It never seems to end. The endless calls for the left to fall in line from certain elements of the institutional Democratic Party (always eager to give a quote “off the record”), “liberal” magazines, pundits and the “liberal” blogosphere. Various special interest groups (aka VOTERS) are chided to all but sign loyalty oaths with the party, with promises that their issues will be “dealt with” at some point in the future.
We saw it during the suffrage movement (starting with Abigail Adams after chiding her husband not to forget “the ladies”). We saw it during the civil rights movement. We heard plenty of it last year regarding the gay rights movement. This year, after gays were pushed back in the closet (“gay marriage cost us the election!”), after all of the promises to African American voters were betrayed ONE DAY after the election, it’s time to go after the feminists again.
crossposted at Liberal Street Fight
Just who, exactly, is the party supposed to be fighting for? It’s an important question, and there seems to be a battle going on for the answer to that question. In fact, the attacks aren’t just aimed at women, gays and minority voters, but also at the party Chairman, Dr. Howard Dean. Which “healers” should we follow in the difficult years ahead?
A person has to ask how many times this ideological snake oil will be sold by the faux “healers” that have run the Democratic Party into its current sorry state. They stand before their wares, thumbs hooked self-importantly into the pockets of their waistcoats, while they lecture the gathered masses that the solution to ALL of the problems of life are at hand, if only the rubes would continue to swallow the proferred bitter and ineffective medicine.
Their advice is especially stomach churning after so many groups fought long and hard for the party’s nominee in the last Presidential election. Women’s groups were very active, fighting hard on the ground, raising money and getting the word out. They, like their other allies, worked hard to “stay on message” (those patent salesmen speak with such purty words) so as to not derail the nominee’s campaign. A campaign that was as ineffective as many patent medicines. Like any snake oil salesman, the “leaders” of the Democratic Party went on to blame the “patients” for not taking the medicine properly.
Some on the left still hope that the chairmanship of Howard Dean can save this party from it’s own ineffective nostrums. As befitting his training, the Doctor actually tries to listen to the people he serves. He speaks plainly, offering his diagnosis of the problem, and his course of treatment. In fact, in Seattle on Sunday, Dr. Dean said:
Next, Dean said the party <u>must rally minorities and women early, or “reach out to our core constituency now — not wait until Election Day.” During the last presidential election, the party took for granted such traditional Democrats, and paid for it: For instance, Democrats lost ground with women in 2004, Dean said.</u>
“I would like to find a woman to be the next mayor of Spokane,” he said, adding that citizens turn to women to restore trust after public scandals.
Dean’s schedule yesterday seemed to underscore his plan for engaging women and minorities. Before meeting with the women’s political group yesterday, he attended events hosted by black and Asian Pacific islander groups.
So what are leftists to do? The fact that Dr. Dean has come under very public and dismissive attack from such “leaders” as Senator Biden and failed Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards might encourage some that they should stay and fight for the soul of the Democratic Party. That so-many beltway insiders are chiding Dean in the press, after only 100 days in his office, could very well demonstrate that he is building too much of a base amongst “outsiders” (again, aka VOTERS) for their comfort. Staying and working with Dean for the future of the party may very well prove to be a worthy endeavor. It is a risky course, however, given the party’s history with “outsiders” (see the Carter administration).
Some consider joining, or forming, a third party. That may be a road that has to be considered. After all, it was the Green and the Libertarian Parties that went to court to protect the right for EVERY American’s vote to be counted in Ohio. That, too, would be risky, given the built-in barriers to third party success in the electoral system.
Perhaps idealogical alliances can be struck, voting blocs to mirror those adopted by our more like-minded leaders in Congress. Perhaps the leaders in the Progressive Caucus itelf should consider splitting the party, joining Jim Jeffords in the Senate and Bernie Saunders in the House as a separate and united bloc independent of the two woefully corrupt “mainstream” political parties. That might sound to some as extreme, but as the “centrist” tide rolls along, it might be worth considering.
