It’s getting close to time for the left to close ranks, unless you want to deal with a Speaker Boehner. I know I don’t. But, then, I haven’t been engaging in ritual cannibalism for the last year and a half.
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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….unless you want to deal with a Speaker Boehner.
The threat of a Speaker Boehner will motivate some of the left, but not all, not by any stretch.
I work with teenagers, and a few really troubled teenagers. A lot of them engage in risky behavior — or don’t do things, for the passive-aggressive crowd, that they should do — for a lot of reasons, and some of them are neither surprised nor disappointed when the very disaster they’ve been flirting with actually happens, because it at least gives them some sense of agency.
You call it ritual cannibalism as if accepting the lesser of two evils is somehow not evil. I call it sending the Dems a message that while their money comes from their corporate sponsors their votes come (or don’t come, in this case) from the people.
You can’t make omelets without breaking a few eggs. You’ll see, from this upcoming destructive (for the Dems) election will come a better party rising like a phoenix to change their misbegotten policies and represent the people.
I’ve been hearing that my whole life. Shir, my parents have been hearing that their entire lives. Guess what? Always bullshit. It only contracts the electorate and signals to the Dems that they need to move to the right.
So that’s why the Dems moved so far to the right. They couldn’t get progressives to vote for them and their lying ways so they needed to move right to get votes from conservatives.
Actually the scenario is somewhat different. The Dems have been handsomely paid to move to the right. To protect their left flank they have made it virtually impossible (in collusion with the Repubs) for third parties to get on the ballot and oppose them. Ralph Nader wrote a book about it: Crashing The Party.
This leads to the Booman strategy to forget our principles and “close ranks.” Just shut up, hold your nose and vote for these shysters yet again.
There’s no choice! We either vote for them or they move to the right! There’s the bullshit.
No, the bullshit is pretending that that’s what we’re all saying. What we’re actually saying is that the base’s attention should be on primarying Dems where we can while recognizing that allowing the crazies back into power achieves nothing.
Some of us aren’t so pissy that we simply give up when it gets tough.
By all means, take your ball and go home, though.
If your role in life is to get Dems elected then go for it. I contend they don’t deserve it, so my actions center on their malicious behavior and not on their re-election. I further contend that this is the essence of democracy.
I guess Booman Tribune isn’t a progressive site but is a junior Dkos, where Moulitsas’s credo is: “Remember that ultimately, this is a site about the Democratic Party and elections. I’ll be looking for people who get that we’re building a movement and can help further that goal.”
And how effective has he been. Here we are with a Dem congress that carries a 72% disapproval rate (RCP ave) and a thoroughly disappointing president. Close ranks!
What’s amusing is how easy it is to pose as a purist. If I were a member of the Senate, I’d probably have the 99th most progressive voting record (after Bernie Sanders) and if I were a member of the House, there might be ten to fifteen members with more progressive voting records. But, because I don’t throw tantrums everytime the government fails to act the way I want them to act, I am not a progressive.
Who is the BooMan?
For the purposes of this Web Site, the Boo Man can be considered a stalwart friend of children, but a nocturnal terror for corrupt politicians, lazy reporters, and hypocritical Republican operatives.
No, it’s because you don’t seem to ever try to move the debate left using the blog. Maybe you do in real life, but there’s not a lot of evidence for it here. I don’t see numbers to call senators or congress people listed like at Balloon Juice, or whip counts like Open Left. I don’t see a lot of promotion of various local activism things in your local area either.
You know, who knows what is left anymore.
I think people discount my criticisms of the Democrats and of Obama because I make them selectively rather than as my daily routine.
I spent two years begging Pelosi to start investigations that could lead to impeachment. I completely disowned Harry Reid a long time ago (and had his staff tell me that they noticed). I have said repeatedly that I do not agree with our policy in Afghanistan. I pushed for a more left-wing judge than Kagan. I have been critical of Obama for continuing War on Terror policies and for failing to purge and punish Bush officials. I opposed keeping Gates on at Defense. I pointed out where I thought they made tactical mistakes in the health care battle.
But I also defended Geithner’s Plan for dealing with big shitpile (and was vindicated), I also defended Gen. Petraeus, I also told people why certain things weren’t possible to get through this Congress and who was truly responsible for that (including the Democrats who made things impossible).
