What would be a good strategy for American progressives?

Great Debates
1

Inspired by this thread about a strategy to get the Democratic Party’s attention by registering Green (but only if you never vote in the primaries anyway). Sounds pretty meh. But what would work?

As I stated the problem in the other thread: other than the tactic described in the OP, what could American progressives* do, to shift the Democratic Party – that is, to shift Congress – never mind all that, let’s go straight to the real point, to shift American public policy in a more progressive direction?

Here’s the problem: See the Pew Political Typology, 2011 version. The Tea Partiers represent a popular but still a minority viewpoint in America (see the Staunch Conservatives, 9% of general public, 11% of registered voters); so do the progressives (see the Solid Liberals, 14%, 16%). Each group faces a common challenge in trying to leverage the country’s public policies their way, which a substantial minority can do, but it’s never easy, and it’s a whole lot easier from the center than from any fringe. If the Tea Party supports mainstream GOP candidates, they compromise everything they’re in it for; but if they take control of the GOP like they’re bidding to do, they’ll torpedo its general-election chances every cycle until they lose it again. Similar problem if progressives try to change the Democratic Party “from within.” Last time that happened was the New Politics movement that gave McGovern the nomination, and we know how that turned out, and how deeply it damaged the party’s prospects until 1992, when the Ogdamned but strategically-correct DLC took the helm.

And, of course, running one’s own third-party candidates is even more likely to insure the candidate you hate beats the candidate you can barely stand. (Unless we had instant-runoff voting, but that’s another discussion.)

So . . . Who has a better idea?
*For purposes of this thread I’m defining “progressive” as a position well to the right of “socialist” but well to the left of “liberal,” as explained in this thread of mine from 2008.

2

Are you implying that if the most ideologically extreme ends of the political spectrum (the Tea Party on the right, Progressives on the left) effectively take over a national party then that national party will have trouble winning elections where you need 51% of the vote to win? So trying to take over the party from the inside out so that it only represents the interests of the 11% of voters who are tea partiers or 16% who are progressives would backfire?

There is truth to that. The GOP probably may have won the senate, or at least tied, had the Tea Party not nominated people like Christine O’Donnell or Sharron Angle. A more moderate GOP candidate would’ve won in those races. Plus the expense of the primary in Florida (where Crist was pretty much a shoe in had he won the primary) took millions of dollars that could’ve been taken out of Florida and spent on competitive races and put that money into Florida for the primary instead.

However the tea party movement for the most part just takes politicians who come from reliably red areas and puts more conservative politicians in those seats. The tea party itself is largely a white southern movement.

http://politics.salon.com/2011/08/02/lind_tea_party/

So if the democrats did the same thing, they’d focus their primary efforts on seats that are going to be reliably democratic anyway. Seats in the northeast or west coast, or maybe the northern midwest (Michigan, IL, WI, MN). Plus Hawaii.

The tea party lost senate elections in 2010 where they picked seats that have moderate senators. Had they put someone like Sharron Angle or Christine O’Donnell up in Alabama or Utah they probably would’ve still beaten the democrat.

So the message to me isn’t that using primaries will make the national party too radical. The message is using primaries from the right (or the left) is pointless unless you are in a district that is reliably one party or another. The tea party primarying a moderate candidate in Delaware is a bad idea. Doing it in Utah is not, pretty much any republican will beat any democrat in Utah or Mississippi, more or less. And pretty much any democrat will beat any republican in new england (more or less).

Having said that there is a disconnect among dem voters between the demographics ‘hard pressed’ and ‘solid liberals’. The solid liberals are socially liberal, the hard pressed are not (they are mostly minority voters who are more concerned with economic issues and do not have the same views on gay marriage, drug decriminalization or abortion, at least not to the degree liberals do). So a massive takeover by liberals could alienate them. But who knows.

Also a huge, huge difference is that the Tea Party represents the interests of the plutocrats. The progressives are a threat to the interests of plutocrats. So progressives have a much higher mountain to climb. They don’t get funding from private health insurance companies to push their single payer health plans. They don’t get funding from oil companies and coal companies to push clean energy. And they don’t get funding from the financial industry to support progressive taxes and regulation. So no progressive movement will have the power of a conservative movement, since a truly progressive movement will be hostile to the entrenched powers who run things. But progressives do have their own funding and volunteer arms. Labor unions, environmental groups, trial lawyer groups, gay rights groups, liberal millionaires and billionaires, the netroots, etc. But by and large they aren’t as organized or powerful as the economic interests that the right represents.

