In my experience, only those of us with a combination of profound self-awareness and almost robotic emotional detachment are immune from a tendency to develop comforting explanations for uncomfortable events.
That is; no one.
So we look at what happened in Wisconsin last Tuesday, and in our entirely justified disgust at the amount of money spent by the right, we tell ourselves: “That's it. They just outspent us. They drowned out our message. If the playing field was anywhere near even we would have won.”
Does this sound like you?
How about this?
“If it was just down to PEOPLE, we would crush them - because there's more of us than there is of them. If it's at all close, we have the feet on the street that no amount of advertising can overcome. Our organizing will get every last voter to the polls.”
Yep. Me, too. And to be honest, in the past this has pretty much been true. Understanding how important these struggles are to our people, we've generally been more passionate and better organized. We've had the “ground game.” OUR people have knocked on doors, put out street signs, manned the phone banks, driven folks to the polls. That was the sort of stuff our adversaries considered themselves above. Or more accurately, weren't engaged enough to bother with. Republicans just don't generally DO that sort of thing.
My friends, those days are gone – and it is THAT, not just disparities in money, that should really concern us.
I have taken the time over the past year to really understand what is going on in the realm of the right. “Infiltration” may be too strong a term, but I've questioned, investigated and yes, attended tea-party-type meetings. If you can stomach some inconvenient truths, read on. If not, stop here and remain blissfully ignorant.
Here is the truth. The shock troops of the right are organized, determined, and every bit as convinced of their righteousness as are we. This is new. And it it frightening.
In the past the right has been fairly politically pacific at the grassroots level. Sure they've had their anti-abortion lunatics and their Birchers.....but those have been fringe elements for the most part. I am here to tell you from personal knowledge that they are now doing the political blocking and tackling that those of us on the left have known for years. Here in East Texas, they've formed a group called “We The People.” They are a bunch of folks (and I have come to know almost all of them) who almost without exception have never actively participated in politics until the past couple of years. They had their first meeting in a living room about two years ago. Now their monthly meetings attract over two hundred people – they gather in pretty large church.
They have formed committees. They have a voter registration committee (which of course only registers reliable right-wingers). They have a media committee which coordinates letters to editors, social media and the like. And most importantly, they have people assigned to liaison with other groups: tea party groups, other We The People organizations, with local politicians and yes with the GOP. Though - and here is another dirty secret - they generally detest the GOP leadership (though of course they vote for it) and the feeling is pretty much mutual. Well over half of these folks, if asked, would identify as "independent" though they would no more vote for a Democrat than I would Mitt Romney.
They communicate constantly. They plot. They work. In short: they ORGANIZE.
Multiply this by thousands, I am certain, and we have a Clear and Present Danger to our republic. And let me reiterate what remains to me the most ominous point: these are people who have gone from indifferent to activist in nothing flat. They're ENJOYING themselves. They're forming splinter book clubs for Christ sake, devouring the latest from Glen Beck or whoever and taking it upon themselves to “educate” themselves about the Constitution (as they interpret it, of course) and other of their obsessions.
My point is not to downplay Citizens United and the subsequent role of corporate money. Not at all, my point is this: Citizens United + FoxNews (whose influence I will admit I had underestimated) + Talk Radio + this new organized and energized ground game = Something We Underestimate at our Eternal Peril.