If you want me to tell you to call Congress every two minutes, it’s not going to happen. People want the president to govern like he’s at the left-end of the Democratic Party when 41 votes can stop anything he wants to do its tracks. That doesn’t make sense. That won’t get legislation passed. Why do I talk about the Senate and the filibuster so much? Because I want to move the country to the left of Scott Brown and Ben Nelson. That’s the way to do it, not by berating Barney Frank and Chris Dodd for their souless corporatism. Where Obama and I agree is on the Art of the Possible and on squeezing whatever progress is available out of the system, not letting the imperfect be the enemy of the good.
I had a feeling that this was going to be a posting that would bring some heat! This just seems like the ’90s all over again. The problem is that the Republicans are much more crazier this time around. Really afraid that some sick shit is going to go down if they get control again. This history repeating stuff is getting old.
Don’t you think that the “necessary” Afghanistan War, now being funded during a serious national economic recession, is “sick shit”?
But here you do get thoughtful analysis, something somewhat lacking at big orange and other places.
What blog are you reading? There is a lot of thoughtful analysis at DKos. As much as their ever was.
There’s also a lot of dreck but that’s true everywhere.
In what way did I imply that my role in life was to get Democrats elected? Again with the straw men. It really is wonderfully idiotic that you keep retreating to the straw men.
If your means of measuring effectiveness are the degree to which you like the president and the RCP average of Congress’s approvals, you’re not a progressive. You’re Chris Matthews.
I like how you write “democrats” “they” – says it all imo
Well, yeah — ever heard of independents? There’s as many of us as there are of you, or Repubs.
Left unsaid is that these primaries are strongly opposed to and discouraged by the party establishment.
Look, I understand Godwin’s Law and all that, and no I don’t think the modern day GOP would invade Poland or set up extermination camps for religious minorities, homosexuals, and gypsies. But…they might just blow up the world, they’ll do nothing but damage the environment, and they’ll probably cause a second Great Depression. And while they’re doing it they won’t be particularly nice or fair about anything to pretty much anyone. So, this is relevant.
Some history:
You can accuse me of hysteria if you like, but I don’t like to play around with nativist, xenophobic, angry, radical right-wing parties, and I can stifle some criticism of what I see going on in Washington in the interests of seeing the best administration of my lifetime do the best it can.
Um, according to Krugman, we’re already in a third depression.
But then, Krugs is an apostate
What are you on, Don Bacon? Ralph Nader is your great source of wisdom about why third parties lead to such great progressive outcomes? Give me a break. As Drew J Jones said, go ahead and take your ball home. People with your negative, purist mindset only get in the way of efforts by reality-based folks to actually make a difference.
No, what I said is that Nader is an authority on how the two major parties have made it virtually impossible for third parties to offer any competition, which results in two look-alike parties and little choice for voters.
Well, if you want to use Nader as your standard bearer it’s your decision. But I think you’ll find it pretty lonely in that corner.
Loneliness isn’t a problem for me, but thanks for the consideration. To paraphrase Goldwater, in my heart I know I’m right. And when all else fails I have the audacity of hope, or hope for audacity . . . whatever.
Well…I wouldn’t choose Goldwater and Nader as my seconds in this duel (as it were), but that’s neither here nor there.
Don Bacon, I’d like to go back to your earlier comment where you raise the question of good and evil—or at least the question of the lesser of two evils.
Now we’re in the moral realm. The question then becomes, I think: what is one to do when confronted with two evils, one lesser than the other?
There’s an argument to be made for refusing the choice and instead choosing “the good”. (Examples abound in presidential politics: voting for Ralph Nader, or Strom Thurmond or Norman Thomas, etc., depending, obviously, on one’s definition of “the good”.)
One then lives with the knowledge that sometimes, despite or because of that choice, the greater evil triumphs. In my view, that’s what happened in the 2000 presidential election.
Through a combination of a lackluster Gore campaign, a dysfunctional political media, Bush’s brother’s decision to disenfranchise tens of thousands of (mostly African-American) Florida voters, a politicized Supreme Court decision (by justices, some of whom were appointed by Bush’s father), and last but not least, the refusal by Nader voters to choose the lesser of two evils, we got the greater of two evils running the country for the next eight years.
The people who bore the brunt of that greater evil were not—for the most part—those of us who have the luxury of engaging in on-line debates. They were, as always, the least powerful among us (both in the US and internationally).
From my perspective, currently we have one political party (the Democrats) moving, however haltingly, in the direction of good (or if not good, at least less evil), and one party (the Republicans) moving, at an alarming rate, in the direction of evil (or at least, less good).
Having seen what happens when good people engaged in the political process (note that by some measures this is already a big step away from moral purity) refuse to choose “the lesser of two evils”, I don’t think it’s an acceptable moral decision.
