I grew up in a rural Missouri town, the child of a school teacher and a college professor. Bright blue people in red state America. I had an entertaining exchange with my sister this morning, as she was riding around with my parents during a visit to my home town as my parents talked about all the “changes” — the new sign at the grocery store, the relocation of the Dairy Queen, the closing of THE Chinese restaurant. We sniggered back and forth over our smart phones, just as we used to with my parents, over the irony of how some things really never change.
While I had my sis on a text dialogue with my parents in the car, I conducted a very SSS poll of my parents about tomorrow’s primary — it appears my Dad’s vote is for Bernie, even if my Mom is probably going to put hers behind the prospect of the first female president. Both deep blue Illinois democrats by birth, my parents have rarely shared candidates in primaries — somehow managing to disagree with each other just to prove their independence. Miraculously, they celebrated 50 years of marriage last year. Their insistence on disagreement has not diminished their union, instructively.
A few months ago, I received an email from Daily Kos inviting me back into the fray to write more diaries. Despite misgivings, I’ll admit my heart jumped and warmed a little bit. I have a soft spot for DKOS. I joined back in January of 2004 — a lifetime ago — hard at work at the Howard Dean barricades and helping organize the Fort Collins, CO DFA chapter. DailyKos was fresh air for me — a place where passion met sophistication. People were wicked smart, seasoned organizers, and willing to risk a new vision for democracy in America.
I had largely left during the Clinton/Obama flame wars back in 2008 — unable to grasp why two candidates who shared 90% of their political platform with one another could engender such hateful rhetoric between their respective supporters. My idealized world of reasoned, impassioned dialogue had gone full on Lord of the Flies. I took a break.. came back occasionally.. and while I always found a platform of mostly-informed discussion on topics of interest — the sense of community was gone. It seems people were more interested in projecting righteousness around their ideology than they were in building a progressive movement. It felt a lot less like Democracy for America — and a lot more like demagoguery for a few people who had somehow commandeered the megaphones.
Meh.
I feel like I’m riding around in the back of a car that’s going somewhere different than what I’d hoped for, because we’re just going back to a place that hasn’t actually changed after all. Those in the front seat driving, whether DNC leaders or other denizens of our progressive agenda, are locked in some argument about why the opposing candidate is bad, or misguided, or unelectable.
Meanwhile, us kids in the back of the car just shake our heads, dumbfounded at why these people could be locked in such a symbolic debate when so much is at stake for us. Where this car goes, ultimately, matters so much more to us in the back than it does in the front, and, no, it doesn’t matter that those in the front are the ones who bought the car. When they start arguing like this, it makes me what to jump out and walk. Alone, if need be.
How are we to build the progressive movement? Are we going to let our egos, our rigid ideology, our misguided self-righteousness hijack the larger objective? This isn’t a game, or an intellectual discussion, or a platform for self-validation. This is about making a society that helps people who are legitimately suffering right now. This is about building a movement that can help the United States face enormous challenges of income inequality, institutional racism, international political/religious instability, climate change, and sustained economic resiliency.
We have to get this right. It’s more than just an intellectual exercise.
So, if you don’t see much of people like me — it’s because we got off at the last rest stop, and are waiting for the big bus of an authentic progressive movement to arrive.