It is time for leftists to keep their options open. It is time for those on the left commit to each other, and our shared ideals of fairness, equal opportunity and our faith in a shared humanity. It is time to raise our voices, and make it very clear that vague promises will not be accepted from a party of corporate insiders that has shown itself repeatedly willing to sell out those most at risk in our society. We must form alliances, a progressive, liberal bloc to put pressure on the Democratic Party, ready to back up Dr. Dean as he makes progress toward a truly effective party, but ready to step back if the Vichy Dems continue to undermine his efforts.
It is especially important that we fight for the civil and privacy rights of ALL Americans, not just those who make pundits, DC insiders and the mythical “centrist” voter feel unchallenged.
Maybe in the next two elections we can finish the title above with the word “Democrat”, but it seems plain that the time is not now. It is time to make the party earn the left’s vote, or for the left to launch insurgent campaigns in primary races and in the general elections, if the party continues to undermine or lock out liberals.
image from Farm Security Administration Photographs of Florida
also diaried at dailykos
Great diary. I went with Democrat based on what I believe we stand for but not necessarily what all democratic politicians end up doing and saying…so the other half of me would go with ‘disgusted’.
Nothing griped me more this last election(well one of the things) than democrats trying to avoid the whole issue of gay people/gay marriage..it gave me headaches just listening to all of them mickey mouse around the subject.. just about everyone except Al Sharpton and Carol Mosely Braun on that human rights issue.
Maybe if they figure out that if they consider everyone,(and not just at election time) gay people, Blacks, feminists, Native Americans etc and really fight for us all they could maybe just maybe win in a landslide instead of being so afraid to offend certain groups. Which instead just makes them look oh I don’t know-maybe the word flip/floppy comes to mind…speaking of mind(mine) it’s almost 2 in the morning so I hope this makes a modicum of sense.
Cool, I’m glad you decided to post here, MitM.
I think this is exactly what we need to do. We need to commit to each other on the deepest levels, standing up for one another, so that politicians, pundits and strategizers no longer feel comfortable suggesting that one or another of our lot be “sacrificed for the good of all”.
That’s happened way too often, and here we are back fighting the same issues some thought were settled years ago. Old sayings become part of the culture for a reason, and the one ‘give them an inch and they’ll take a mile’ holds true, time after time.
Until we show that deep and broad commitment to each other and make it a part of how we live and interact and vote, we’ll not get the sort of politicians that will show their commitment to us.
On a panel at the Take Back America Conference, Chris Raab of Afro-Netizen asked if anyone had a clear definition of “progressive”. Good point, and I think the correct question.
I’m in favor of a national “living wage”, not an incremental increase in the minimum. Also in favor of universal healthcare rather than piecemeal increases for “children”. Dyed-in-the-wool pro-choice. Not open for negotiation. The list goes on, and to me points to the disconnect between the party leadership and the feet on the ground.
Must we simply agree to disagree and support the “D”? I can’t, and won’t this time around. And it’s obvious from your diary and literally hundreds of others that’s where the paths diverge between the “institutional” party, and that loose coalition of people calling themselves “progressives”.
I think you’re right about the party earning back the support of the people. At the national level there is a “beltway bubble” that still seems intent on using the resources of the party (money, volunteers) to maintain a structure that is sorely out of touch. The leadership org chart still resembles a pyramid when the actual construct is a flat plain.
Going forward I want to see an agenda that gives me hope for my grandchildren. An agenda that is promoted as a positive alternative, and drafted of, by, and for the people. As I keep saying: all three hundred million of us. Haven’t seen one yet. Unless you’d call the 43-page party “platform” from ’04 an agenda. Pap and nonsense.
All in all we’re just another brick in the wall? I don’t think so. Not this time.
CNN thinks that the Democrats have to become moderate
in order to win over Republicans to their side.
