenger to Democratic Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln. But the Obama administration, which had endorsed Lincoln, apparently misinterpreted the progressive position as a threat from its base.
Not really. This is the thin-skinned part. The parties are built to protect their incumbents. That’s why incumbents are expected to raise tens or even hundreds of thousand of dollars for the party’s committees. The administration would very much enjoy having a senator who bucks their program replaced by a senator who supports it, but they can’t side against an incumbent (except in extreme circumstances) because the Senate is made up of 59 Democratic-caucusing incumbents. Once they cross one of them, they’ve lost the trust of most of them. Vanden Heuvel misses the irony in this.
And after Lincoln prevailed (with massive aid from establishment Democrats), anonymous White House operatives called reporters to trash organized labor for flushing “$10 million of their members’ money down the toilet on a pointless exercise.”
Actually, the point of the exercise was that those opposing Obama’s reform agenda will not get a free pass. And there will be more efforts like it. To name a few: Labor will continue to devote resources to accountability primaries in several states this year, MoveOn will be campaigning to counter corporate influence, and the NAACP, SEIU and the Center for Community Change are organizing a march for jobs in October.
The White House would obviously welcome outside enforcers who make wayward Democrats support their reform agenda because that is a job they cannot do very well themselves. The difference of opinion was merely over the allocation of resources. If Bill Halter wasn’t going to win in the general either, and actually wasn’t much more progressive anyway, then why blow ten million bucks on the race? Here’s Nate Silver, back in March:
In summary, this is not a terribly good place for an ideological primary challenge. There’s not much room to Lincoln’s left in Arkansas period, especially not in a cycle such as this one. She has voted with her caucus reasonably often — more so than someone like Ben Nelson or Evan Bayh. And the challenger, Bill Halter, is quite unlikely to win the general election.
The thing about this particular primary challenge, however, is that while the upside might be limited, the same is true of the downside because Lincoln is so unlikely to retain her seat anyway. Halter is clearly a smart (he’s a Rhodes Scholar) and likable candidate and I can see why people would want to take a chance on him. But at best, this is perhaps the right challenge for the wrong reasons — and at worst, it’s a misdirection of resources that could be better spent elsewhere.
Now, I disagreed with Nate about the virtues of challenging Lincoln and I disagree with that anonymous source in the White House, too. But I don’t take it personally. Smart people concluded it was a bad investment and they had good reasons for thinking so. My thinking was that Lincoln is going to lose in the general anyway, so her primary race was a perfect opportunity to send a message to other Democrats who will not be defeated in November. But I respect Nate Silver’s opinion and I see his point. For the same reason, I see the point from some in the White House. There’s no point in throwing a fit because someone thinks your strategy is effing retarded.
Vanden Heuvel does ultimately understand the role for progressives during this presidency.
Now, with resistance imperiling the Obama’s change agenda, there is an understanding that it is time for progressives to mobilize independently once more. It doesn’t matter whether you think Obama has done the best that he can or that he has compromised too easily. What’s important is to alter the balance of power. And that means recruiting and mobilizing to unleash new energy into the debate.
Renewed energy should bolster, not weaken reform efforts. Pundits prattle about an “enthusiasm gap” in this year’s elections. But progressives can help Democrats find the voice they need to avoid debilitating losses this fall. And by challenging the limits of the current debate, progressives can open political space for the fights that need to happen to show working Americans that Democrats are fighting for them.
The tension between Obama and the progressive movement isn’t a threat to the president. Rather, it may be needed to save him.
But you can’t do any of that if you think everyone agrees with you and the president and party are just selling you out.
The 49% of Americans who now believe the Democratic Party’s views are too liberal is one percentage point below the 50% Gallup measured after the 1994 elections, the all-time high in the trend question first asked in 1992.
You can’t advance your agenda by weakening the coalition in power through constant bitching, demotivating language, fatalism, pessimism, and wishful thinking.
The bigger half of the progressive movement seems to understand this. But the bulk of the online movement appears not to.
