(I originally posted following as a comment on Booman’s recent piece Why the Dems Cannot Win. It grew, so I am posting it now as a standalone.)
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Well thought out Booman, in a hard-tack, hardball, professional political sense.
But…it has recently been proven that public opinion can trump (a purposeful choice of words) political micromanagement, especially if that micromanagement is going to be done by mostly the same people…most especially at the top of the management chain…who micromanaged/macromangled the recent Democratic presidential campaign.
And this appears to be what is going to happen.
Where the real pro-Dem possibilities lie (another purposeful word choice) are in the information wars. If something real and hard in a negative sense (not rumors or anonymous leaks from “people in the know”) can be proven about the Trump regime…soon…it will have a major trickle-down effect in terms of public opinion. If…simultaneously…real contrast can made in the media between the Trumpist policies, mainstream (read “regressive”) Republican policies and those of well-meaning, left-leaning forces in the Democratic Party, then the Dems have more than a fighting chance in both 2018 and 2020.
But I do not see evidence of any of that happening in the media today. It’s all about the whole anonymously-sourced Russiagate thing, with a side-helping of anti-Sanders/anti-Warren, neocentrist-sponsored bullshit.
I will reprint here something that I linked in my most recent post, Sanders: MORE “Just in Case You Haven’t Noticed” Regarding Media Hostility.
It pertains.
Lessons for the left, courtesy of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders
Looking political reality right in the face: it’s true Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn lost. But their vanquishers — Hillary Clinton, Theresa May — seem far more hangdog. One of Canada’s great left-wing figures, Madeleine Parent, said, If we learn something from defeat, we never really lose. In that vein…
- Truisms of the past have vapourized. Socialism is no longer a term to avoid. Bernie didn’t shrink from it and it seems to have intrigued voters, especially the young, rather than alienating them. Corbyn stuck with his antiwar position, even as terror burst out in Manchester and London, and it appears to have hurt May more than him. What’s typical of clueless left-wing parties, like our NDP, is that they ditched the term socialism at the very moment — 2013 — when it no longer would damage and would probably benefit them.
- Age isn’t relevant. The two old guys got the biggest youth boost. They didn’t get it because they’re old. Age just didn’t matter.
- This is my favourite: the chasm between hard-headed, pragmatic party officials and short-sighted idealistic members. The New York Times said: “The base wants it all, the party wants to win.” That’s exactly wrong. If the party (elected members and paid staff) wanted to win, they’d have backed Sanders over Clinton: he’d have creamed Trump and they knew it. In the U.K., they’d have stopped ceaselessly undermining Corbyn, and he’d almost surely have beaten May.
What the pros actually value over winning elections is keeping their jobs. The “base” wants it all only in the sense of reversing the deterioration in their lives and in the prospects of their children. They’re not into storming heaven.
- The dread mainstream media aren’t so dread. Tony Blair won for “the left” by cravenly courting Rupert Murdoch’s editorial support. Corbyn didn’t bother and got about the same vote percentage as Blair at his best. The tussle between social and mass media seems to be tipping toward the former. Clinton was brazenly backed by all the mainstream media (MSM) and it didn’t help her against Trump. In fact, Trump may be the only politician still obsessed by what the MSM say.
- Being yourself works, if you really are yourself and not some tortuous result of reverse political engineering. This appealing state is known as authenticity. Sanders and Corbyn have been themselves for so long they no longer have to pause and recall who they’re supposed to be. Clinton never did work it out. This relates to the much discussed theme of populism.
- This is a populist moment, but neither Sanders nor Corbyn are seizing it as populists. They haven’t changed in order to jump on board; they’re socialists and this equips them for the populist mood, which exists because of the widening gulf between most people and the arrogant rich.
—snip—
Read the rest of it. It’s quite perceptive.
Especially perceptive in the part about “…the chasm between hard-headed, pragmatic party officials and short-sighted idealistic members. The New York Times said: “The base wants it all, the party wants to win.” That’s exactly wrong. If the party (elected members and paid staff) wanted to win, they’d have backed Sanders over Clinton: he’d have creamed Trump and they knew it.”
I am not sure that the party leaders “knew” that Sanders would have won. I’m not sure, myself. But I do know that the heavy DNC lean towards HRC was motivated by the idea that “What [political] pros actually value over winning elections is keeping their jobs.”
If these same political pros remain in power in the Democratic Party, then their shortsighted, largely self-oriented policies will once again doom that party to minority status.
Or worse.
Like…extinction.
I have no idea what to do about this in a practical sense…I am not a “political pro,” after all…but as a fairly astute political observer, this is what I see happening now and in the near future. There is an alliance between the neocentrist Dems and RatPubs to oust the Trumpist interlopers, but once that happens…if it does, of course…the Dems will be left once again holding the shitty end of the stick.
If on the other hand the Dems were to attack, attack, attack the Rats (including the Trumpists) on all fronts…publicly and hard…they might take a step backward in 2018 (or they might not), but by 2020 the various truths of the matter would have become so plain that the Dems would surely rebound quite well.
The kicker here is the phrase “truths of the matter.” Slinging unsubstantiated mud in alliance with the RatPubs has nothing whatsoever to do with presenting the unvarnished truths of the situation to the US-ian public. It just further muddies up an already cloudy, largely false-news produced political pool.
Bipartisan, political pro-type images like the following aren’t going to help the Dems win in either 2018 or 2020.
Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie (And Nancy and Paul and Mitch…)
If We Had A Hammer (We’d Use It For Personal Gain)
Bet on it.
What bullshit!!!
The U.S. electorate…that portion that didn’t swallow the Trump bullshit or the HRC bullshit, a goodly portion when combined with “The Lesser Of Two Evils” HRC voters…is so over that tired old game!!!
If the Dems don’t rapidly move to what is happening today in popular opinion, they may as well just retire to their offshore account-supported hideaways and give the fuck up.
We’d all be better off if they did.
Bet on that as well.
Later…
AG
