Back in my early days here at Teh Orange, circa 2005 so maybe not that early for many of you, I became acquainted with the term “single-issue ghetto”. It referred not only to many single issues that drove conservative voters, things like forced-birth, gunsgunsguns, etc., but also to many liberal initiatives like reproductive rights, gun control, etc. It’s an example of Both Sides Do Itism in which either side shares a focus on one thing blinding them to the broader picture. In fact, in Markos attended an event that year in which new groups such as MoveOn were beginning to switch gears toward a broad-based coalition approach to progressive organizing.
And yet, the single-issue ghetto never goes away. It’s either a line in the sand no candidate can cross or the literal raison d’etre for a person’s vote. Over the years, much to my surprise, I’ve turned into one. However, my single-issue is far broader and would conveniently let us move forward with a liberal, governing agenda that brought many of us here in the first place.
The genesis of the issue dates back to January 2005 and this blog post by the late, great Steve Gilliard. I was a regular reader and contributor on his blog before I formally joined DK. Steve was a brilliant writer but that piece was one of his best. It’s so affecting that I’ve used part of it as my tag line ever since we were allowed tag lines and have kept it in my profile with the upgrade to DK5. I didn’t realize until recently that the post was given a name, The Gilliard Doctrine, in a comment in this blog post later in Jan 2005. It’s been referenced a couple of times since, here in 2009 and by driftglass in 2011.
They key portion to my single-issue ghetto-ness:
There's a tendency for liberals to try and be fair, to consider other viewpoints, so we get baited by them in debates on terms that they set. I'm going to act on the following: I don't care what conservatives think. The NRO Corner thinks I'm a racist, I don't care, their opinions on race are meaningless.
Instacracker doesn't like what I say?
That's the purpose of the exercise.
I want conservatives to read this site and come away steaming. I don't want them to think they will like a word I will say here. I don't want them to think I will consider their opinions or viewpoints. I want them to think: boy he doesn't like conservatives and really, really doesn't care what we say.
I'm tired of people acting like these people can be reasoned with or talked to. They don't want to talk, they want to drive us away into a corner and ridicule our ideas.
I'm not writing to make conservatives happy. I want them to hate my opinions. I'm not interested in debating them. I want to stop them.
That was true in the almost 12 years since Steve wrote it and it’s even more true today. The result is my single-issue ghetto:
That issue is ensuring the Republican Party is removed from power at all levels of government, as they are a literal scourge on our country, and because of our influence as a nation, on the entire world.
That such a small percent of people could screw up the world via America is depressing. Stick to this single issue and so many other issues become not just possibilities but probabilities.
Politics is both blood sport and playing the long game; Steve made that clear in 2005. We’re on the cusp of being able to elect candidates from a center-left perspective because the global force of social change has shifted so far to the left while the GOP has shifted so far to the right. We no longer have to appeal to the mythical “centrist” (ie., undecided voter) from the right.
Remember, establishment Republicans aren’t offended by the substance of Trump’s positions, rather that he expresses them so baldly. It’s exposed the party for what it is and what it has devolved into. Stop the party, stop the monster it helped create.