Any liberal, progressive, or Democrat who is spending the last week before Election Day discussing the merits of a third party, or actually trying to make a case that a Romney presidency will do more to advance progressive causes, should probably be euthanized purely out of mercy. If you are a liberal who wants to sell books or gain page views or higher ratings for your television or radio program, a Romney presidency will help you out. Otherwise, everything you believe in and fight for will be set back, put at risk, or utterly destroyed.
If you don’t understand what is at stake at the Supreme Court, you probably don’t understand much else about American politics, either. But the entire premise of this argument is that the Democrats will learn certain lessons from defeat and that this will lead to a reinvigorated defense of civil liberties and an assertion of economic populism that is sorely lacking on the present-day left.
There is no precedent for believing this will actually happen. The whole New Democrat/Blue Dog phenomenon arose out of the ashes of the Mondale and Dukakis defeats. The only time the Democrats responded to defeat by moving left was in 1972, and we know how that turned out.
A Romney administration would roll back the expansion of Medicaid and access to health care for 30 million people. It would result in a rightward shift in the courts that would make voting much harder and would do severe damage to women’s rights. But even if that were all somehow worth it, we have foreign policy to consider. We have competency to consider, the importance of which the current operations of FEMA compared to their performance under Bush should highlight. And, ultimately, we’d have to win the argument within the Democratic Party about why Obama lost. It couldn’t be because of the weak economy or because of the Citizens United ruling, or because Republican governors and secretaries of state and legislatures suppressed the vote, or because of racism, or because Romney got away with a campaign of lies. No, it would have to be agreed that the president lost because he was too aggressive in the pursuit of terrorists and he didn’t do enough to alleviate the foreclosure crisis, and some other combination of populist and anti-militarist reasoning.
The chances of winning that argument would be hampered by the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to support it. It would be further hampered by the fact that the Democrats would be more finance-challenged than ever and therefore less inclined to embrace economic populism.
If progressives want to change the Democratic Party, they should look across the aisle at the Tea Party. Obviously, the Tea Party should not be emulated in full. But their decision to fight in the primaries is the correct one. You do not further your cause by empowering your enemies.
“You do not further your cause by empowering your enemies.”
Well put. Yet I hear voices all over the internet doing just that. Quite sad, frankly. Beautiful loser syndrome, and all that.
This election season I’ve been having more trouble talking about politics with my liberal friends than the conservatives I infrequently encounter. Several of my liberal friends have plans to vote 3rd Party and see no problem with swing state liberals doing likewise, even if it means a Romney win.
The basis of their stance is, in part, there not being a “dime’s worth of difference” between Obama and Romney. I gave this a lot of thought and came up with the response to them. There is a big difference!
http://greeneggsandham.org/wordpress/?p=961
I agree with you Booman:
” You do not further your cause by empowering your enemies.”
People were saying [i]precisely[/i] the same thing back in 2000, and we all know how that turned out. Stuff like this makes me think that the Iraq War has been erased from the consciousness of a surprisingly large number of progressives.
I think you need some new friends.
No, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Obama and George Bush. There’s plenty of difference between him and Romney.
More evidence in support of my pet “completely forgetting about Iraq” theory.
More evidence in support of my pet “completely forgetting about Afghanistan” theory.
More evidence in support of my pet “completely forgetting about Iraq” theory.
Yeah, remember how Obama hired unqualified hacks to run FEMA and was completely unprepared for Sandy, just like Bush was for Katrina? Oh wait…
I happily voted 3rd party, but I don’t for a second think there’s no difference. There is a lot of difference, but not enough.
Of course, I vote in North Dakota so I am free to vote my conscience. Of note I voted for the Dems for all other offices, esp. Senator and House Rep.
I still don’t get this one. I give you a time machine and send you back to 1972: what do you do?