What about that portion of the electorate who did not
vote? Why couldn’t they be encouraged to vote by winning
them over with progressive policies.
I think the MSM would be happy with one party, it would be more simple for them.
CNN isn’t known for it’s brain trust. 🙂
at the mentality of the average 13 year old.
Let me say that my 14 year old grandson would scorn
the dialogue I just described. It’s soo stupid.
Getting news on line and reading good writers, makes
them look even more stupid by comparison.
In a mood of masochism, I decided to watch CNN. I have Iraq on my mind these days. There they were talking about how Howard Dean was talking tough, how Senator Reid called Bush a liar, he apologized for calling Bush “a loser” but did not apologize for “a liar.” Then there was shock and dismay as they discussed how Senator Clinton was insulting Republicans. Oh she must be running for President to do that after all up until recently she was soooo moderate. And the repeated phrase was “Democrats are distancing themselves” from these people. Bob Schneider said it so often he began to stumble on the words.
NEVER at no time did they question the issues. Why was Senator Clinton talking tough, on what subject. She was saying that Bush was the only president who cut taxes during a war. Was there even a hint that they accepted the truth of what she was saying? No way. The news was her NEW TONE. I have to stop, I’m getting too angry.
Democrats have got to stop accepting the media’s lying descriptions of them. Remember the margin, 51 – 49 was too slim to consider that Bush had a mandate and the Democrats were a bunch of defeated losers. Think of the ton of money put into Bush’s campaign and of the overwhelming power the Republicans held and yet they only won by a slim margin. Bunch of losers!
On the issues, the American people are liberals. Even among self-described conservatives (the people, not politicians, not movement activists, but ordinary people) the preference is more government, not less, when it comes to all the core welfare state issues–health care, soccial security, education, etc. Even on conservative hot-buttons like gay marriage, a majority of Americans want either gay marriage or civil unions.
That’s why an honest discussion of the issues is precisely what’s meant by the term “liberal media.” In order to be “balanced” they have to ignore the underlying issues and focus on things like “tone.”
But there’s more. The conservative strength in our country derives from the fact that more people identify as conservatives than liberals, and that conservatives and liberals have become more polarized in their voting over the past 20-30 years. (Chris Bowers over at MyDD has done this analysis.)
This is largely a matter of image and identification. “Looking presidential,” “acting reasonable,” “standing tall,” all that stuff goes into crafting images of conservatives as sober, serious, reliable, etc. In other words, precisely the sort of people who would never do precisely the sorts of things they actually do every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Thus, the focus on manner and tone reflects the very heart of conservative media bias, even more than the distortion of facts and suppression of news–such as the Downing Street Memo, or the reality of what’s happening in Iraq. Distorting facts and suppressing news are important, of course. But the focus on image, manner, and tone is the very life-blood of conservative media bias. It’s what fills the void that’s created by distorting facts and suppressing news.
I was a moderate – grew up Republican and saw no difference between the parties…until 1980 and I was told by the Republican Party that women’s issues didn’t deserve a plank at the convention. In 1980 I voted independent for John Anderson.
I’ve been a registered Dem since then…
This current resurgence of energy and fighting has reminded me we’ve come a long way – just not far enough. I fight this battle now for my granddaughter in 12 years or so – I want it easier for her…and my grandson.
There are some democrats that have my vote – and sometimes I’ll voter libertarian or green or independent. All bets are currently off.
That’s the most maddening thing.
There has been a lot of discussion lately about our need to unite and not splinter into “special interests” that descend into squabbling among ourselves while the right runs the country.
On the one hand – this is correct. We need to stand for something that is clear and inclusive. We need to present a vision of what America should be and can be, and America’s role in the world, that most Americans already agree with, but that we have not yet made clear. Instead we have presented a laundry list of policies and proposals and watched the right wing spin machine distort, distract, and ridicule them one by one.
