Well, after I posted
my diary last night, Pyrrho lectured me on my dealings with progressive purists and Greens. In his comments on the diary, he said instead of my preferred method of telling people to SYFPH, I should instead find common ground with my fellow progressives and like minded Greens.
I told him it was impossible in many circumstances. And I used an example a woman who used to post regularly here and now resides at Booman. She is a progressive purist. She will be voting for Rick Santorum this fall. And she openly admits she is doing it to spite the Democratic Party for their choice of Bob Casey.
So how do you find common ground with someone so insanely illogical and irrational that they are voting for Rick Santorum AND their number issue is a woman's right to choose?
In my opinion, you just don't and you can't. Because finding common ground is a two way street that takes two people. Finding common ground involves compromises, which is anathema to progressive purists. And don't get me started on finding common ground with militant Greens. They want to pursue common ground with Republicans.
And I told this to Pyrrho. His response?
The problem is... the types that can't find common ground, that deny there IS ANY, always use that excuse, often against people that are in fact open to finding common ground.
Instead of common ground they are given logical arguments why they should vote for someone loathsome to them or they are idiots.
When that doesn't work, "they don't want common ground".
IOW, people don't try very hard to find the common ground, they don't even find the EASILLY spotted territory.
And what we REALLY need to win, to have a sstrong coalition, is find the more subtle, value-based, common ground that ties us together.
It's out there.
Really? I tried to find the most basest common ground there is, something that everyone here at Daily Kos can all agree on. Our hatred of Bush, Republicans and their policies. Our desire to see all of those policies enacted and pursued over the last 6 years reversed for starters.
And that was not good enough.
have you read any of the 1000 people telling you how pathetic that is as commond ground?
Do you understand Bush will leave.
What did common hatred of Nixon get you? Should have gotten 20 years of Democratic presidency, not 4 years and back to a new guy.
The dems are always waiting around for hate to build up for a Republican.
It ain't a good strategy.
And he has a point. Our unification against Nixon was a convenient alliance for a while, but it fell apart under Carter. The last thing I want to have happen is to win Congress in 2006, but then be at each other's throats for the next two years so as to allow John McCain to sweep into the Presidency.
Indeed, Bush is not our problem.
We are our problem.
I think Pyrrho said it best.
I came to [Daily Kos] years ago with the view long held that the one problem for progressives is the lack of cohesion in our alliance.
We hate the hell out of each other...
This is THE problem.
This lack of willingness to find or even admit there is common ground is the problem with progressive politics.
Not Rove.
Not Bush.
Not Lieberman.
Not even those stupid consultants that, in fact, are a big part of the problem... still, they are not the real problem in that, solve that one and you'll still lose.
The real problem is we don't even KNOW what ties us together....
He is exactly right. And Markos and Jerome touched on this problem in Crashing the Gates.
Single issue groups that make up the left liberal side of the political spectrum, groups like NARAL, NOW, NAACP, Sierra Club, etc., all are basically progressive purists writ large. They all refuse to coordinate and work together, despite the possibility that common ground exists between them. Indeed, if they are all liberals and progressives, it is quite possible they all agree on many things.
And yet, each group, and each member of those groups have as a mindset "my way or the highway." Each has allegiance only to their cause, and not to any party, not to any ideology, and definitely not to any common ground. And that is why we lose.
No, it is not because we have enabling and weak Democratic incumbents in Congress who refuse to stand up and fight. You want to know why those Democrats are vacillating and wavering? It is because of the purist single issue groups and voters that make up our diverse party.
If one vote or action or position of a Democratic congressman will forever piss off a single issue progressive purist, and indeed turn that purist into an enemy more dangerous than a Republican, you would refuse to take a position too. It is indeed a paradox. Progressive purists all the time what Democratic politicians to take a stand, and when they do, they castrate them for it.
Recognizing that our refusal to find a common ground and accept our minor disagreements in favor of a greater common good is the first step.
We simply have to find common ground. I look forward to your comments as to what our common ground is. But I cannot escape the fact that in order to find common ground, progressive purists will have to change. They can no longer be purists. There can be no attitude of "my way or the highway." There will have to be compromise.