Why isn't there a three-ring circus beneath it?
Some might answer "There is, and I sure see a lot of clowns out there."
But I put it to you that what we have under the big top is a one-ring circus. Or, at best, a one-and-a-half ring circus.
More below...
This diary was inspired by a recent diary called "The Coming War" about the struggles between the DNC and the DLC. I agreed with most of what the poster said. But it made me reconsider the relationship between the left and right wings of the party. Because, frankly, the DNC cannot really represent the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party" any more than Howard Dean can say things like that in public while he is chair--which I don't blame him for. He has resolutely trained his verbal guns on the Republican party since Feb. '05, and I agree with that tactical decision, and wish others in elected positions would emulate him. While Dean is party chair, he must, to some extent, represent the entire party. The DNC is supposed to be the big top--not a ring under it. And it's easy to see that, financially and organizationally, that's true. When the primaries are over, unless Ned Lamont upsets Lieberman, who will receive money from the DNC? I think his initials are Joementum. Will Cuellar get money from the DNC? Probably.
These guys are not from the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. In fact, I don't think they're even part of the one-ring circus. I think they've snuck around back and are sawing at the moorings of the Big Tent with their pocket knives. But I'm not slamming Gov. Dean for having to give these guys money. My only real point about the Governor is that, along with the many benefits of him being party chair, there is one drawback: if he is party chair, he can't simultaneously lead left-wing Democrats--at least not the way he used to. In similar fashion, the DNC cannot be the left-wing Democratic answer to the DLC.
So, OK, we've got the Tent, and we've got spectators eating cotton candy and not particularly enjoying themselves--I keep hearing boos and comments like "They're just sitting there!" "We paid for this?"--and, in Congress at least, we've got the one-ring circus. Which is pretty much the DLC circus. We've got a handful of people standing outside that ring, whose actions, because they're not supported by the party, end up looking like a sideshow--meaning absolutely no disrespect. The only reason they're a sideshow instead of a main attraction is that they've got no support, at least not from their colleagues, who keep yelling "Why aren't you more centrist?" Meaning, why aren't you inside the ring? Only one ring, you see. Nothing outside its circumference can be "centrist." Or politically sane.
This brings me to the folks who do support the people outside that circle. Who support Feingold, Boxer (usually), Kerry (often), Kennedy (more often), Slaughter (very often), Conyers (constantly). The left-wing base. The liberals, the progressives, the traditionalists. Unreconstructed hippies. Roosevelt Democrats. Kennedy Democrats. Angry anti-Reagan youth (that's me.) The civic-minded generation coming along behind me (thank God). Now, supposedly, we're under the Big Tent too, and whenever we get noisy, pleas for party unity come from the one ring (no, not that One Ring. The DLC doesn't need to be thrown into the Cracks of Mount Doom.)
I'm sure that everyone in the left-wing base has noticed by now that "party unity" only seems to go one way. Party unity is the watchword when I support Tim Kaine with my dollars. But party unity seems to disappear when Tim Kaine is in front of the press the day before the SOTU. "I'm not going to tailor my response to the liberal base," he says. Hmmm. If I'd given more money, would I have gotten an outright insult as opposed to mere contempt? Does the level of insult ratchet up with the donor level? Note that it never occurred to Kaine to say: "I hope the whole party responds to my speech, whether they like it or not. I'm a Democrat, and we don't wilt under a little disagreement. We're not that thin-skinned. A good debate stirs our blood and toughens us up. And we even respect each other afterward." Nope. He goes liberal-sniping instead.
The fact is, I don't think the rank-and-file of the liberal base are under the Big Tent at all. I think we're out in the rain shoveling elephant shit.
This makes some people angry (go figure) and they start saying "I'm gonna ditch this two-bit operation and find another show." And then we get the predictable arguments about third parties that everybody on this site could recite in their sleep. But the people who want to leave--or do leave--are right about one thing: if we look up, we won't see canvas, and our faces will be spattered with rain.
What I wonder: why is leaving always our first impulse?
I think back to Dec. 2000, just outside Tallahassee, on a bus--the day I decided to leave the party. Up until the Tallahassee rally I'd been sure that if we kept fighting the Florida fraud on the ground, our air support would come down from Washington sooner or later. After the rally--which was full of Democrats, but included neither the sanction nor any message from the Party itself (something like "Hang on down there, we're coming! And we have a plan," would have been good), and at which I don't recall seeing one elected Democrat who was white (if my memory is wrong, somebody please correct me), I felt more discouraged than anybody who's just left a successful rally has a right to be. Because I saw signs from the unions. I saw hundreds of NAACP signs. But not one sign from the Democratic party. I thought, "They won't fight for my voting rights, nor even for their party's chance at the Presidency. How can I be part of a party like this?"