However, answer is not to jettison women, gays, minorities, etc. in hopes that what remains is a “unified message.”
What remains is a small group of potential voters – white middle to upper-middle class males who are not particularly concerned with anyone but themselves. Who is left out? Well, the women, the gays, the minorities, and white middle to upper-middle class males who care about others.
Do the math, politicos! All those people who are being told that “we Dem’s have nothing to offer you, just vote for us and we’ll see what we can do . . . um, sometime, maybe, down the road. Just trust us” – are a much larger group of potential voters.
That attitude not only violates the core principle of most who consider themselves “left” or “progressive,” – that we care about every American, and more than that every citizen of the world itself.
It is also really stupid political strategy.
Way too many people stayed home who might have voted because they didn’t see the point. A lot voted, but picked a candidate more-or-less at random. Why? Because they saw – and they were correct – that neither party really cared about them or the things that were important to them.
As long as Dem politicos see “voters” as that small bloc of white males who care only about themselves, what they reveal is their own blindness. They think the world is mainly people like themselves. The rest of us are invisible to them. When you start to care about people who you don’t see when you look in the mirror in the morning – you start to see them. You pay attention to them. You’re willing to listen to them – really listen to them. Paying attention takes time, and work.
That has been the reason for the recent wars. Those of us who feel like we have been told to STFU – we (white, straight) guys have important things to do – have not “had our feelings hurt.” We are really pissed because we see that jettisoning large groups who should be our natural allies is both morally wrong and stupid politics, and it’s going to lose elections if we don’t get our shit together immediately. Before 06, not to mention 08.
We have to make it clear – we care about you, we have something to offer you, because we are the party who cares about everyone.
Well stated and correlates well with the message FDR promoted during the Depression. I am not sure how we as a Progressive party wavered and lost our direction. But I can tell you it happened after Ronnie Raygun was elected. We are the party of inclusivity, we are the party that cares about helping those who can’t help themselves, we are the party that supports the rights and welfare of all Americans. Even the American Taliban who want to destroy us. Janet, thank you for your expressive writing and succinct ability to get to the heart of the matter and clarify the point. I enjoy reading your analysis very much. Thank all of you for allowing me to be a part of this community.
The criticisms here are quite on target, but the solution? It sounds like our own variation on precisely what we’re fighting against.
We’ve never had more sustained energy, focus and power in the party than we do today since 1972. The party leadership shoots itself in the foot, and our response is to think about how to do the same?
I don’t think so. I think we need to do a hell of a lot more organizing and strengthening of our own institutions that are not beholden to the Beltway consultants and money-men. The right did not gain power in the GOP by giving up so easily. Neither should we.
I would love to live in a country where third party politics made strategic as well as moral sense. But I don’t. End of discussion. We need to stay and win within the Democratic Party.
It’s not going to happen overnight. But it’s never going to happen anywhere else–unless there is a major sea-change, something on the order what brought down the Whigs and raised up the Republicans back in the 1850s. That could happen, of course. But it’s nowhere close to happening now. And the best way to prepare ourselves in case it does happen is the same strategy that makes sense for winning inside the party: organizing and strengthening of our own institutions that are not beholden to the Beltway consultants and money-men.
I appreciate your comment, but I think you’re focusing only on “leave the party” while I plainly offered a couple of different paths to take.
The sea-change that we need will ONLY happen if the left stops working at cross-purposes WITH EACH OTHER (which happens much less these days) and AGAINST right-wing and corporatist elements within the Democratic Party. That’s why I clearly said:
No more being quiet for the “good of the party”. I’m not talking about badmouthing the nominees in public, but I am talking about responding to the endless sniping that comes from the DLC, NDN, the front page at dKos, TNR, TPM (fill in your own favorite “centrist” group/blog/magazine) toward the left, toward gays and women and the poor and minorities.
Our country is being turned into some reanimated zombie of the old Gilded Age, and the “centrists” have been helping it happen.
