I want to touch on something in this post here, something I think hasn't become as obvious as it should. But simply, our problem isn't merely that Democrats in Washington are giving into the Republicans, it's that Republicans are setting the conditions in popular culture to inhibit the discussion and agreement with Democratic and Progressive ideas.
Whether they think our ideas are really socialism, or whether they're just bashing us for political benefit, the Republicans are calling what we ask for in the markets socialism for reasons that go beyond the simple distortion of fact. They call it that in order to get people to inhibit support in the public about things they might otherwise support.
We might think that it should be obvious that much of what we support is actually just a more serious version of Capitalism, better managed and everything. But it's not. It's obvious to us because we're used to seeing things this way. We have to recognize this if we have ambitions to win.
It's not that our message's content must change, but rather the pathways we employ. Not that we shouldn't confront the claim about socialism, but we should recognize that we don't have the benefits of the defaults at this point, not like we once did. Once, when folks talked about the opposition between Soviet Communism and American Capitalism, only the furthest right of the right believed that what we had was socialism. Now, it's thrown around so recklessly, that even the idea of not giving subsidies to big corporations, arguably a rather free market thing to do, is dismissed as socialist.
And folks hardly argue with it, because folks turn around and talk about it being necessary for jobs and low prices. I want you to think about that for a second.
There really isn't a consistent justification for the way the Right governs, but what there is, is a constant attack on our getting our policies edgewise into the debate. The Republicans aren't really trying to enforce a true, ideologically consistent ideology, it's trying to reinforce and extend its power.
Let me repeat that, because it bears notice: The Republicans are really trying to reinforce and extend their power.
They're taking it to us rather hard, obstructing, vilifying, demonizing, turning themselves into a white-hot ball of rage to destroy liberalism, and part of that is making liberal policy unmentionable and unpopular whereever it tries to lift its head. Republicans aren't planning on winning just this round, they want to scorched-earth destroy liberalism for a generation.
This is why I so forcefully oppose people checking out, dropping out, and taking their ball home: this is what they want. This is also what will be your defeat.
In short, your silence. Your self-censorship. Your disbelief that people can be persuaded otherwise. The cynicism and disbelief in liberalism of so many. That is the point of all this screaming, hair on fire, the stupid it burns attacks on Democrats, especially Obama. This is ultimately the point of all that obstruction.
They want to shut us up, and fix things so that we don't raise our voices.
They aren't in control themselves, and their ideas sure as hell aren't on solid ground anymore, but if they can hold onto the status quo, they think they can get people back calm enough to accept it again, despite everything.
We should step back a moment, and appreciate the sheer absurdity and complexity of what they're attempting. At the very least, we cannot accuse them of being unambitious. Their plans to maintain this country in its present, atrocious situation are nothing short of breathtaking in their scope.
I'd say this, though, the scope is its liability. Were Republicans to be caught flatfooted on what the public's assumptions about good policy are, they'd be in big trouble.
Your mission, if you choose to accept it is to make it happen. Republicans have already given you a bunch of help by being so incompetent and unlucky in their choice of systems that it can't stand on its own merits. However, a traumatized nation wants political comfort food, and Republicans supply that in truckfuls.
We got to get them to lose their appetite. At the same time, we have to mount a movement that says to them that whatever is true about the dedication of our politicians, we rank and file Democrats out there have something of value in what we say, and that we will not be silenced.
Unfortunately, we've been marketing a message of weakness to people whether we knew it or not. We did this rather than excoriate the Republicans for their lack of responsibility, for their unwillingness to take care of the nation's needs, even in these dire times. We directed the blame onto ourselves, and unsurprisingly, helped the republicans scapegoat us for a bad economy their policies created and even today still sustain.
We got to stop borrowing trouble from the Republicans, and start lending as much deadweight, politically speaking, as they can hold. Think the scene in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves where Friar Tuck "prepares" the corrupt bishop for his journey. Rather than try to fight ourselves and the Republicans at the same time with two separate fronts, we need to be loading as much resentment on the Republicans as possible. Later, when Democrats have power, we then employ public pressure to force better performance out of our leaders in Washington.
The key here is not to be defensive, flat out contradicting Republicans and doing nothing else. While politics, with it's often two-sided debates, makes everything look one dimensional, the truth about things often has more scope and dimensionality to it, and it pays to address things in a way people are not so prepared to interpret a certain way.
Don't just go out there with character attacks on the Republicans. If your aim is to make them look bad, you need to address what they're doing on an objective or near-objective level. Bridges in disrepair, jobs lost DIRECTLY and indirectly due to Republican policies. They're in the hundreds of thousands people, and they are, in many cases, all that is evidence of the Republican's economic plan. Show them the truth about what's happened with the economy, on an objective level with private sector job losses holding back private sector gains.
What we need to emphasize is that for all the dreams Republicans have of their policies creating jobs, their primary effect is to destroy them, and their secondary effect doesn't seem to have had any really positive effect as of yet.
Same thing on any number of issues. The key is not just to make the arguments Republicans expect, but the ones they aren't prepared for, the ones they don't yet have a solid answer to.
But whatever you plan on doing, do something active. Change the mentality of your neighbors and friends. You don't have to obnoxious or self-satisfied. You don't have to tell them off. Hell, all you really have to be is sadly bound by the facts to contradict what is claimed. The key here is to recruite people into supporting progressive values, especially since at the moment, we don't have enough self-identified progressives to constitute a majority. We can't sit on our asses, like the Republicans are, and just get in the way. We have to be sawing holes under them, undermining their positions and their popularity.
And we have to believe we can do it, and that we should do it. We can imagine the perfect party, free from all the troubles of the real one, but if we want anything done in good time, the party we want will have to be evolved out of the party we have. If we want better candidates, we'll have to either recruit them, alter the ones we got, or become the new ones ourselves.
If you want a different government and a different society than you have now, if you don't want those who oppose the American dream and the interests of the middle class triumphing, now is the time to start fighting, and the Republicans and their ideas are what you have to take the fight to, if you want to see victory.