I think a good strategy is to do what the right did starting in the 60s, and start reframing the debate. Fund think tanks and media outlets to push progressive frames and POVs in the media, until they sink into collective consciousness and pull both parties to the left.

3

Well, they do have something important in common: The progressives are at least as populist as the Tea Partiers, despite the “elitist” canard RWs so often fling at them. (Those occupying Wall Street right now ain’t no elitists.) And there is real potential in that. If your movement just has enough feet on the ground, that’s power that doesn’t need money. But, populism in American politics, while it sometimes has a lefty economic agenda, almost always has a conservative social and cultural agenda. OTOH, culturally and socially, the American center-of-gravity is a lot more progressive than it used to be (just look at the generational gap in opinions on issues such as gay marriage). Given that, in today’s cultural and political environment, could there be such thing as a big (say, at least as big as the Tea Party) left-populist movement?

Yeah, but that was also part of it. The conservative movement also did a lot of grassroots organizing in that period and got a lot of hard-conservatives elected – often to local governments, shool boards and such, as a base to build on later – and often running quiet or even secret as to their politics, “flying in under the radar” and winning barely-contested low-turnout local elections. Progressives might want to do it more honestly (or not ;); see entryism a classic fave of Trotskyists), but they’ll have to do something of the kind to succeed.

And, well, for reasons you’ve already pointed out, the “fund think tanks and media outlets” part is rather more of a challenge for the left than for the right. Might have to emphasize cheaper approaches.

4

Move to Europe.

5

Or Somalia

6

Well, I sort of touched on this in the other thread, but the fact is that it is difficult for a lot of people to vote (or vote multiple times a year) because of work, family life, etc. It’s also difficult to get involved in the Democratic Party, because they make it really difficult. I can’t tell you the number of times I have tried to get involved, and the response has been (1) send money, (2) phone bank, (3) neighborhood walk or (4) drive to Nevada and neighborhood walk. I understand these things are necessary, but I only have so much money to send, and I’m not good at phone banking or neighborhood walking.

And really, I’m starting to think the Democrats don’t even care about winning elections. There’s all this talk about the Republicans disenfranchising voters. Well, if you know it’s happening, and you can’t stop the law from passing, what are you going to do to get your voters to the polls?

So, with that in mind, here are my suggestions:

  1. Establish a think-thank infrastructure that can analyze legal and economic policy and provide legal and economic policy recommendations–to the point of drafting model legislation.

  2. Make it easier to vote. Full polls should open the Saturday before the election and stay open full time until Tuesday. Polling centers should be staffed properly so you don’t have to wait in line. All polling centers should have working equipment.

  3. Organize a volunteer system, whereby volunteers can be identified by their skills and preferences and routed to where there is need. Give the volunteers ownership and stakes in the process. For example, if there’s a voter id law that’s just been passed, then volunteers need to go to places where people are likely to have trouble (e.g., retirement centers) and get them ids.

  4. Advertise progressive facts. Rather than just concentrating on candidates, we need to shift the Overton window. So, for example, progressives should be running ads that explain that Reagan cut taxes, revenues dropped, and then taxes were raised every year of the Reagan administration except the last one. Or put out ads that compare government spending on health care in the US to other health care systems.

  5. Embrace alternative voting systems, to stop something like Florida 2000 from happening again, and hopefully to entice more of the electorate to vote.

Those are my quick thoughts.

7

We’ll prey on international shipping and tourism, and fund UHC with bloody plunder from the high seas. Everybody happy?

8

First, get greasy. If the Republicans want to lie and distort, don’t be afraid to do the same as opportunity permits. If the Republicans want to pounce on the Democrats for the company they keep (Rev. Wright for example), turn it right around on them. Say for example one of your political opponents has been involved with a ranch called Niggerhead. Don’t just let it go. Pounce on it and bury him with it. Dig deep for skeletons and unearth them all. Splatter the news cycle with the dirtiest gossip and raunchiest speculation possible. Start a Democratic equivalent to Fox News that isn’t a comedy show. Do like Fox news and dress all your beautiful female hosts in short little leather skirts. Don’t be afraid to pander and don’t be afraid to exaggerate, misinterpret, present opinions as facts, ask leading questions, lie outright, distort, et cetera. Basically pick up a copy of the Republican playbook and turn it around on them.