I don’t want the left to have to leave. I want them to fight for the soul of the party, but another round of attacks against a progressive in the primaries like the takedown of Dean in Ohio with the excreble Osama ad and we may be forced to.
It’s up to the centrists … they can honestly try to work with us rather than coddle MBNA, or it will be civil war within the party.
And there are more of us.
This is absolutely true:
I agree wholeheartedly with most of what you say, and don’t want to see your energy go off the track. So I focused on what I saw as a serious danger–one that’s often been quite seductive for folks on the left. The other paths deserve serious discussion, including both praise and criticism. But whatever criticism I may have of any of them is nothing compared to the criticism of bolting the party. I just didn’t want to muddy my message, that’s all.
but so far it looks like lefties are just pissed and showing up (in writing, in person, whatever) and being very passionate about it.
However, these attacks on feminists, and on Dean, pose a real danger, especially if something happens again like the Osama ad in Iowa, of a major split in the party.
This is an ancient and long-standing situation. The Democrats have long been a diverse coalition, sensitive to splitting. The GOP is relatively unified. Identity politics is their ace in the hole, not ours. We may talk about identity politics, but they don’t have to–because the very language that’s common to us all is soaked in their identity politics.
We need to do more than get angry here. We need to get a much deeper grasp of the underlying realities here. It’s actually the Democrats who are unified by values–equality, justice, compassion, caring for “the least of these,” etc. That’s what unifies secular and religious progressives, moderate and liberal Democrats and independents, feminists, labor unionists, environmentalists, civil libertarians, peace activists and all the rest. Out identity is in the values we share, the values of America–liberty and justice for all (the Pledge of Allegiance, written by a socialist Baptist minister, without the words “under God” as a counterweight to “Social Darwinism,” btw).
This is an identity of inclusion. It is the exact opposite of conservative identity politics. And it is up to us to make this diverse identity something that all Americans instinctively respond to as their own. And let me tell you, there ain’t a damn thing moderate about it, much less conservative.
for your thoughtful reply.
What I feel, and I think I’m not alone in this, is that the party leadership RUNS AWAY from that shared identity of inclusion. Instead of doing the hard political work of finding a way of including gays, minorities, the poor and women more fully in our society. Instead, we have the likes of Joe Biden carrying MBNA’s water and attacking a dynamic politician who IS doing the hard and dirty work of raising the issues.
We need to have these discussions as a country, or the continued Republican strategy of massaging the difference will tear the country apart.
It’s presumptuous of me to speak for “the left” but I think a lot of us are tired of a party that won’t have that conversation, but instead babbles about “moving to the center”. I also think that talking about it in places like this (and myDD – great site, by the way) and some other places is part of working through the system. This is a good way to spread ideas virally, after they grow in such a “hot” environment.
Thanks again. I hope you see this.
If Joe Lieberman didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have to invent him. We’d already have Joe Biden. Both spend the vast majority of their time attacking the party’s base.
When Dean announced for the DNC chair, I considered him the last hope of the Democratic Party. I still do, but early indicators aren’t good. I like Dean for the simple reason that he speaks truth-to-power, as a first language. That has been sorely lacking in the Democratic Party, for some time. These folks are way to comfortable in their position as second-class party to risk rocking the boat.
The swallow your discomfort and your “special interest” mantra has been bugging me for some time, and the pages of DK are not the first place I encountered it. Here’s the problem as I see it. The Democrats are losing their standing because they are almost as enmeshed with big money donors as Republicans. They will chew off whatever limbs are made up of women, gays, minorities, labor, etc — like so many useless appendages — rather than bite the hand that feeds them. Besides those discarded limbs will still vote for Democrats, because to do otherwise is, in the immortal of Kang (or was it Kodos?) to “throw your vote away.” That is the fix we are in. Ah, well, “‘Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains.” – Jean Jacques Rosseau.
vote for Democrats if they vote. But even though more in the “discarded limbs” groups voted in 2004 than in 2000 (I think), because they were appalled by BushCo in action, far too many stayed home.
