Emotions as this year draws to a close are conflicted. Yes, there is hope and excitement for the future—as well as a sober assessment of the challenges ahead and more than a healthy dose of dread. There is very little that the Bush years have not damaged. There are very few areas where they did not massively screw things up. The toxic waste of the Bush years will harm America and our Planets for decades.
As I look forward to the day when Barack Obama takes charge of the clean-up, I am reminded of the opening lines for A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens:
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way."
We have real trouble and problems, and yet, I still feel hope.
To the jump...
Let’s be clear. November was a great Victory for our Country and our planet. We face great problems. We have a lot of trouble on the horizon. It will not be easy and we will not be pleased by every choice that Barack Obama makes. This is already happening. Many have taken issue with the selection of Rick Warren to give a prayer at the Inauguration. And I have no doubt, that whatever Obama says or does this week with regard to Israel’s massive attack on Gaza will leave some folks upset. Hell, I might be one of them. And I am certain that similar WTF moments will be repeated in the weeks, months and years ahead. I am also certain that will be—and should be—moments when we, the progressive netroots, need to mobilize to put pressure on the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress to Do the Right Thing. It is guaranteed. And it is OK, because that is our job.
We are participants in our Democracy. We have a responsibility to agitate for an America that is always moving towards a more perfect union, an America that always moves forwards towards progress, fairness and justice. This is why I am a Democrat, a Liberal and a Progressive.
Progress has been the traditional Democratic frame since FDR. The New Deal, The New Frontier and the Great Society were all about progress and moving our Nation towards a more perfect union. When you review history, Democrats from FDR to LBJ did not frame their politics, goals, policies and legislation as a struggle between the Left and Right or Conservatives and Liberals. No, it was always about progress, justice and creating a better America.
The Right verses Left frame is a Republican creation designed to stop progress and capture the machinery of Government to serve the American Oligarchs bank-rolling the modern conservative movement. This frame, where everything from science to textbooks to food to health to justice to air to water to peace to war and anything else must be either Right or Left is the most powerful weapon that the Republican Party and their sycophants in the media still wield. It is a frame that still dominates American politics. It is so dominate that it is almost impossible for anybody, on the Right or the Left, to imagine a political process outside of this frame.
And yet, that is exactly what we need to embrace is we want to solve the problems we face and get America back on the traditional Democratic track of progress.
The good news is that Barack Obama is changing the frame and that is why, despite our many real problems, I feel great hope as this year ends.
In large measure, I feel this because Obama is shifting the basic framing of our politics back to the traditional Democratic frame of Forwards verses Backwards. and away from the GOP’s dominate frame of Right verses Left.
This is a good thing.
During the campaign there was this one ad that Obama ran that signal the change and why it will be such a problem for the GOP. The ad was called "Rearview Mirror". Here it is:
And here is the transcript:
Wonder where John McCain would take the economy?
Man adjusts rear-view mirror in car
Look...
In rear view is picture of Bush
...behind you.
Perspective of driver on highway
John McCain wants to...
Bush in side view mirror
...continue George Bush's economic policies.
As President he'd...
Blue road sign on road with SUPER: No tax breaks for 101 million Americans
...provide no tax breaks to 101 million Americans...
Green highway sign with SUPER: Tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.
...but keep tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas.
Another sign on side of road with McCain's face superimposed next to SUPER: $4 billion tax breaks for big oil
He wants $4 billion dollars in new tax breaks for big oil
Overhead sign with SUPER: Tax healthcare benefits for the first time ever.
And would tax your health care benefits for the first time ever
Cut to both Bush and McCain in rear view mirror.
Look behind you.
Shot cuts closer.
We can't afford more of the same.
I thought it was a brilliant ad. It underscored a message that Obama has used in the campaign and in the transition: We need to move forward. We need to be about the future and solving problems. America needs to be about progress again and we need to put the Right verses Left divisions behind us.
This is a great frame for Democrats because it gets us back to our roots. At the same time, it is a horrible frame for Republicans because division and wedge politics are the only political tools that they know. Political debate based on solutions and progress fills them with terror. Shifting the frame back to progress also flips out the media, and (I’m sad to say) many on the Left. Far too many are addicted to seeing everything in the Left verses Right frame.
Addiction to the Left/Right frame is a drag on Progressive politics. It holds us back and weighs us down. The reason is simple: this is a conservative frame. It is their chosen field of battle to reduce every discussion and every issue to a binary choice between Left and Right. Accepting their frame is a harmful distraction. Progressives and Liberals do our policy goals a disservice when we embrace the Right/Left frame and use it to define our issues and our politics. And yet, that is what we have all learn to do over the last forty years.
Enough.
It is time embrace a traditional Democratic frame of Forward Progress over Backwards movement. It is time to embrace a new political battle field.
Obama gets this and he is changing the discussion from Left/Right to Forward verses Backwards. The measurement is changing. It is not enough to say this is a "Left" issue or a "Right" issue. Those labels are losing their power. The new measurement is "does this help us solve problems, or not". It is time to return to a politics of progress, a politics firmly rooted in, once again, moving America towards a more perfect Union.
You can smell the fear on the Right as they desperately try to force the Left/Right frame onto Obama. So far this effort has failed, but this old Left/Right frame is still powerful and it will not go quietly into the night. The addiction to this frame is strong and it has a firm hold on the Left as well as the Right.
We have had some great victories, but the fight still goes on and I have some concerns that we—the progressive netroots—are losing focus. Like Democratic Leaders in the House and Senate, we too easily buy into Republican framing and accept the way that the Right Wing nut jobs decide that we should discuss the issues of the day. As for the press, most are still dedicated to whatever frame the GOP pushes through their noise machine—it is all most of them have ever known. It is a rare reporter who does not automatically believe GOP hype as "newsy" and "truthy" even as it stinks like rotting fish.