As always, your mileage may vary. Thanks for raising the question.
Thank you for your reasoned response. You are one of the liberals who is not illiberal.
My perspective is different than yours. Perhaps I’m older (73) and have a different memory. While you see the Dem politicians “moving, however haltingly, in the direction of good”, I see them moving south. Where are the great ones? — like Wayne Morse, William Fulbright, Bobby Kennedy, Sam Ervin, etc. The majority of Americans say the country is moving in the wrong direction, and an overwhelming majority disapprove of the congress. So how can you say the movement is toward the good? They need a wake-up call.
I think there were a few more courageous and influential liberal leaders back in the 60s, though political assassination eliminated the 3 best of that group (JFK, RFK, MLK) and after that the liberal-left floundered without a clear strong leader. Geo McGovern certainly wasn’t in either Kennedy’s class as an effective and influential leader, and we all know how flawed HHH was.
You mentioned two yesteryear figures that you consider great — Morse and RFK — and I wouldn’t disagree. Two others however don’t make my cut for greatness. Fulbright was bright on most things but not on civil rights, his moral Achilles Heel, and he got badly snookered by LBJ on the Tonkin Gulf Res fiasco. A very mixed record also for Fulbright’s flawed fellow southerner Ervin, who was a hawk on the VN War and who fell short badly with his filibuster of Birch Bayh’s nearly-successful effort to abolish the Electoral College. Great he was in the Watergate hearings though.
I might have put a Birch Bayh on your list instead of Ervin, and both Frank Church and Fred Harris also come to mind as good/very good liberal leaders who were on the right side on most of the major issues of their time.
Today’s liberal field is not significantly different from the post-assassinations 60s field, except leader Obama is infinitely preferable to either the corrupt and dishonest LBJ, and probably preferable to the personally flawed Humphrey, and no other clear liberal leader has emerged from the congressional arena to make libs deeply lament that s/he is not in the WH.
Well, on this point I side with Booman. I didn’t say these people were perfect — I said they were great. Fulbright on Vietnam and Ervin on Nixon. And I didn’t say that my list was exclusive. Your adding of 60’s names only reinforces my main point, particularly as I note that you didn’t add any current names to the notables list. You can’t.
Again, siding with Booman, if we only illuminate the personal flaws of these people and fail to recognize their greatness on big issues than we have dropped the ball.
Oh I don’t disagree with Booman either, but I didn’t read him to be focusing on personal (personality) flaws, but rather on imperfect voting records, nor do I generally tend to attach the “great” label to a senator who’s only great on one issue and perhaps appallingly reactionary on other major issues. Depends on how you’re defining greatness.
As for today, again there are probably about as many worthy of being considered for “greatness” as there were in the post-assassination period. A Bernie Sanders or Leahy or Sheldon Whitehouse or Al Franken come to mind, both for how they’ve voted and led on a number of big issues, but in the latter two cases for their significant potential for intelligent and bold leadership in the years to come. Others might include a Feingold for some generally good-to-great voting and leadership. And we just lost a great liberal leader in Ted Kennedy.
Barbara Boxer has been great on nearly all the crucial issues, and with her I don’t have to excuse her, unlike Ervin or Fulbright, for right-wing attitudes elsewhere. Too bad, however, that she doesn’t chair a meaty and hefty committee like the Foreign Relations comm’ee that Fulbright had.
Alas, money has been brought into the political equation much more than the golden era of the 60s, and some on our side have indeed been bought off or neutralized on too many issues. As RFK Jr has been trying to say for years, getting the money out of Congress is the key to all other reforms.
Don Bacon, you do have a few years on me (not that many though!). I find one of the challenges of aging is precisely the issue you identify: how to put our own times in a proper perspective vis-a-vis past times.
So, what follows is an attempt to give credit where credit is due to Democratic elected officials of the 21st century.
We’ve recently buried a couple of giants of the Senate (Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy). Some of their greatest accomplishments and votes came toward the end of their careers.
If the financial reform bill passes the Senate this month, then Chris Dodd will retire having played a key role in shepherding both that bill into law, as well as the Affordable Care Act.
John Kerry’s getting some bad press lately, but he seems to be doing yeoman’s work on energy & environmental issues—Ed Muskie is his 1960s and 70s counterpart, and would probably be proud of his fellow New Englander.
Whatever flaws Harry Reid has, getting the entire Democratic caucus to force cloture and pass a health care bill at the end of last year is a truly remarkable legislative accomplishment (talk about herding cats!).
