I mean this diary not to be a GBCW, but more of a summary of the major afflictions at this site and among progressivism writ large.
I'm a firm believer in attacking, advocating and fighting for the things within our power to influence. The trick is to focus on tangible goals, with every fact at one's disposal, and be serious about information that may change preconceived notions. The other trick is acting with wisdom when the world presents us with things that are out of our control or when we have to choose between priorities.
What's happened among the American Left under Obama is more or less what always happens to the American Left -- fragmentation, a dissolution of goals, subordination of principles to symbolic issues, and an addiction to indignation. My hope was that after the 2000 election and eight years of Bush, we would've felt more compelled to avoid these same traps. Not so much it turns out.
Follow me after the jump, if you want a friendly chat.
My beefs and disagreements with the current administration are very serious and specific. Chief among them is providing cover to torturers and war criminals. There have been other instances to be sure, but most of the time I've seen them as tactical errors or institutional obstacles, not about motives.
But the discourse among the Left veered off the cliff this week, I believe it was the culmination of two years of fighting on flawed premises, validated and perpetuated by respected and influential thinkers like Kos, Cenk, Ed Schultz, Arianna, Sirota, Howard Dean and others.
The premises have been that the accomplishments of the administration and the last Congress are not to be lauded and furthermore treated as steps backward in the sellout enterprise that has become the Democratic Party. Moreover, whatever the shortcomings of these achievements, regardless of whether progressive activists were moving the goalposts, they were always the result of a lack of toughness, or worse yet, malicious motives.
People used to bristle at the suggestion that the Netroots were wanting the health care bill to fail after the public option died. I used to chalk that sentiment up to the conflicted feelings people had over the bill and a latent embarrassment over how many level-headed people freaked the hell out and starting chanting, 'kill the bill.' After this week, however, it seems that hailing that legislative achievement has officially become the dissenting position, even as the FPEs ridicule conservative attempts to overrule the bill's constitutionality. Do we forget that Howard Dean gave credence to their arguments on the individual mandate? And don't get me started on Jane Hamsher's Fox and Friends appearance.
My biggest complaint around here has focused on responsibility for one's words. Accept that the thoughts and opinions on sites like Kos can have an effect on outcomes and shape opinions. You may not win every fight, and we have next to zero influence over illiberal Democrats, but the attitudes of opinion leaders on MSNBC and the Kos front page have power. We have an echo chamber. And if tactical mistakes are made among the Netroots, or if reality is being distorted around something like reconciliation for example, we just can't walk away and say, 'hey, we're just bloggers, don't blame us.' Either the activities on blogs like these matter or they don't, we should expect the same accountability among ourselves that we're demanding of our politicians.
In the big picture, I'm with Neera Tanden and Anna Burger. Despite signature and historic changes, the left seems intent on viewing this legacy as a failure, even though Obama is "the best president that we've ever had in my lifetime," in Burger's words.
So long these two contentions hold water, and the interests of progressive change hinge on Obama's success, the rest is noise to me. What's different for me after the past two years is that Obama doesn't automatically get the benefit of the doubt. However, I still believe he earned at least a little of that room in his first year, even if many of my compatriots decided that their best course was to act in opposition and instant gratification.
Such is life, I suppose. And such is the nature of change in America: long build-ups, sustained movements, frustration, setbacks, and then every once in a while, bursts of movement, followed by retrenchment.
The question I ask the few generous Kossacks who have taken the time to read this diary, is whether DailyKos and other heroic bastions of the alleged progressive movement have lived up to your own ideals of what progressivism should be?
For me, before progressivism is about any single policy, it should create room in our civic life for rational thought. If that's the standard, then has DailyKos been progressive or increasingly a projection of the hard left, prone to groupthink, dogmatism, and perpetual opposition? How have purported heroes acquitted themselves in the brief 18 months when change was really possible? Who contributed to delay and disillusionment? It wasn't just the Blue Dogs.
In the meantime, it's getting a bit lonely out here. If there's anything more unappetizing than Democratic ineptitude at politics, it's our tendency for recrimination at the hint of stress and trouble. The circular firing squad knows no ideology in the Big Tent, and Krugman can act as big a douche on the opinion pages as Evan Bayh. Level-headed commenters like Kevin Drum are calling Obama an "idiot," former Clintonistas are coming out of the woodwork to legitimize grumblings among the base, and elected members of Congress, altruistic and selfless as we know them to be, get instant credibility from people looking to confirm their beliefs. David Kurtz over at TPM is turning that site into another shallow, backbiting version of Arianna Huffington.
Talk show hosts don't run the Democratic Party. And for that, I'm glad.
I still hold out hope for the next two years, provided we can get our legs under us, but commenting here doesn't seem very productive if everyone's mind is already made up. I'll still be lurking with my account intact, but I'll be spending more of my time working on the front lines for 2012.
TTFN.