What is the line between legitimate criticism and purity trolling?
Sat Jul 05, 2008 at 10:15:59 PM PDT
I understand the fear.
That gnawing fear that, even though our party has every advantage this year, we'll somehow manage to fuck it up and lose.
It's an awful fear, and I expect everyone here feels it in some measure some days as the election draws closer.
One manifestation of that fear in recent weeks has been a sort of lashing out, an accusation of purity trolling at every diary that has the gall to criticize Obama.
But here's the thing: there has to be a difference between valid criticism of our candidate and purity trolling. And there have to be ways we can be critical of our candidate in constructive ways that will actually strengthen him going into November.
Let me come right out and say that I abhor purity trolls. I hate the rants I see that seem to boil down to "Obama isn't approaching my issue the way I want him to, so I'm going to stay home!" I even posted my own little rant about it not so very long ago.
However, I think there's a backlash against purity trolling that has achieved its own perverse purity; there's a vocal subset here that will attack any criticism of Obama, however valid that criticism might be, as if criticism itself were the enemy. As if our criticism somehow weakened him as a candidate.
First of all, I think there's an incredible hubris to that belief; the notion that diaries here will somehow swing the election one way or another, that diarists complaining about FISA or Obama's recent support of the death penalty in the case of child rape or his very clear about face on the issue of gun control will do some kind of lasting harm to the Obama campaign is laughable. Some subset of his base of support will be happy with almost any position he takes; some subset will be unhappy. Expressing unhappiness doesn't weaken our candidate, and acknowledging when he changes positions doesn't either.
I mean, it's not like we can all just pretend real hard that Obama's position on gun control and FISA didn't change, and make it true.
In fact, I think there's something very harmful about that kind of denial. We here always criticize the George Bush 24 percenters, the people who think that Bush is a great president despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary; let's not train ourselves to become the left wing equivalent. Obama, like any candidate, is a flawed candidate.
So the question becomes: is there a valid role for intra-party criticism of the candidate during an election cycle? And if there is, how do we avoid that criticism crossing the line into purity trolling?
I'll give my answer to the second question first, as I think it's easier. I believe the line is crossed into purity trolling when a diarist claims something is so bad s/he will not vote for Obama. That, to me, is the golden standard for purity trolling. I would add that when an author intentionally distorts facts to try to paint a bad picture of Obama, that may well be a variation on purity trolling, but it's a bit harder to nail down; after all, facts can be interpreted in multiple ways, and one person's distortion may be another's authentic take.
As to the first question: yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
Our goal is to elect Democrats, yes. But our goal is also to improve the Democratic party. An important part of that role is to put pressure on politicians and on the party itself to move in a more progressive direction. There are of course pragmatic concerns that prevent our candidates from fully embracing certain aspects of the progressive agenda (e.g. no presidential candidate can yet safely embrace marriage equality, though Obama has happily come closer than anyone before him, in my opinion); however, if we allow nominees an unchecked shift to the center every election cycle, I fear there's the possibility that we'll continue to produce results like we saw in 2000 and 2004, in which a clearly superior candidate loses.
A strong argument can be made that Kerry lost votes because he was perceived as a "flip-flopper;" similar political calculation made one of the best presidential candidates I've ever seen, Al Gore, into a loser in 2000. There has been a tradition for some time in the Democratic party: shift to the left to get nominated, then shift to the center to get elected. Here's the problem: with the notable exception of Bill Clinton, that strategy hasn't really worked.
We have the issues in 2008. We're in the right position on the war, global warming, the economy, and healthcare. Given the strength of those positions, we can afford to stand firm on other issues. Especially since failure to stand firm could open Obama to accusations that might be even more harmful to his campaign than they were to Kerry's.
Because, you see, Obama has tried to brand himself as a new type of politician engaged in a new kind of politics. So I think there's a chance that excessive triangulation in the weeks and months leading up to the election could damage that brand and disillusion some of those passionate new voters he's brought into the fold. Shifting rightward could provide ammunition for those still-angry clintonistas who are looking for an excuse not to vote Obama in November. It could cool the passions of those supporters who carried him through the primary.
So I think constructive criticism and feedback are important now. I think as long as the criticism is respectful, and doesn't cross the line into purity trolling, it helps make our candidate stronger. It may be the case that in another month or two, we'll need to cool it and focus our energies entirely on getting our candidate elected; but right now is the time to put pressure on him to build the platform that we want to see our candidate putting forth as we work our asses off to get him elected this fall.