I became a Green when I got back to Duval County, and stayed one for five years.
Why? Why didn't I go to Washington and raise hell, and keep raising hell until they either listened or jailed me? And then raise hell some more? Why did I despair?
Because I had accepted my exclusion as an unchangeable fact.
It's taken me about fifteen years to wonder: why can't we have a liberal or progressive version of the DLC? I asked a woman this last Saturday at our precinct meeting. Her initial response was fascinating--especially given the fact that she was not a conservative Democrat: "The Party can't be an interest group," she said. "People who don't feel represented should go to MoveOn or DFA--and there's a lot of advantages to having an organization outside the party structure." Well, granted, and I don't want to get rid of DFA or MoveOn--but my point was about the left claiming territory within the Party. Amazingly, her first response, as a left-wing Democrat, was that Democrats like herself should look outside the party for representation. She also assumed that I intended to scourge the DLC from the party like Jesus driving the moneychangers from the temple, turning the party into a left-wing extravaganza. In fact, that never entered my mind. (I don't generally think of myself as Jesus.) And not being a fanatic, I don't need to make the party homogenous. Though I don't think our inclusiveness should extend to infinity, or to Lieberman and Cuellar.
I just want our own ring. I want a ring on the left, a ring on the right, and a center ring. The political "center," which right-wing Democrats invoke more often than anything else, will not hold if there is no left-wing ring. The edges determine where the center is. The Republicans know this truth, and use it, making sure extreme right-wing Republicans get air time (did you ever wonder why someone like Jerry Falwell should even be on the news? Why is anyone asking his opinion of 9-11?) With a powerful and vocal right-wing edge, and no left-wing counterweight, the center will move to the right indefinitely, and eventually there will be no politically inhabitable space for Democrats to occupy.
I asked around at my precinct meeting (which is just outside the Beltway in Maryland), if there were any organizations currently in existence that might serve as a left-wing counterpart to the DLC. "There's a Progressive Caucus on the Hill," she said. "But they're kind of disorganized and they don't do much. They did just propose a bill, though." This did not sound promising, and I don't know if the Progressive Caucus is the best organization for the job I have in mind, but it seemed the progressives on the Hill needed more power and organization.
We need a place to organize.
We need a place to put our power.
Our money, our energy. Something we can be glad to give to, an organization we can be glad to serve. I'm glad to serve Howard Dean and the DNC. But when I find myself writing to Gov. Dean pleading with him to create a fund for progressive candidates so that I can continue donating to the DNC, there's something wrong--and what's wrong isn't my lack of "party unity." I'm going to Howard Dean, and the DNC, for something they can't give me, and I'm doing it because there's nowhere else to go--except outside the party.
Why should we always be forced outside the party to find representation?
Someone posted a diary recently about his conversation with a Democratic staffer. He tried to propose a more amicable relationship between the left-wing blogosphere and Democratic legislators. Her response was primarily fearful--the bloggers are too partisan, could do us more harm than good, she said.
The conclusion to be reached from that exchange is not so much that Beltway Dems are irritating dumb bastards who'd rather "work with" the Republicans than dare to associate themselves with scary leftie bloggers (though many are.) (UPDATE: probably most are.)That was the wrong staffer, and probably the wrong legislator, with whom to have that conversation. Although it's admirable, and even worthwhile, to hold out your hand to guys like Byrd and Rockefeller--who knows, maybe they'll take you up on it!--that's not where we need to start. We need to develop and grow the connections between the progressives and liberals in Congress and the liberal base. This process is already happening, sort of organically, on this website. Daily Kos has been a great seed-starting tray for these connections, complete with grow lights, but now some of the seeds have sprouted. I'm arguing that it's time to find, or build, an additional structure, an organization, to house those relationships. We need the pots that house the young plants before they're put into the ground. The foundation of a new ring under the big top, so we can put on our part of the show. A piece of the party we can claim as our own.
Update...
Well. After reading thereisnospoon's diary about Henry Waxman, I am a bit less sanguine about forming alliances with progressives-- or pseudo-progressives-- on the Hill. Nonetheless, I feel we should continue to try. It's to be expected, I suppose, that we will meet with incomprehension, resistance, or even hostility much of the time--we're proposing something that most elected officials have never considered: a partnership with actual people on the ground. Thereisnospoon's diary also strengthens my belief that a unified message and strategy are going to have to emerge from us, crazy as that sounds. We have to be the Democrats we want to see in the world. There's no other choice. There are not enough smart, savvy, passionate, patriotic, committed, hardworking folks among the leadership to move the party in the right direction--or in any direction, apparently. We have to supply that lack. We can do that best through the kinds of alliances that Henry Waxman apparently can't comprehend. I believe that not all of his colleagues are so lacking in vision.
I hope I'm right.