I was going to call part two of this series ‘Building the movement" but in the course of my readings I realized that many don’t have a sense of why building movements are important. Why have a long term strategy? Who cares as long as we win the next election. Right?
Uh, no. The real answer is so we have something to stand for besides ‘not republican’. Defining a party or movement by what it is not paints only half the picture.
In Rick Perlstein’s 2004 seminal article about long term progressive vision he quotes a Stan Greenburg poll asking citizens about what democrats stand for:
"I think they lost their focus," says one informant.
"I think they are a little disorganized right now," answers another.
"They need leadership."
"On the sidelines."
"Fumbling."
"Confused."
"Losing."
"Scared."
Although this was before the 2006 elections, we’re still seeing waffling and capitulation in the democratic congressional leadership, and we’re still presenting the same face of uncertainty. We’re still seeing presidential democratic candidates talk about Reagan; (To be fair to Obama, he did distance himself from Reagan and his policies in the last debate).
Perlstein states that baby boomer, DLC-type democrats were afraid to identify overtly with progressive values because they got bitch slapped by Reagan Democrats. He states that nowadays most voters don’t want or care about Reagan anymore and are clamoring for what progressives and traditional (e.g. New Deal) democrats have stood for: economic populism.
Economic Populism has to be the heart of progressive strategy. This is a clear message which differentiates us from republicans: ‘We’re for you, the citizen. We want you to access education, succeed in your career, have a good job and a house, live in a safe, unpolluted world and be healthy. The republicans just want to steal your wealth and give it to rich people.'
Perlstein notes that those of us who would build a long term movement based on economic populism have to be prepared to lose in the short term if it assures our long term goals will be realized. For example a story today discusses how dems are planning to try to override the Bush SCHIP veto. Even if we lose this battle, we win because we define our great policy on health insurance and expose Repub weakness on health care.
Ultimately we win big on health care in spite of, or perhaps, because of the losses that have happened so far. While some, have stated that winning has to be part of our strategy, I believe short term winning is secondary to keeping a long term view in mind. In the next part of this series, I’ll discuss how we can realize long term success.