I support the Democratic Party. A simple statement, but it can get complicated when the members of the party don't support you back, can't it? To be honest, I both understand the concern, and I consider it a secondary concern, at best.
Secondary to what? Secondary to the need to keep moving forward. We're at a relatively low point in the history of our party. Many of our cherished values and institutions are on the defensive, if not actually out of commission. The Republicans are fanatically dedicated to keeping things as they were at the height of their power, and they're pushing everybody's buttons to make sure they stay on top.
That is what we're up against, and we're going to get our asses kicked many times. My concern is that the tone of folks like us affect how other people see us, how we deal with others. We don't have complete control, but I feel we have much influence. If our attitude is, we're fighting a losing battle, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I wrote yesterday's diary angry at what I saw. It was kind of an "I told you so.", me saying that I knew this would happen. And I did. I extrapolated, before the 2010 results came in, what the probable course of the GOP would be, the GOP I knew.
The GOP that I remember holding midnight votes and shutting us out when we were in the majority.
The GOP I remember taking a disputed election and a not much broader victory in 2004, and acting like it was a mandate like Obama had gotten.
The GOP that had taken a madman like Glenn Beck as one of its thought leaders.
The GOP that waged a historically unprecedented blockade in the Senate that killed a vast majority of our legislation, deliberately frustrating our efforts at affecting change.
I did not expect mercy or moderation from the GOP, and so far, my lack of such expectations has been vindicated. These, I knew from the start, would be the consequences of a GOP victory in 2010. That is the sensibility I argued from. Was I wrong to fear what they would do?
Our party is crappy in comparison to what it once was, and disappointment in it undoubtedly played into our defeat. But did we have to compound it? Did we have to have people writing diaries day in and day out corroding all sense of progress and change from our party? We had it good, and I think we are only now coming to understand how good we had it.
I think too many gave up too quickly, depended on not-so-dependable politicians to validate their participation.
I never had that problem. I became a politically active Democrat not because the people in the party were such splendid political heroes, but because I believed that no other party would provide me with the opportunity to see my country shaped the way I wanted it to be shaped. That it is imperfect is beside the point. It's stated views and historic policies line up with my attitudes and belief.
And the Republicans line up against them. it's that simple for me.
I understand Democracy. I understand that it will be a rare occasion, if ever, when I get my way entirely. I will settle for getting it mostly, for winning the political battle, and then I will come back, and fight for more later, or to defend what I have already.
I can understand the frustration with policy not moving forward as one would like. I understand what leads people to break from Obama and others, and to write those critical diaries.
The question is, are we thinking of ways of changing that, or just making commentary on events, with our opinion inserted in there somewhere?
It's not merely a matter of proposing the obvious, whatever policy change on the general level we're talking about. I feel you have to get down to the nitty-gritty, and strategize. It's not enough to tell somebody that the Republican's policies will cost them jobs. You have to eloquently plant in their minds a convincing notion of that, while undermining the Republican's push-button, focus-grouped politics.
We need to create an active change of thought in American civic life, because right now, if we leave it alone, consensus slides back to the right. Talk of the Overton window makes it sound like we just reframe everything, and it will be okay. However, the Republicans are good at getting people to reject outside opinion. We have to deconstruct Republican arguments, figure out what the crucial nodes, both logical and emotional are, break them, and then move in with words and arguments of equal if not greater emotional power.
Which is why I'm concerned about the emotional tone of sites like ours. If we generate a constant, pessimistic tone, it will come through in our efforts to try and convince people to join our side.
We also don't help things when we allow the stereotypical behavior of the Tea Party and others to allow us to lapse into insulting, supercilious language. Our mission should be to break open the boxes that the Republican Party puts people into, and let them out. It shouldn't be to run the packing tape across the top. We need to dig into those boxes, and help pull folks out who might be partially sympathetic to our cause. Get the people who are "socially conservative" and work on wedging them apart from the GOP.
We cannot win just reinforcing our own conventional bases of support as a party. We have to branch out our support into populations that the Republicans are depending upon, and not expecting to lose the support of.
If this diary entry has a main point, finally, let it be this: The Cause must be what draws us, what unites us, what keeps us moving even when we get defeated or rejected. This is Democracy. No victory is final, no election the last word on how things must turn out. The Republicans didn't let 2008 be the last word, not with Democrats taking both houses of Congress by a significant majority, most governor's mansions, and the Presidency walking away. If they didn't let that be the last word, what business do we have, what use is there in not standing up and fighting for our cause?
We used to have more vision that that, a vision that wouldn't get disrupted if we didn't win a particular election, or if we suffered a political setback. We need that sense of vision back. We need to do more than simply complain about what's wrong with the Government and the country, we need to set in motion the movement, the tactics and the strategies that are going to change that.
If we want, really want it, and haven't accepted the Republican conditioning that we can't have it, we can go get it. We can go out there and convince people that however flawed our party is right now, their support for our cause, and for Democrats getting elected can help push the Party where it needs to be.
I became a Democrat not because I was terribly impressed with any of the politicians, but because I felt that the Republican Party abandoned many key and important supports of our society, and its quality of life, that it denigrated and undermined the science necessary to steer our country right in dealing with our health, and the health of the natural world. I felt that the Democratic Party, and its aspirations, were the best and most expeditious hope for preserving that, and that letting the Republicans win would be destructive to that.
I still believe that the policies of the Democratic Party are for the best. I also believe, though, that our task is not merely to lead this party to victory, but to make the party and its policies the kind that deserve to win. But that's all just a moot point if we don't have the power to manifest our policy prescriptions in the real world. Thus, I don't play politics to express a view, or to make a political martyr out of my cause. I engage in politics with a mind to the deliberate change of this nation's policies towards something better, if only marginally so.
I dedicate myself to a cause, so that I don't end up like so many adults of my parent's generation, wondering why they didn't stand up for their beliefs, wondering why they didn't oppose the rise of the conservatives, wondering why they let the fire go out in their bellies.
Stop making our politics about hoping for the right politicians to come along and rescue our cherished policy priorities. Start making it about pushing whatever politicians we have handy towards doing what we want them to do. Start making it about making liberal and progressive politics the prevailing wind of the weather in Washington politics, and getting it going as fast as it can. We cannot win until we can match the force of the dedication of those who array themselves against us.
So don't simply go out there and make excuses for the politicans, or join the laments about how bad and pathetic the Democrats are. Go out there and get people caught up in the Cause, so they themselves push those politicians where they need to be, and nobody doubts any longer the strength of the spines of the Democratic Party's voters.
Go get them folks. Go confront our rivals, and make it clear that we are backing down no further, and we are backing down no more.