With the inflamatory hysteria of the teabagging right that threatens to derail meaningful reform generating calls for progressive mass mobilization, some insist on clinging to a pre-2008 perspective.
Back in the depths of the Bush Presidency, the failure of mass protest to stop the Invasion of Iraq or halt the subsequent occupation had left a bitter taste in the mouths of progressives. Many voices were raised calling for a turn from such tactics towards a refocusing on electoral politics. Nowhere moreso than on dKos.
All in all, this was a reasonable tactical reassessment. It was clear that so long as the national government was held hostage by right wing interests, neither protests nor progressive criticism would receive consideration. On the contrary, it was a certainty that the full weight of Federal authority would be bent on deligitimizing and demonizing both. No democratic safeguards, whether constitutional or institutional, proved sufficient to defend against this assault. Nothing less than the expulsion of the right wing from its elected positions of power could open the way for progressive change.
With the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency, those who had argued against mass protests and in favor of electoral activism appeared fully vindicated. The right, which had run roughshod over all opposition for eight years, found itself routed across the board. A window of opportunity had been opened for the developement of a genuine progressive politics in the US.
Unfortunately, for some the critique of protest and mass mobilization wasn't simply a question of tactical re-adjustment. Rather, it was the expression of a nascent orthodoxy which seemingly accepts the view that such political expression is, in fact, illegitimate.
Full disclosure: I never accepted the wholesale rejection of protest as an outmoded and ineffective political tool. I wrote a diary on this prior 2008 election outlining my objections. While I recognize the need for tactical flexibility and alternate strategies, writing off the politics of protest and mass action strlkes me as an essentially technocratic and elitist position. One that utterly misapprehends the nature and dynamics of politics in a democracy.
We are now experiencing the consequences of this misguided view.
Premier among these is the astounding lack of political acumen that led to progressives being blindsided by the Teabagger assault on health care town halls. Such blindness was foreshadowed by the response to the spate of national "Tea Partys" that were launched earlier in the year. The derision expressed by progressives at the time, while well merited, reflected the internalized dogma that the politics of protest and mass mobilization were ineffective and irrelevant. Lost in this celebration of complacency was any recognition that the "Tea Parties" might reflect a characteristicly cynical but hardnosed political calculation on the part of the right wing.
It is clear now, as it ought to have been apparent then, that the right was engaged in forging a political weapon to be used against the first target of opportunity. It ought to have been but it wasn't. It seems that many had spent so much energy repudiating protest per se that they couldn't recognize a clear threat when it presented itself.
One would think that the success of the Teabaggers/GOP in thoroughly disrupting the public discussion of health care reform would have schooled us sufficiently on our error. Sad to say, there are those who still cling to the idea that electoral activity alone is the be all and end all of democratic politics. They shrink from conflict in the public arena as surely as the sunshine soldier or the part time patriot of an earlier day. Against all evidence to the contrary they continue to believe that progressive politics can only be advanced through elected officials and process to the exclusion of mass popular action.
Such folks, however well intentioned, need a reality check. There has never been a time US political history that truly corresponded with their ideal of a tidy, well mannered discourse leading to general consensus. The notion of such an edenic time in our politics is a myth. This myth grew up in the afterglow of WWII. It was fostered by Cold War polarization and used to marginalize and deligitimize any movement that challenged the status quo during the post war decade. Academics and social theorists made careers out of promoting notions of the "end of ideology" and recasting US history as the onward march of the "moderate middle".
The mass movements of the 1960's around the issues of white supremacy, economic inequity and war effectively collapsed this myth. US society was revealed to be what it has always, in fact, been: a deeply divided and contentous polity. It could hardly be otherwise, considering that unlike most nation states the US doesn't root itself in ethnic nationalism but in a civic nationalism.
The United States, from its inception, has been defined by a set of political and philosophical propositions rather than lineage or language. That the founders themselves weren't in full agreement as to the content of these propositions should go without saying, since "liberty" for some of them meant the "liberty" to own slaves. Our entire political history has been defined by conflict over the meaning of these propositions and consequently, by the conflicting interests arrayed on opposing sides of that debate.
This the context in which the current fight over healthcare reform must be understood if we are to have a realistic comprehension of the stakes we are playing for. What is at issue is not a policy question but an existential question: what sort of country will the US be?
To give the devil his due, the right grasped this point decades ago and fashioned its strategy accordingly. It was quick to appropriate the language of national consensus in the service of its own ideological agenda, gradually stripping away all of its "progressive" trappings. The most shameless as well as most successful examples of this process being Reagan's cynical identification with FDR and Bush II's equation of WWII with his own misbegotten "War on Terror."
The right has redefined the US in its own image. It is a place, not of unalienable rights but of rights as a function of privilege accrued by wealth and social position. The uncritical worship of mythical "free" markets, the violent and utterly hypocritical attacks on national government, the lunatic revival of sucessionist sentiment, the hysterical calls for taking back "their" country, all make sense only if we understand that their America is not our America.
This is a division that cannot be papered over or finessed. Again, the right has been ahead of many on the progressive side in grasping this reality. They want nothing to do with a progressive vision of greater democracy and empowerment for all and would prefer to see the wreck of the entire American experiment rather than resign themselves to it. They do not accept the verdict of the last election and have taken to the streets as a result.
They calculate that the popular mobilization that delivered the Presidency to Barack Obama was either limited to the electoral arena or was merely a flash in the pan. They assume that the bullying and intimidation that have served them so well in the past will be sufficient to carry the day for them once again. If liberals and progressives fail to draw the necessary conclusions and act accordingly, they may very well be proved right.
The hard right cannot be conciliated or appeased. They must be fought at every step and in every arena.
To be clear, I'm not arguing that we should abandon electoralism or process but we must augment these with a powerful popular mobilization that will dwarf that of the right. Neither am I suggesting that we ape the worst excesses of the right wing. This mobilization must have a positive, optimistic and constructive character even when it takes aggressive action. It must be flexible and adaptive in tactics and strategy. It must be equally prepared to reward as well as punish. It must encompass the streets and neighborhoods as well as the statehouse and the halls of Congress.
Such a movement would embody, IMO, the meaning behind President Obama's oft cited statement, borrowed from FDR, to "make him do it." The rise in local actions by progressives at town halls across the country, as well as campaigns undertaken by groups such as ActBlue and Color of Change are encouraging signs that such a movement is taking shape.
However, it is crucial to the success of such a movement for liberals and progressives to recognize the altered political terrain. The electoral victory of 2008, far from proving the obsolescence of protest politics and mass mobilization, has set the stage for their renewed significance. The pleasant fantasy that the election Obama and Democratic control of Congress alone would be sufficient to reverse the backwards march of the past 30 years was always just that, a pleasant fantasy. Politics has always been too important to be left to the politicians. In a democracy, it is the citizenry who are the true agents of change.
We are in the fight of our own and our children's children's lives.