One stipulation, you can’t use Watergate. Let’s make this about policy only. So knowing all you know now, do you really go tell McGovern to be more “conservative” (whatever that means) in order to win? What, specifically, should he have said differently? Where should he have been “less pure” or “more mainstream?”
Wouldn’t you be more likely to tell him about Cambodia and Pol Pot and embassy employees fleeing into the night? Doesn’t everything we know justify an even stronger anti-war position?
Sometimes the right side just loses. In democracy, the people have the right to stubbornly and jealously protect their right to be wrong, to refuse to acknowledge and atone for previous errors.
As for the rest of the post, I have no argument.
Actually, it was only the Presidential candidate that moved left. The Democratic establishment sat on its hands and guaranteed failure–sorta like the Boston establishment did with Martha Coakley.
Right. History has bought into the Nixonian framing of that election, that McGovern was for unilateral disarmament, free sex, etc. His positions were nowhere near what has been portrayed.
There were all kinds of problems for the Democratic party that year. First, in reaction to the 1968 convention the party regulars wrested control of the primary process and convention from the traditional bosses. This created all kinds of horrible optics during the primaries but especially at the convention as people saw some of the non-traditional Democrats in featured roles. McGovern emerged from the convention already tarred as a compromise candidate nobody wanted, then he seriously screwed up the VP situation and at that point it his national image was beyond recovery. Nixon was riding what turned out to be a brief economic upturn and a promise to end the war.
The party didn’t turn left in 1972, it just simply dissolved into chaos.
The reaction was to clean up the processes and in 1976 the primary and conventions were back to standards. The problem at that point was it was one conservative Democrat from the “real South” (that is, not Texas)against a bunch of non-conservatives who split the votes. Remember, before the fundamentalists were wooed into voting for Reagan by Falwell and company they first rallied behind Carter. In 1976 voter
Carter was not a conservative Democrat.
Not if we define conservative Democrat as Zell Miller or George Wallace, nor if we evaluate him against the post-Bill Clinton view of what a Democrat stands for today. But he was definitely seen as to the right of the Democratic party middle at the time.
Actually, during his campaign it was impossible to tell his positions as he couldn’t be pinned down on anything. But as a Southern Baptist from the south the perception from the excited fundamentalists was that he was indeed one of them. As he governed he pissed off the liberal wing so severely, mostly on budget and economic issues, that Kennedy ran and very nearly beat him despite the primary system being set up to favor the incumbent.
But, in retrospect, on the environment and foreign policy he was the most liberal President we’ve ever had.
Carter was in 1970 the most liberal Southern governor. His inaugural speech made national news for calling to an end to the state policy of segregation and healing. And he delivered in office as governor. He transformed Georgia state departments and set up the first state citizens help line for state services. He used his influence with school boards to push authentic desegregation, which went forward until Ronald Reagan used the bully pulpit to stop it cold.
The fundamentalists were not a political force when he was elected. They became a political force during his administration when Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and the Catholic anti-abortion movement (using Carter’s pro-choice stance as a lever) saw a coup in the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention, and created the Moral Majority to unite conservative religious behind Reagan’s presidency.
Carter’s budget and economic policies were driven by the fact that conservative Democrats held the chairs of the committees that controlled that legislation, we were in a post-war stagflation that no one dared pin on the Vietnam War and whipsawed conventional policy makers, and that stopping it required drastic action that Carter finally took by appointing Paul Volcker to the chair of the Fed. Volcker raised interest rates that triggered a recession as speculation was drained out of Eurodollars and petrodollars. The global economy almost collapsed from a flood of petrodollars.
Liberals then and progressives now have not developed the geographical reach to pull off an insurgent campaign like the one Kennedy ran. That Kennedy nearly beat him was a much a result of Carter deciding to deal with government crises as President and minimize his campaigning. The so-called “rose garden strategy” was less a campaign strategy and more his dealing with very difficult foreign and domestic realities, especially the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Carter published a White House Diary in 2006 or so that provides a lot of insight into what was going on that the public was not aware of and who exactly was holding up progress.