In the House, Nancy Pelosi’s been a terrific party leader (both in the minority and as Speaker). Committee chairmen like Obey, Frank, and Waxman, and party leaders like Hoyer and Clyburn have delivered both legislation and the votes to pass it.
My point is not that everything’s great (it’s not), or that I’m completely pleased with this Congress and this Administration (I’m not).
I guess my point is that this is politics. It almost always involves compromise and settling for less than one would want. That said, there is, in my view, a significant difference between a Speaker Boehner and a Speaker Pelosi, a Chairman Waxman and a Chairman Barton, a Senate Majority Leader Reid and a Senate Majority Leader McConnell, a President Obama and a President McCain (or Palin, or Romney, or….).
Those differences are what keep me focused primarily (not exclusively!) on criticizing/attacking Republicans and their corporate masters/allies.
I expect legislators to legislate — that’s what they get paid to do. It isn’t marvelous when a doctor treats patients or when a cook fries up a burger. That’s their job.
I’m talking greatness, profiles in courage, going against the flow, taking unpopular stands, even jeopardizing one’s career to do the right thing — represent the people’s best interests.
Financial reform? In your dreams. Affordable heath care? Where is it.
Greatness is absent.
…adding: Really, if a corporate fraud like Ralph Nader is your base of reasoning here, it’s hopeless, because with that nonsense you’re out in territory that makes the firebaggers like sane.
One thing I have learned in years of blogging is that some, or even many, liberals are illiberal. They can’t countenance views different than their own and revert to ad hominem attacks. You are a good example.
As for Nader, he has been for many years a genuine progressive, unlike the Dem frauds like Gore, Kerry and now Obama. I mean on the issues, if you can bring yourself to look at issues.
lots of name calling tonight isn’t it?
Ah, you mean on the issues, like (say) support for unions while engaging in union-busting and refusing to pay workers their fair wages, as Citizen Ralph lives the good life in Georgetown and gambles on the stock market?
Or (say) running for president with substantial holdings in companies — especially oil and defense companies — with close ties to Bush-Cheney 2000?
Oh, and doing the above while attacking Al Gore for his stock portfolio and owning many of the companies he found so troubling in Gore’s case?
You tell’em, Ralph! But…
Oops.
(On the upside: Hey, who knew Jake Tapper could do real reporting back in the day?)
Tapper still does a decent job in my opinion, especially compared to the rest of the gasbags.
Yeah, when I found out about those things, I no longer supported that egomaniac.
while you excel in unfounded personal attacks you apparently are a stranger to national issues.
Unfounded? They agreed to pay the overtime after they were sued. Doesn’t sound unfounded to me.
But carry on with the delusion and hypocrisy, by all means.
Kerry-Edwards supported the Iraq war, the Patriot Act, corporate welfare, obscene military spending, drug war, free trade, No Child left Behind, obstruction to ballot access and didn’t support health care for all. Nader took opposite positions on all these issues.
One is either a modern Democrat or a progressive. One can’t be both.
A Nader, or McKinney, or Kuccinich, could not possibly be effective as President, because they would not be able to work in the system as it exists.
The US has been blessed with presidents (FDR and Harry Truman come to mind) who were proficient in going directly to the people. I recall HST talking about the do-nothing 80th congress (if memory serves). Obama, a regaled great communicator, didn’t even hold a press conference for many months.
There are ways.
They’d do it on pure charisma. And integrity. And force of will.
Let’s face it, we’re going to have to win elections without the Don Bacons of this world. Luckily they aren’t that numerous — so let’s make sure it’s not a close enough run for it to make a difference.
I don’t disagree, but I get to slap a bumper sticker that says don’t blame me, and you don’t.
I am really sick of hearing this recycled garbage. It was old in 2000, it is way too old today. Nothing in the world that you care about will be made more likely to occur by having the repugs retake one or both houses of Congress.
My point is that a serious message has to be sent to the Dem politicians that continue to disdain the people they are supposed to represent.
The latest evidence of DNC stupidity is its jumping on Michael Steele for telling the truth about Afghanistan, saying that he doesn’t support the troops (that tired blabber again) and hopes for failure in Afghanistan (Helloo, DNC).
The DNC should have embraced Steele but they are too enslaved by their corporate masters. That has to stop, and the best way to stop it is to send Dem politicians a serious wake-up call.
I’m going to be back in Florida for the election (hopefully), but I think I’d have to live there a year before I could vote in the Senate race. Should be eligible in Virginia, but Moran is my congressman, and he ain’t going anywhere.
