It's time to start planning the future of a progressive Democratic Party after President Obama. Given his near-pathological aversion to conflict and ongoing pattern of being outplayed by the GOP, it is likely that President Obama will ride centrism to defeat in 2012 taking the Democratic majority in the Senate with him. This is probably how it's going to turn out, and we all know it. Now take a few moments for denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. (All the Obama diaries on Daily Kos are tagged with the Kubler-Ross stages, right?) When you're ready for what's next, follow me below the fold.
Welcome to level 5: Acceptance. Things are going to be OK (eventually) if we start planning now. Here are some things we can do.
(1) Establish the correct narrative. The money wing of the Democratic Party will attempt to shift blame for the 2012 donnybrook onto the progressive base. After four years of being denigrated and marginalized, suddenly it will be us, not them, who caused the defeat. Never mind that we weren't in control and weren't listened to. The OFA enforcers will say, "We offered you a choice: our nonentities versus the GOP boogiemen. You weren't fired up, so we got the boogiemen. So it's all your fault." It's an old trick, and various people have been playing it ever since Richard Nixon flattened Hubert Humphrey. The response is the same: a candidate stupid enough to demoralize his own base deserves to lose. Before it gets this far, however, what we can do is emphasize that the Progressive ethic is always to vote for good candidates, not against bad ones. Thus, if OFA wants our votes, then they have to earn them. If we want to be a constituency that's courted, then we need to act like it.
(2) Seize control of the institutional Democratic Party and cull Blue Dogs. In January 2013 the Democratic Party will be in disarray. This will provide a rare opportunity to wrest control of party structures from the hacks and to start taking steps to enforce caucus discipline. At the local level, this might involve taking over precinct caucuses and controlling the agenda at the central committee level. How to do this will vary from place to place. In Colorado, for example, the Progressive takeover might involve rewriting the nomination process so that Democratic candidates are selected through caucuses rather than by money-bombing low information voters in primaries.
(3) Become stupendous RFK badasses. It's time for Progressives to judge what they do in terms of outcomes rather than in terms of personal, New Agey purity. An aquifer endangered by fracking or a veteran who's had her benefits cut doesn't give a shit about your inner mental life. That should come as something of a relief. It's time to learn to be ruthless, to play hard and for keeps. Money and entrenched power won't back down voluntarily just because you're a nice person. If you think otherwise, that's just OFA playing with your head.