The more I think about it, the more I disagree with your premise here further.
Democrats also moved to the left in 2008, and that seems to have worked out swimmingly.
We elected a statist, redistributionist, urban progressive, who was also black(!), over the effective reigning Queen of the DLC/New Dems on the primary basis of corrupted thinking on national security. And said liberal, once president, used his power to dramatically increase the scope (if not size) of government, reform the interface between citizens and their government, and explicitly fix the conservative errors of his predecessor from his own party (gay rights, financial deregulation, etc).
Barack Obama succeeded where McGovern failed.
Have you been talking to the Tea Party? You sound just like them except you left out “Muslim”.
Uh huh, because those words don’t actually have practical meaning and instead are just slurs invented by the right.
There’s nothing that Obama has done that is out of step with the political consensus of northern Europe.
Whether he enacted a national education standard with Race to the Top or a national clean energy standard or a national green industrial policy, those are all examples of statism in action. PPACA is an explicitly redistributionist bill.
I think it’s adorable that you–a persistent whiner and denigrator of the Obama administration for its many “sellouts”–are now defending him from “right-wing” charges that he’s been (gasp) a successful, commendable liberal. Run along.
No one will ever make the mistake of calling you Miss Congeniality… 🙂
He, in this very thread, just said there’s no difference between Obama and George W. Bush.
What am I supposed to do? Let it slide?
That was just an affectionate jab at your style, Joe. You both make consistently good points. I’m enjoying reading them.
I’m NOT defending him. I WANT him to be a statist, redistributionist, urban progressive, and he’s NOT.
Only the Tea Party and you claim he is.
Democrats also moved to the left in 2008
So, after their big win in 2006, the Democrats moved to the left for the next election.
OK. Similarly, after a big win in the 1930 elections, the Democrats want left for the next presidential-year election.
So, when do the Democrats move left? After losing because of a defection of left-wingers?
I don’t understand what you’re asking about. 2006 and 2008 were hand-in-hand. They were the same political wave.
Both elections were a pro-government and anti-war response to the Bush administration. It’s not hard to figure in hindsight why the liberal, Iraq war opponent was its greatest beneficiary. The stars aligned and the President worked very hard to make himself the champion of the hour. Conceptually simple story.
Since the rich are richer than EVER before, I think you need to rethink redistributionist.
I give you a time machine and send you back to 1972: what do you do?
I go back to 1968, and do my best to know some sense into the very cool people who decided there was no point in voting for Humphrey, and who thereby gave us Richard Nixon and the 1972 disaster.
Your telling me that, given 1968-1972, it made sense for McGovern to run the race he ran. Fine, but what good did that do? How about, instead of that, a former war supporter wins in 1968?
So, having been confounded by my premises, you instead just blow them off and make up your own. And this is somehow supposed to mean something to me? Well played.
Everybody’s always saying that the nasty libtards ruined America and the Democratic Party in 1972, but nobody yet has adequately explained what the proper course of successful political action was for that time. Even with the benefit of decades of hindsight. Hmm.
Agree. On November 7 I will gladly resume posting about my disagreements with some of the Obama administration policies … hopefully we’ll be talking about what he should do better in the second term. But that discussion has no place now.
There was a time when you could reasonably argue that there was no significant difference … I’m thinking 1952, 1956, 1976. But 1981-89 and 2001-9 should permanently cure anyone of thinking about that now.
Over the long term we do have to fight the Rahm Emmanual / Joe Liebermann / Ben Nelson wing of the party and advocate for, as Senator Paul Wellstone so aptly put it, the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. But history shows that handing power over to the GOP only strengthens the LieberDems’s grip on the party leadership as the party loses funds from the sources who contribute to whomever is in the majority, making the LieberDem’s connections to money all the more important.
I remember thinking that the 1992 elections represented a huge choice, a real fork in the road for our nation.