District down in FL would be Boyd, and he ain’t going anywhere either. (He’s not retiring to my knowledge.) Senate and gubernatorial races would be the only point. Which blows, because those are shaping up to be exciting.
must ever recur in similar cases. Human-nature will not the change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak, and as a strong; as silly and as wise; as bad and good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this, as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them as wrongs to be revenged.
Okay, Booman, I got them to close ranks.
The check is in the mail, right?
Woke up this AM with a deep thought. Why should I be so afeard of Speaker Boehner, when I’m reading about the Dems’ plans to cut Social Security and Medicaid? When the Dems in the House are just as anti-choice as the GOP? When the Dems are letting Ben Nelson break ranks without consequence?
Seems to me that between the GOP’s obstinance, the power allowed the BlueDogs, and the unfortunate tendency to kowtow to industry, we already have de facto Republican rule.
You can call it cannibalism all you want, that doesn’t erase 10% unemployment, a health plan that won’t rein in costs til 2014, and the inevitable shitstorm when the dems get called out for cutting Social Security….
What possible leverage do the Dems have over Nelson? He’s clearly the next thing to a republican, but he is a +1 in the Dem category that determines the majority. Push too hard and he goes repug, giving bragging and actual victory to the wrong party.
he’s already doing that now (health insurance reform, jobs bill).
You certainly have to give Boehner credit for that great suntan, even though some critics recently attributed it to laziness. Well you can’t get a suntan by running around inside congressional buildings. Come on!
Look, I’m not a fan of this deficit commission bullshit either; I know there is no Social Security “crisis”. However, there are changes that must be made to it to keep it solvent. I think it’s stupid to make those changes now, especially when it’s so far out into the future. However, some believe that making changes now before it gets to that point will make them less painful. Part of me agrees with that, knowing our political system.
We don’t know what the recommendations are going to be, we don’t know that they’re ever going to go through. Yes, we can have a good idea, but really, we don’t know.
Second, I don’t see how you can compare what we’re seeing today to anything the Republicans will do if they’re in power. It’s absolutely insane.
No, see, you’re flat out wrong.
We just had a Republican administration and Congress and they were a moderate ones compared to what we’d see if all these Sharon Angle/Rand Paul types come into power.
I think you might be able to more plausibly argue, though I’d still disagree, that the current government resembles the Republicans of Poppy Bush’s era. Okay, so then would you rather be governed by Poppy or someone worse than his son?
That’s your choice. Why should you care? Because we’re where we’re at because of Republican governance, and we can’t take any more of it.
Well, at least you admit that the democrats are back to trying the “republican lite” act.
all I’m sayin’ and what you seem not to recognize, is that “we’re not as crazy as the current GOP, we’re more like Bush Senior” is not going to rally people to the polls when what they were promised was change.
No one’s going to reward 10% unemployment. As we’ve seen countless times in the past, democrats don’t vote for republican lite, and neither do republicans or independents. By the way, did you see that Blue Dog Steve Driehaus is in trouble at the polls, and it’s not because his GOP opponent is beloved.
No, I don’t agree with that. That’s why I said I would still disagree with you. I just made the argument assuming I did accept your premise.
It’s really very simple. Absolutely nothing will pass through Congress to be signed by the president unless it is acceptable to Ben Nelson and Scott Brown, or some other Republican. So, the reason our solutions are Republican-lite is because the deciders are Republican-lite. Obama can fulminate all he wants but it won’t change a thing. That’s what I’ve trying to get people to understand for the last year.
People too often assume that the administration is pleased with this constraint. I think it is very rare that they are pleased by it. It doesn’t just force them to do less than they want to on most issues, it prevents them from doing anything at all about many issues, and they still have dozens of appointees waiting in limbo.
It shouldn’t be the case that the only Republicans we can do business with are three or four moderates who are under tremendous pressure not to play ball. But the Party of No strategy forces Republican-Lite solutions. This is not the same as the DLC strategy of pursuing, on their own behalf, anti-liberal policies (on trade, on welfare, on vouchers, on deregulation). There is some degree of New Democrat policy being pursued, mainly on entitlement reform and restraint on banking reform, but on the whole Obama is pursuing more regulation, more social spending, more urban policy (on payday loans, checking, income tax preparers, microloans, etc.)
He has a rather aggressive policy agenda that he has not trimmed at all, despite a lot of pressure to do so. He’s still talking about immigration reform even though everyone wants to declare it dead. Harry Reid is still pushing climate even though it looks dead.