Second, get mean. Jim Cornette eviscerating the Republicans should have been an anthem. Nobody respects polite political debate. The Democrats can hold the moral high ground forever. They will be up there all alone, with no one in office to represent them. The party that is prepared to be in perpetual opposition perpetually will be. But the Democrats have got to figure out it’s not how you play the game, it’s how you win it.

Third, fight like your balls are on fire and the Republicans are between you and the bucket of water. Don’t hold back, don’t pull punches and for Christ’s sake, don’t apologize for having an opinion!

9

Can’t we just bash them in the back of the head with something jagged?

10

If we’re gonna do it that way, let’s start preparing some meme-phrases to push and push until they’re as common currency as “trickle-down” or “carbon footprint”:

Class interest. It sounds much nicer than “class warfare.” Just keep repeating and repeating that, in every context where it can be worked in, just to remind people of (1) the existence of such things as different American social classes with different and sometimes conflicting class interests and (2) the permanent political relevance of same.

Overton window. Fuck Beck, let’s own that phrase. We’re gonna be the ones who push that window our way.

Rose chart. Used to refer (in such a way as to imply that of course the hearer should already know) to Social Stratification in the United States: The American Profile Poster, by Stephen J. Rose. That’s another thing, by the way – we gotta find some way to display blowups of this thing at every rally, and push hard to hang it on the wall of every civics/history/social studies classroom in America.

Got any?

11

Why don’t YOU move to some Third World fascist dictatorship?

12

I think an excellent strategy for progressives would be to shut the fuck up and never vote again. Bunch of naive misguided souls that think the world owes them (and everyone else) a living. Their solution to every problem is to punish success by redistributing wealth, buy the world a Coke, and teach everyone to sing in perfect dippy-hippy harmony.

13

That’s a pretty narrow viewpoint, to say the least. Do you have anything more substantive to add, or are you just using GD as an IMHO BBQ Pit?

14

BrainGlutton proposes bashing Republicans in the head with something jagged. That’s substantive?

15

But, dat would leave tings to da conservatives, Abbot.

That, as we know well enough from recent and continuing experience, would be even worse.

16

Well, I get frustrated and want to bash something, too, but when not feeling that way, I think that the hateful rhetoric along the partisan divide is wasting valuable time; it’s like children expending more energy trying to get out of chores that to just do the chores. A lot of the pejoratives are stereotypical cliches that upon closer inspection, are almost as likely to occur on the side from which the criticism is coming, anyway. As a whole, this country is just stomping on its own dick with all this misdirected, counterproductive frothing.

17

'Scuse me, you got this froth on me, what were you saying?

18

Choose between the following two paths:

  1. continue Clintonian neoliberal economics and Obamaist internationalist foreign policy with social liberalism and some more government programs. This will get the vote of most of the middle class especially the business and professional classes and the Hispanic vote but Progressives can then kiss the working class and black vote bye.

  2. adopt a protectionist/nationalist attitude-steal Pat Buchanan’s thunder. Quiet down on social issues (ESPECIALLY immigration) and promote the workers’ cause.

19

A good start would be to convince the rest of us that you want everyone to progress… not just those who have shown little ability to do so on their own up till now.

As for tactics… no clue.

20

Part of pushing the Overton window to the left is to promote leftists who are so radical that progressives seem moderate by comparison. The right has been using this tactic a lot. The tea party makes the GOP of today seem moderate. The GOP of today makes the GOP of the 90s seem moderate. The GOP of the 90s made Goldwater seem moderate. Goldwater made the GOP of the 50s seem moderate. Nixon and Reagan would be purged from the GOP today.

So communists and anarchists should have a more prominent role to move the window left. Since people seem to unconsciously assume ‘the center’ is where all the responsible people go, then the center should be moved to the left. Right now ‘the center’ is in between right wingers who want to live in the 19th century and moderate democrats. So the center is democrats like Joe Lieberman right now.

George Lakoff does work with language to promote progressive values.

http://www.alternet.org/news/148058/the_dems_need_to_speak_to_progressive_values,_or_else_lose_badly_come_november/

Gay marriage = freedom to marry. Pro-choice = supporting a womans freedom to make her own decisions.

I’m not sure what frames he promotes for economic justice though.