I was in college, and rather excitable about things.
The logic of “winning by losing” is informed by a cockeyed view of the rise of Republican conservatism after the defeat of Goldwater in 1964. And the calculation that if the less progressive folks lose, like happened in 2010, the way is open for more progressive challengers in the following election.
It is a crazy view because it assumes that defeat teaches the opposite lesson of what actually happens. What actually happens is politicians read defeat as a movement of the center of politics in the direction of the winners. They then adjust their positions to be closer to that center.
Based on my sense of where the strongest third party activists are, my sense is that only state that it will matter is Colorado and it’s a very long shot for any third party there.
There are a number of reasons for this; not the least is the fact that the third party vote is seriously fragmented.
In fact, the state most likely to have results altered by a third party is Virginia, where Virgil Goode will draw votes from Republicans. And that’s primarily because the third party vote is less split on the right and Goode is a known name and for some folks a favorite son.
There’s also the hard reality that a RomneyRyan win would consolidate the vote cheating and suppression we’re already seeing in red states throughout the country. With a compliant Scotus, this election could ensure that vote-based democracy is dead as the oligarchy becomes the new default condition.
We can learn lessons from Occupy, which took the political discussion into questions about US capitalism we haven’t seen since FDR. We can learn from the teabaggers, who organized a flexible political force that scared a major party into a further jump into neo-fascist ideology. But until we quit just yapping and organize, and find competent lefty leaders who speak for us and do it well, the other side is going to keep owning the economic/social memes.
Didn’t Nader disabuse people of this notion? If at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail again.
The way you get politicians to listen to you, especially if you don’t have money, is to vote.
You put your candidate up in the primary and if you lose, then you still vote for the party’s nominee.
Not voting doesn’t do anything but diminish your own power in the process.
In fairness, that’s not the only way. But it is an effective electoral strategy.
“Not voting is abdicating your power” is exactly correct.
This is so true – and it’s especially true in local elections. If some unrepresented poor neighborhood were to put up a couple thousand voted in a municipal election, it wouldn’t even matter who they voted for. From then on, all of the city councilors would have to pay attention.
“There is no precedent for believing this will actually happen.” Indeed, there is a lot of precedent for believing this will not actually happen.
Mostly off-topic, except for the subject title, but I sit here with the SF Giants’ victory parade on the teevee, and just now learned that given the 2010 & 2012 championships, the Giants now have a total of seven, which is one more than the total for the LA Dodgers.
Yessirree.
This win was very special, given that the Giants swept the team that swept the Yankees, who had then become unbeatable by virtue of that.
My theory is that Pablo Sandoval’s three home runs for his first three at-bats in game one, right under the nose of Justin Verlander (remember unbeatable?), blew the minds of the Tigers so completely that they never did recover.
By the way, the Yankees have 27 titles. Wikipedia claims there would have been five-in-a-row starting 1996 except somehow they blew 1997.
I’ve called them all sorts of names over the years, but i’ve always admired the talent. Too bad Mariano won’t be able protect their tender butts forever.
Exactly, Boo. I’m one who thinks that the two-party system has to be destroyed long term if we want to hold onto some semblance of democracy. But that’s not something the two parties are going to make happen, so using the brink of elections is a stupid time to be deflecting attention to the system’s failure. All it does is discourage voters, which primarily hurts the only side we can ally with. I get really sick of platitudes without any real efforts to organize a left version of the teabaggers.
We need an independent political force that can influence primaries (sometimes even when it ups the chance of losing in the general at state and local levels). We need a pseudo or real party that can endorse and support a Dem or somebody else. We need organizations that can get to the media with a truly different view of the world. The way I see it, Obama got us a little closer to making that future possible (with huge help from Occupy) by openly talking about the downside to American capitalism — not enough, and not deeply enough, but unique in recent electoral history. It’s long past time to bury Nader’s stupid “all the same” meme and age savvy about how to work the system in order to destroy it.