And it was close!
We don’t need to get every single person in the “discarded limbs” category to the polls to vote Dem. We just need to get more than we did last time. If we continue to discard large groups of voters as “special interest” or “out of the mainstream” we’ll get fewer instead.
We can’t say – well, things are so much worse now, the war and the economy – and people are waking up.
We thought that on Nov 1, 2004. That’s why we were all walking around in stunned disbelief on Nov 3.
Yes, more and more people are becoming convinced that the direction of this country is totally FUBAR. They’re starting to get really worried that their kid may end up in Iraq. That we’re creating terrorists faster than we can kill them. That they may lose their job, their pension, their house. But they are not yet convinced that the D’s would change the direction we’re headed.
oh, and thank you all for your comments. I’m sorry it took me so long to check in … busy day at work.
a member of The Working Families Party or The Labor Party? Or The New Party, which isn’t really a party?
Great post.
This is why what Dean is doing is so valuable. The idea that voters can be divided up into blocs and wooed or ignored is exactly parallel to the “18 state strategy.” If the party says “screw Arkansas,” then Arkansas will say, “screw you.” If the party says, “screw gays,” gays will say, “screw you.” Deservedly so, in both cases.
Dean has a 50-state strategy. He’s building up a robust, decentralized network. The real beauty of this is the same reason that the consulting classes are all bothered by it: The sort of voter triage that they used to perform is only possible when it’s imposed from the top down. Now, not only will states that the party has previously ignored be able to make themselves heard, but areas that have strong minority constituencies of any description can at least shape their part of the party to fit their interests and beliefs, and be heard, and raise awareness on their terms, and get the money they need to do so. And some of them will get to have lunch with the chair of the DNC from time to time.
I’m more excited for the Democratic party than I’ve been in a long time, simply because at last it looks like I won’t have to hope that the chattering classes serve up someone I might like better than the other guy. I’m hoping that it means the end of this kind of strategic alienation of the very people we’re supposed to represent.
Of course, the chattering classes won’t go into that good night without a lot of chattering, but let them. In the end, boots on the ground make or break a party, and the base has a lot more boots than they do.
I have been thinking about this idea for awhile. Could the U.S. sustain a third, or fourth party?
I also feel very frustrated, and wonder where the future of the democratic party is headed. Just like the discussions that took place after the election, about where the party is headed, I feel that we are at a turning point.
Democrats could have so much going for them right now, if they had the courage to stand up for what they believe in. Many people are sick and tired of the way our government is being run by the republicans-and yet, for some reason, democrats are trying to look MORE like them? I don’t get it.
Sometimes I wonder if we would do better with a women’s party? I know not everyone upset with the dems are women, but I think there are a lot of women out there who are pissed off. Would a women’s party, or a “politically-disenfranchised” party be the solution?
I really don’t know if it would, but women are more than 50% of the electorate and I do not feel like their collective or individual voices are being heard.
There’s been some chatter, but even a “woman’s party” wouldn’t necessarily gather enough votes to win although it might make the dominant parties take notice.
The problem being, of course, that not all women agree even on what are called “women’s” issues. The dividing lines are pretty stark on issues like abortion, a little more muddied on birth control, split again on education although probably not as broadly. Emily’s list is a good start, but even it has it’s flaws.
In my area, locally, we’ve got decent femal represenatation at the county level (not pariticla, but decent) but even with a woman up for county comission, I couldn’t vote for her becasue of her stances on development in an already over developed county.
It’s very, very complicated and makes my brain hurt.
at this point, I think in terms of “Third Bloc”. Put pressure on the Dems as a bloc. I think the left has gone a long way toward that already. If the party bullies too much in the upcoming primaries, I think it will get very nasty, and the left could become a real, unified force. I think it should anyway, right now.