Obama knows how to fight this addiction and that is why he drives everybody dedicated to the old Republican Left/Right frame nuts. Good for him. He is energizing the traditional Democratic frame. He seeks to have us, once again, measure our politics and his policies by results and progress. He seeks to have us measure issue by whether or not they help America move towards a more perfect union. In pushing a revival of the traditional Democratic frame of Forward progress he casts the entire GOP Left/Right frame on the ash heap of history. This is bad for the Conservative nut jobs, but it is also hard on those who have decided that a Right/Left frame is the only ground upon which to fight this battle.
I could pick dozens of examples of the insane desire to measure every issue and every action of any given day through the Right’s definition of "liberal" vs "conservative" binary politics and the constant, pointless conflict and inaction that this GOP frame always leaves in its wake. This needs to stop.
When we buy into the GOP’s Right/Left frame we give them power they should not have. It is time to have them fight on the ground we select. The writing is on the wall and it is filling the GOP with dread and a deep sense of doom.
Simon Rosenberg on his blog highlighted the forward/backward shift and the problem it is creating for the GOP:
At this point, I really believe there is a strong argument to be made that the GOP is further from power, more discredited and more out of touch with the American people than any time since the days of FDR and Truman. The GOP's challenge isn't a moderate-conservative one, a North-South one, a black-white-brown one - it is a forward/backward one. They succeeded in dislodging the Democrats in the late 20th century. They blew their shot in this decade to build a durable majority. Their government failed at a level that has done grave and lasting damage to their brand, and their leaders seem firmly grounded in an old politics that is simply no longer credible in this new day.
When the discussion moves away from their Right verses Left comfort zone the GOP becomes paralyzed, demoralized and divided. We should help.
As you write Diaries, comments and otherwise engage in current and coming political debates, I ask that you take a moment and think about the frame you are embracing. Are you measuring and framing the issue in terms of the GOP’s Right/Left frame or the traditional Democratic Forwards/Backwards frame? If you are embracing the GOP frame, I suggest that you take a moment and reframe your argument so that you force the GOP to fight on territory that they would rather avoid. I suggest that you put your argument into a Forwards/Backwards frame.
The recent back and forth over the Rick Warren issue was interesting in this light. There were many (too many) Diaries and comments that could only view the issue in a Right verses Left frame. Some good points were made in these Diaries, but they conceded way too much ground to Conservatives when they argued the issue in terms that the Right wanted to be used to frame the discussion.
Better were the arguments that framed the issue as choice between moving forward or moving backwards. The cost of tolerance for homophobia by ElsieElsie was a good example of how to shift the debate as was a post, Rick Warren Doubles Down, Accuses Critics Of "Christophobia" published on the Jed Report and Daily Kos. This Diary showed how to use this Forward/Backwards frame to take the fight to the Right:
But it's important to remember that it is Rick Warren who is the divider, and the real division isn't between those who think he should speak at the inaugural and those who don't, it's between those who would deny gay citizens the same rights and privileges as everybody else, and those who believe gay citizens deserve the same rights and privileges as everybody else.
That's the real division, and Rick Warren is on the wrong side.
Warren will speak at the Inaugural, but by doing so he has been put on the spot. He can not embrace progress and solutions while also embracing his anti-gay stance. He will have to choose between embracing fear and hate or embracing progress and justice. To date he has only embraced fear when it comes to LGBT people and issues.
Warren is on the wrong side of history and justice. And yet, he views himself as a problem solver. He views himself as somebody who embraces the "Forward" frame as much (or more) than he views himself as somebody who embraces the "Right" frame of old. I recently watched him give a speech to Muslim Americans on C-Span. He knows that the dominate frame in America is shifting. He knows that the old Right/Left GOP frame is on life support. He knows that the new frame, the traditional Democratic frame of "Forward. Not backwards" is the future. It is a future that he wants to be part of and yet, he is reluctant to embrace the change and leave the comfort zone of his fear.
Maybe he will change. Maybe he will not. Time will tell, but he also knows that he will not get a pass. He will be challenged and he should be. And he should be challenged because his views would take America backwards and away from a more perfect Union. Warren needs to be asked to explain his hate and how he could be part of the solution when he lets fear and hate rule his heart. I tend to think that this is a good thing, and who knows, perhaps like Saul he will see the light.
In choosing Warren, Obama has put us all (including himself) in an interesting spot. It is uncomfortable. It is challenging. This uncomfortable moment has created an opportunity to force a discussion and to demand attention to the larger issue inflamed by the Warren choice. I would say that the larger issue is how LGBT people fit into the story of America and the ongoing movement of our Nation towards a more perfect union. For those who seek to deny these fellow Americans the Rights of citizenship enjoyed by others, I ask how is that progress, how is that justice and how is that acceptable?
These are questions that Rick Warren must be made to face if he wants to be part of the solution and these are question that we must ask Barack Obama as we do our part to hold the Obama Administration accountable. This is what we should be doing as long as we frame the discussion in the traditional Democratic frame of forward movement towards a more perfect union. Framing these questions in terms of Right verses Left are a waste of everybody's time.
I have great hope about the coming Obama Administration. I am also clear-eyed when it comes to realization that there will be many WTF moments. It is my job, your job, our job to hold our Government accountable and ensure that policies, issues and legislation move us towards a more perfect union. It is our job to help shift the frame back to progress.
There is a lot of work to do.
We are up to it.
After all, we are still the change we were waiting for...
Cheers